Post: #1

In the U.S. many places have put insanely high taxes on cigarettes with the goal of raising the price so much that people stop smoking.

This is one of the few areas of public-health that the U.S. is doing well in.



I get the libertarian argument against this, but it is unpersuasive to me. Anything that gets people smoking less to me is a win for public health.

I think junk food should be subject to stifling taxes like this as well, to begin really combating the obesity epidemic.

We here all recognize that obesity is heavily tied in with the downfall of society as we see it. More fat chicks = fewer skinny chicks, meaning those chicks who are normal human size have so many options that their behavior completely deteriorates. Almost everyone here has had the experience of going to a country that is NOT full of overweight women and being absolutely shocked that women act sweet, feminine, etc. and most of us lament that American women are among the least feminine in the world.

I think that stifling taxes on junk, not a 5% or 10% tax but doubling, tripling, quadrupling the price, would be in order. People will say that it's impossible to regulate "junk" because it's not such a simply category. Indeed there are many ways to do it.

But that's really dancing around the issue. If they put huge tax increases on sodas, candy, fast-food restaurants, cheetos and other processed junk like that, as well as cutting subsidies to grain farmers, that would without a doubt lead to an improvement in the obesity rate and inevitably the health and beauty of our country. Probably secondarily it would lead to better behavior among people who aren't depressed because of their obesity.

Obviously at this time, obesity is responsible for more deaths than smoking, where the case used to be reversed. I think we should take lessons from the fight against tobacco use to help us put a dent in the obesity epidemic. Huge taxes and repealing subsidies for grains wouldn't 100% solve the problem just as taxes on cigarettes haven't stopped smoking completely, but I don't want the best to be the enemy of the good here. I think this is a public health catastrophe that no one is willing to tackle, and it needs action. The free market obviously markets junk to the vast majority of people, and they like it, so there needs to be some action from on-high to solve this.

Post: #2

I think taxing either is pointless. There's little good evidence that smoking or obesity affect a person's longevity. However, one could argue that exorbitant smoking taxes would help make the environment more aesthetically pleasing for some by reducing public smoking.

Edit: I also wanna add that obesity is largely genetic so I'm not entirely sure taxing it would make it go away. That eliminates quality-of-life arguments for food taxation.

Post: #3

I know that there are those who don't want to get involved in people's lives but I am ok with taxing bad behavior or limiting quantities that can be purchased at any one time. So I am cool with taxing stuff that drives obesity and funding fat shaming campaigns.

If the government is concerned about its tax coffers it can't keep having low class fat chicks breeding.

You still need highly productive people to keep society achieving. Having fat parents probably doesn't help a kids development. There are plenty of high quality guys on this forum that are not going to have kids with any beasts here in the US or not at all. But their high achieving genes, guidance, etc will be lost. Because they don't want to deal with any of the nonesense that is on the rise.

Post: #4

(02-17-2015 12:20 PM)Lion of Judah Wrote:  I think taxing either is pointless. There's little evidence good that smoking or obesity affects longevity. However, one could argue that exorbitant smoking taxes would help make the environment more aesthetically pleasing for some by reducing public smoking.

The reason that obesity doesn't affect longevity in the U.S. is because if you're obese you're likely under heavy medical care from an early age for heart issues, diabetes, and a plethora of other health conditions. These people are constantly in and out of the doctor getting checked for all sorts of things, so their doctors are more likely to catch something life-threatening because of the constant supervision.

To me that is not an argument to consider obesity as a non-issue. It's a huge cost to our health care system, a huge waste of time for doctors and patients alike, and a huge drain on the quality of human life.

Post: #5

Facts:

* Smoking makes you look 33% cooler.



* All the great men in history smoked.



* Tobacco scientists have proved that smoking is badass.



* Bitches love a man who smokes.



In conclusion, smoking is awesome.

Post: #6

(02-17-2015 12:24 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

(02-17-2015 12:20 PM)Lion of Judah Wrote:  I think taxing either is pointless. There's little evidence good that smoking or obesity affects longevity. However, one could argue that exorbitant smoking taxes would help make the environment more aesthetically pleasing for some by reducing public smoking.

The reason that obesity doesn't affect longevity in the U.S. is because if you're obese you're likely under heavy medical care from an early age for heart issues, diabetes, and a plethora of other health conditions. These people are constantly in and out of the doctor getting checked for all sorts of things, so their doctors are more likely to catch something life-threatening because of the constant supervision.

To me that is not an argument to consider obesity as a non-issue. It's a huge cost to our health care system, a huge waste of time for doctors and patients alike, and a huge drain on the quality of human life.

Agreed life expectancy has nothing to do with quality of life. But fat people are huge economic drains and they don't pick up their share of the costs. If a person doesn't experience a penalty for bad behavior then they just keep doing it. Taxing would be fine with me. I don't eat that many twinkies in a year where the tax would kill me

SteveMcMahon, you just have these things ready to go? Always so fast and funny.

Post: #7

I'm all about fairness and freedom.
All drugs should be legal, and people should have complete freedom to put whatever they want in their body, whether it's tobacco or crack cocaine or some disgusting McDonald's meal that was designed and built in a lab.
That's the freedom part.
However, for freedom to work without creating chaos in a free society, there is a need for fairness and requiring personal responsibility. So, if someone being a fatty or a drug addict is creating a drain on the health system, they need to pay for it so people who make different choices don't have to. They can pay in the form of taxes, in the form of special health insurance, or by any other way that accounts for the costs of their choice. Or if they agree not to use any public services or health care, that would work too.

Post: #8

The whole discussion is pointless because none of this will ever happen. Who donates more to the politicians? You or Kellogg's, McDonald's, Burger King, Starbucks, etc?

Furthermore, I hardly trust those in power to make those kinds of decisions. They'll inevitably use such a scheme to empower their donors and harm their competition.

Sin taxes have plenty of unforeseen negative consequences that no one even stops to think about. Instead they tell themselves fairytale bullshit about how if only X was taxed Y amount, it'd go away or there'd be a lot less of it. No, it'll lead to more political corruption and people getting creative to skirt the taxes. Cigarette smuggling, booze smuggling and people creating their own are a result of sin taxes. That in turn leads to more people being charged with tax evasion, tried, and put in prison if they're caught. It also leads to police overreacting and killing people like Eric Garner for trying to make a buck getting around their bullshit.

People want what they want and they're going to get it one way or another. Social shaming and propaganda campaigns are more effective than increasing the power of the corrupt political class.

Post: #9

I wouldn't mind if junk food was heavily taxed because there may be less fat whores running around...... but the term sugar daddy may become more literal.

Post: #10

(02-17-2015 12:51 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  The whole discussion is pointless because none of this will ever happen. Who donates more to the politicians? You or Kellogg's, McDonald's, Burger King, Starbucks, etc?

There are currently sin taxes on tobacco and alcohol, two huge industries that undoubtedly paid politicians a lot of money to try to stop these things from happening.

In NY they tried to put a soda tax into place about 5 years ago, but it was defeated.

Berkley, CA passed a soda tax.

But the ideas are out there, and these taxes aren't impossible as you suggest.

Post: #11

(02-17-2015 12:51 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  Sin taxes have plenty of unforeseen negative consequences that no one even stops to think about. Instead they tell themselves fairytale bullshit about how if only X was taxed Y amount, it'd go away or there'd be a lot less of it.

Obviously taxing something leads to less consumption of it.

A McDonald's Meal costs around 8-10 dollars.

If it suddenly cost $15-20, do you think the same amount of people would buy it?

Besides McDonald's huge advertising campaigns and large amount of stores, many people eat there because it is simply a cheap place to fill your belly.

Wastelander, do you really think that saying people are going to be killed on the street ala Eric Garner for selling untaxed soda is an argument against this? Eric Garner is probably the only person to ever die in an untaxed-cigarette related incident, seems like a wild argument to make against taxing soda.

Post: #12

(02-17-2015 01:04 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

(02-17-2015 12:51 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  The whole discussion is pointless because none of this will ever happen. Who donates more to the politicians? You or Kellogg's, McDonald's, Burger King, Starbucks, etc?

There are currently sin taxes on tobacco and alcohol, two huge industries that undoubtedly paid politicians a lot of money to try to stop these things from happening.

In NY they tried to put a soda tax into place about 5 years ago, but it was defeated.

Berkley, CA passed a soda tax.

But the ideas are out there, and these taxes aren't impossible as you suggest.

And guess what? Cigarette smuggling is a widespread problem, particularly from Indian reservations and elsewhere. There's a whole black market trade that even Islamic terrorists profit off of in this country.

State to state alcohol smuggling still happens but I have no idea how much money is made off of that.

And of course these taxes aren't technically impossible. They are politically impossible on the federal level unless some of the big boys can benefit from it by encouraging politicians to use the regulatory system to shut down their competitors.

This is all part of what I like to call "pay-to-play" democracy.

Post: #13

To me one of the main issues would be defining what is and what is not junk food.

You can tax soda but what qualifies it as worse than fruit juices that are also pure sugar. what about diet sodas with no calories, but arguments against the additives in them as being deleterious to ones health. you can't go based on vitamin content either. Red Bull has tons of vitamins but is also full of sugar. what's the difference between a snickers bar and a protein bar?

you could impose taxes on machinery or ingredients ie. HFCS, other sugars, salt, preservatives, deep friers etc. but that wouldn't do much to change consumer habits and would screw over those companies who produce it.

Post: #14

(02-17-2015 01:07 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  

(02-17-2015 12:51 PM)TheWastelander Wrote:  Sin taxes have plenty of unforeseen negative consequences that no one even stops to think about. Instead they tell themselves fairytale bullshit about how if only X was taxed Y amount, it'd go away or there'd be a lot less of it.

Obviously taxing something leads to less consumption of it.

A McDonald's Meal costs around 8-10 dollars.

If it suddenly cost $15-20, do you think the same amount of people would buy it?

Besides McDonald's huge advertising campaigns and large amount of stores, many people eat there because it is simply a cheap place to fill your belly.

No, they'd buy some knockoff that tastes similar from a local source or make it themselves. Do you think McDonald's invented and copyrighted frying hamburgers?

Post: #15

(02-17-2015 01:17 PM)WesternCancer Wrote:  To me one of the main issues would be defining what is and what is not junk food.

You can tax soda but what qualifies it as worse than fruit juices that are also pure sugar. what about diet sodas with no calories, but arguments against the additives in them as being deleterious to ones health. you can't go based on vitamin content either. Red Bull has tons of vitamins but is also full of sugar. what's the difference between a snickers bar and a protein bar?

you could impose taxes on machinery or ingredients ie. HFCS, other sugars, salt, preservatives, deep friers etc. but that wouldn't do much to change consumer habits and would screw over those companies who produce it.

Well one thing to do immediately would be to remove subsidies to corn growers, as that helps flood the market with cheap HFCS. We already have import taxes on sugar, which are meant to help local corn growers producing HFCS. Those import taxes could be raised, and new taxes could be put on HFCS as such.

I would start with clearly non-natural foods like Soda, Cheese Doodles, etc.

Fruit Juice is a more complicated issue because there can be health fruit juices, but things like apple juice are obviously just sugar water. There's certainly a grey area there but that doesn't mean the whole idea should be disregarded.

A protein bar vs. a snickers bar, I guess the issue could just be resolved by taxing cheap sweeteners but not protein. Most protein bars have little sugar by design.

The negative effects of artificial sweeteners are another issue, from what I've read they can actually cause you to gain more weight by prompting you to eat more than you otherwise would, and have neurological effects as well. I would look into banning those things straight up, or at least including them in some crippling tax regime.

Post: #16

(02-17-2015 01:07 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  Wastelander, do you really think that saying people are going to be killed on the street ala Eric Garner for selling untaxed soda is an argument against this? Eric Garner is probably the only person to ever die in an untaxed-cigarette related incident, seems like a wild argument to make against taxing soda.

Add more idiotic laws, expect more victims of a joke legal system and its overzealous enforcers.

Post: #17

(02-17-2015 12:29 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  Agreed life expectancy has nothing to do with quality of life. But fat people are huge economic drains and they don't pick up their share of the costs. If a person doesn't experience a penalty for bad behavior then they just keep doing it. Taxing would be fine with me. I don't eat that many twinkies in a year where the tax would kill me

SteveMcMahon, you just have these things ready to go? Always so fast and funny.

Thanks mate. I keep em in my state of the art computer system.


Bitches don't know bout my camwhores

Re: taxing stuff that's bad for you.

Sure, it tends to reduce consumption (or encourage black markets).

But why do we want politicians to make those decisions for us?



They're not our parents. Pols are elected to deal with the scut work of society - paying the army and police, fixing potholes, organising flood defences and what-have-you.

When it comes to just about anything else - especially personal lifestyle choices - we should tell them to fuck off.

Does that mean some people will make poor choices? Yes, yes it does. That's freedom for you.

Post: #18

I can't get past the absurdity that one asshole believes they have the right to dictate what another asshole does with their own body.

Post: #19

(02-17-2015 12:00 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  I think that stifling taxes on junk, not a 5% or 10% tax but doubling, tripling, quadrupling the price, would be in order. People will say that it's impossible to regulate "junk" because it's not such a simply category. Indeed there are many ways to do it.

But that's really dancing around the issue. If they put huge tax increases on sodas, candy, fast-food restaurants, cheetos and other processed junk like that, as well as cutting subsidies to grain farmers, that would without a doubt lead to an improvement in the obesity rate and inevitably the health and beauty of our country. Probably secondarily it would lead to better behavior among people who aren't depressed because of their obesity.

This, in turn, is missing the point of those objections by not following through with the impact that a high tax on food would actually have. Even if you can hand-wave past the serious objections that possible
junk food categories are endless you still have to answer the question: if not the taxed food, what (or where) are people going to eat?

This kind of population engineering also ignores the complexity of real humans and the nature of junk food itself. (Read: many people can eat 'junk food' and be plenty healthy)

Post: #20

(02-17-2015 12:00 PM)Sonsowey Wrote:  In the U.S. many places have put insanely high taxes on cigarettes with the goal of raising the price so much that people stop smoking.

This is one of the few areas of public-health that the U.S. is doing well in.



I get the libertarian argument against this, but it is unpersuasive to me. Anything that gets people smoking less to me is a win for public health.

I think junk food should be subject to stifling taxes like this as well, to begin really combating the obesity epidemic.

We here all recognize that obesity is heavily tied in with the downfall of society as we see it. More fat chicks = fewer skinny chicks, meaning those chicks who are normal human size have so many options that their behavior completely deteriorates. Almost everyone here has had the experience of going to a country that is NOT full of overweight women and being absolutely shocked that women act sweet, feminine, etc. and most of us lament that American women are among the least feminine in the world.

I think that stifling taxes on junk, not a 5% or 10% tax but doubling, tripling, quadrupling the price, would be in order. People will say that it's impossible to regulate "junk" because it's not such a simply category. Indeed there are many ways to do it.

But that's really dancing around the issue. If they put huge tax increases on sodas, candy, fast-food restaurants, cheetos and other processed junk like that, as well as cutting subsidies to grain farmers, that would without a doubt lead to an improvement in the obesity rate and inevitably the health and beauty of our country. Probably secondarily it would lead to better behavior among people who aren't depressed because of their obesity.

Obviously at this time, obesity is responsible for more deaths than smoking, where the case used to be reversed. I think we should take lessons from the fight against tobacco use to help us put a dent in the obesity epidemic. Huge taxes and repealing subsidies for grains wouldn't 100% solve the problem just as taxes on cigarettes haven't stopped smoking completely, but I don't want the best to be the enemy of the good here. I think this is a public health catastrophe that no one is willing to tackle, and it needs action. The free market obviously markets junk to the vast majority of people, and they like it, so there needs to be some action from on-high to solve this.

You ignore what government policy has done until now. Agricultural policy has been to subsidize corn syrup over cane sugar leading to a lot of health problems. Healthcare policy has been to progressively remove the link between an individual's decisions and their financial consequences. "Public health" problems aside from infectious diseases are what you get when people don't pay for the costs of their bad decisions themselves.

(02-17-2015 12:20 PM)Lion of Judah Wrote:  I think taxing either is pointless. There's little good evidence that smoking or obesity affect a person's longevity. However, one could argue that exorbitant smoking taxes would help make the environment more aesthetically pleasing for some by reducing public smoking.

Edit: I also wanna add that obesity is largely genetic so I'm not entirely sure taxing it would make it go away. That eliminates quality-of-life arguments for food taxation.

Post: #21

If she smokes, she pokes.

If she eats, I no poke.

Post: #22

This reminds me of a Molyneux video where he says:

''There are no solutions, just costs and benefits.''

For smoking, for obesity - there is no solution. Just costs (health, physical looks) and benefits (temporary spontaneous pleasures).

Furthermore - In all of history, when have humans succesfully taxed their way out of a problem?

Post: #23

You don't need to tax junk food, just remove the subsides Big Agriculture gets from the base/source products they use to make the food (corn, soy, etc). The Govt essentially encourages the bad behavior of eating shitting food by letting it be priced so low.

Post: #24

There shouldn't be any taxes on stuff like this.

Why don't we look at the proper problem of expensive healthcare requiring insurance and the fact that our money becomes worthless everyday.

Take care of the inflation, insurance, loans, and other BS that inflates prices to astronomical levels. Then we can debate health policy.

Post: #25

(02-17-2015 02:23 PM)FrenchCanadian Wrote:  Furthermore - In all of history, when have humans succesfully taxed their way out of a problem?

Raising the price of cigarettes has seen a huge decrease in smoking behaviour and thus healthcare expenditure.