We have mandated auto insurance here, for people that own cars, that make sense to me.
Would it make sense to require me to pay auto insurance if I didn’t have a car?
If we mandated that everyone pay auto insurance, in proportion to their income, all of our rates would go down. Hooray, we all benefit. Think about it, we could spread the risk over the entire population, including non-drivers, and that would benefit us all.
Except, the person without a car, who is paying for the guy with 10. And since he’s not paying auto insurance on a per-car basis any more, he might as well have 50. And there is no coloration with his behaviour or the cost of the car. He is there for encouraged to be reckless with a car he couldn’t otherwise afford to insure.
I choose the car I have based on the cost to insure it (as one of the factors). If it didn’t cost more to have a less safe/more expensive car, I would have gladly bought one.
What would you call it if you were forced to pay insurance for something you don’t have?
But wait, I indirectly benefit from other people being able to drive, so it only make sense that I pay for other people’s car insurance. Otherwise some people wouldn’t be able to. And that would mean they’d have to walk, except they’ve chosen to live really far from work, and driving is their only option. So it is imperative that we all pay for that guy’s insurance, so that he isn’t forced to take into account factors that might otherwise inconvenience him.
Let’s go ahead and put your system to work, using actual real-world facts and figures, shall we?
You’re advocating a pay-by-use system, in which each person is personally accountable (and billable) for the products and services they use, and asserting that the cost of such will be less than the cost of the taxes you are currently paying. So let’s break that down for just a few very basic services provided by those taxes you so loathe, using the city of, I don’t know, Toronto as an example.
First, let’s establish a few baseline facts:
Population of Toronto as of 2006 = 2.5 million people
Police funding allocated in 2010 budget = $956 million
Average annual salary of police patrolman = $58,000
Average annual salary of police detective = $75,000
Average annual salary of Attorney Advisor General = $62,000
Average annual salary of law clerk = $43,000
Average annual salary of paralegal = $40,000
Average annual salary of Judge = $260,000
Cost to incarcerate 1 Provincial prisoner per day = $141.78
(In the following narrative, time figures are my own personal guesses and are probably low compared to reality)
Let’s pretend one day your house gets robbed, a simple breaking and entering(B&E) and burglary. They break your back window and steal your computer, TV, some jewelry, etc., a few thousand dollars worth of stuff. You call the police to investigate. Two patrolmen arrive at your home and spend an hour interviewing you and looking around. They take their information and sent it over to the Robbery and Homicide division, where 2 detectives look at it, do some rudimentary investigation and are able to identify a couple of suspects. Three days later they arrest the perpetrators, let’s say there were 2 of them, and the detectives push the case on to the judicial system. The prosecuting attorney and his assistants put together a case, try and convict the 2 perps. The judge imposes a standard sentence of 6 months in prison for each of them and turns them over to the penal system. They do their time and are released. Then you are presented with a bill for $52,310.80, itemized as follows:
[ul]
[li]3 hours of time and labor for the initial patrolman’s visit($28/hr x 2 patrolmen)x 3[/li][/ul] [ul]
[li]+ 5 total hours of investigation by the 2 detectives($37/hr x 2 detectives)x 5[/li][/ul] [ul]
[li]+ the time and labor for the prosecuting attorney and his assistant to put the case together, say 12 hours total of paperwork and such($30/hr x 1 Attorney Advisor General + $19/hr x 1 paralegal)x 12[/li][/ul] [ul]
[li]+ an hour of the Judge’s time($124/hr)[/li][/ul] [ul]
[li]+ an hour of the court clerk’s time($20/hr)[/li][/ul] [ul]
[li]+ 6 months of prison for 2 convicted perps($141.78 x 180 days)x 2[/li][/ul][ul]
[li]= $52,310.80[/li][/ul]
OTOH, you are currently theoretically paying a mere $382.40 a year for unlimited police service($956 million/2.5 million residents). I couldn’t find the numbers for the court or penal system, but I’m willing to bet it’s lower than $52k.
Through no fault of your own, without being irresponsible at all, you were robbed and required the government’s help, ultimately costing you either $52,310.80 under your system, or $382.40 a year under the current system.
To drive the point home a bit more, consider a rather grisly example:
29 coal miners in West Virginia were recently killed so that Americans can enjoy “cheap” electricity using “clean” coal. Worst disaster in 40 years.
If we were to take the coal output in tonnage (T) from that mine, divided by the number of deaths (d), times the energy per tonnage (E). We could divide that into your electricity usage (U) and calculate how many coal miners you killed.
Cost = 29U/(TE)
Not you personally, the people who’s electricity is power by the “clean” coal from this plant. But imagine if on your next bill it said, “you used 52 smurfberries and killed 0.00734 smurfs, you owe $63.50”
Those that are okay with the costs of coal mining could choose to pay, and those that want to pay for oil fire plants could choose that. That way, those of us that aren’t cool with it, can get power from a less destructive source.
Coal mines require all kinds of federal oversight and inspectors, regulators, enforcement. Coal plants shoot all kinds of crap into the air causing respiratory problems. But that cost comes from the federal budget instead of from the cost of the coal.
So coal power looks cheap because the users don’t realize what they’re paying. And the risk has been spread out nationally. So the end users is oblivious to the reality associated with running his a/c.
As I’ve said before, if this means the cost of electricity usage goes up 100 fold, so be it. If it means I can’t run my a/c all summer long, that’s okay. Because it means we are aware for the costs, the risks, and are free to choose.
Fuck man, that was brilliant. Kudos for the work you just put in. Let’s explore:
$52,310.80 for a single break vs $382.40 a year. You sounded pretty quick to make the decision of yearly fee vs pay per use.
But what you missed was your likelihood of being robbed, how many break ins per population? If we were insurance adjusters we could calculate a probability, and then provide an insurance policy to match.
So what if I told you that you had three choices: pay a one time $52k fee, pay $382.40 per year, or get an insurance policy based on your risk assessment?
Chances are, if you’re premium was less than $382 you’d choose insurance, and if it was more you’d choose the unlimited plan. That’s sound financial decision making.
If we suddenly switched us to a pay per use system, I would look at that $52k a year risk, and get an insurance policy to match. Which incidentally is what I do with my $50k car and $50k house.
I could then take personal steps to reduce my likelihood: choose a better place to live, security system, bars, guns, dog, private security guard. I then have an incentive to take personal responsibility.
Shouldn’t my personal level of responsibility get factored into the cost?
My point is that if people were aware of that $52k figure, and forced to see it show up on a bill, they would have a direct incentive to choose how they want to live.
Incidentally, the $382 a year represents 136 years I’d have to go without a break in (brake in?) for it to be worthwhile. Oddly enough, my homeowners insurance is based on 150 years before my premium pays for the cost to replace my house.
Now that you see the cost per break in, compare that to the cost of health care. $52k doesn’t get you very much these days. So I choose to get insurance to cover the risk.
And so what? How does this relate to the other problems? Each problem has to be evaluated differently to decide whether it is more efficient to address it on a societal level or on an individual level. There are no universal answers. Remember the considerations I mentioned before? Degree of control, proximity, etc.?
And remember, we do address this on a societal level. We don’t leave it up to the individual to “take into account” this factor in a vacuum. We make it illegal to drive drunk.
There are already plenty of factors that people have to take into account. The fact is that most individuals have little choice beyond, “What income do I make, what kind of arrangement will the bank allow for me, and will I be able to get to work from here at a reasonable time and expense?” Beyond this, most people simple do not have the options that you pretend they have. If they have to live in a flood plain, then that’s going to have to be it, because paying your rent next month is much more proximate than “there might be a flood in 100 years.” Furthermore, it’s to society’s benefit that they make decisions on these terms and then adjust these terms either by regulation or by other forms of amelioration.
Almost everyone hopes to have a career that uses their skills to maximize their wages and benefits. The fact is that not everyone has the ability or the circumstances to end up in their ideal jobs. And, in fact, it is a benefit to society that this happens, because people end up in the jobs that the market is willing to pay for, not the jobs that they necessarily wanted, and not the jobs that necessarily gives them the maximum income they would have hoped for. Otherwise, we’d end up with too many middle managers and not enough janitors. It’s to society’s benefit, thus it is to your benefit that the majority of people work in careers in which they are compensated less than they want to be.
Do you have any idea how ludicrous this is? No one has this degree of control over their career path. You make it seem like working for a living is like choosing from a menu. And how many people know at age 18 what their future medical conditions are going to be?
Worse off compared to what? You have absolutely no point of reference. And you continue to exclude the middle. The choice is not between perfection and something else. The choice is between better than and worse than.
You will never eliminate all societal problems no matter what you do. That doesn’t justify not ameliorating any of them when some of them can be relieved.
Modern technological life will not be available to you. Period. Modern government and police security will not be available to you. Period. Instead of government, you will have to contend with private armies who come to your house and demand your resources with the threat of force, and unlike today, you will have no influence in their decisions.
Can you possibly see outside your little cottage on private land with a private road that the swings in other places and at other times are a lot worse? You have no sense of perspective or point of reference.
Well, the majority people don’t agree with you. If you really meant it, you *would *go live on an island with no infrastructure and services to worry about paying for. You wouldn’t be satisfied by arguing about it on the internet. In fact, you wouldn’t have the internet.
Actually, it hasn’t. What has proved is that deregulation in the past decade was a mistake.
Again, that was a failure to regulate that was the problem.
You’re arguing against yourself here. You’ve just proved that government regulation is necessary because people judging their risks on an individual basis does not amount to a rational calculation of risks on a societal level. It’s not “responsibility” that’s the problem. The problem is that your purported equation of “individuals acting responsibly” leads to “society benefits.” That’s not how it works. Society as a whole has to set limits because judging risks on an individual level does not always equate to the best outcome overall.
Why would the insurance be done on a per-person basis instead of a per-car basis? This is a strawman because you’ve set up the hypothetical in the stupidest possible way. That’s a poor comparison for, say, a fire department, which can be of use to people who own fire extinguishers and clear the brush behind their homes, and people who don’t. Good on you for having an extinguisher and clearing your brush, but I don’t see how that would help you if there’s an electrical fire in your home due to faulty wiring.
I think it would be more useful if you had to choose between the $382 and the $52k rather than make up some kind of “break-in insurance” policy that covers not only your losses from the theft, but the costs to investigate, prosecute and punish the criminals. Frankly, I have my doubts that any insurance company could come up with a way to cover all of that without charging a heck of a lot more than $382.
In fact, it would be more useful if you just stopped making up wacky hypotheticals entirely, including abandoning the notion that there exists some kind of fair way to calculate your personal tax burden for infrastructure and services.
Come on, you can do better. Read it again or I’m going to blame the public schools system.
Using coal fired power plants means that coal miners are going to die. If you personally are okay with that, you personally should pay for that.
If we lined up the cost of power based on the number of deaths directly caused, people could make an informed decision. Coal power means 29 men in W. Va. Oil power means a 10s of thousands of Iraqis. Nuclear power means a handful of Ukrainians. (that was all tongue and cheak)
We have tons of federal corn subsidies that makes the cost of a can of Coke seem cheap, because the cost is spread out among tax payers . Put the cost of those subsidies into the can of Coke, suddenly it’s not so cheap. If you want HFCS it will have it’s cost, and you can compare it to the cost of sugar can or beet sugar. If suddenly the cost is too high, and you aren’t willing to pay it, no more pop.
The federal highway system means they can grow the corn in one place, truck it for free (without tolls) to a processing plant, then truck it again to a bottling plant, then truck it to your local store. All of that includes the taxes we pay for federal highways, regardless of whether or not I drink Coke.
If trucking included the cost of the highway usage, initially the cost per can would sky rocket. Non one would be willing to pay $10 per can. There is still demand, Coke still wants to make money, they’d set up in a way so as to not need millions of miles of highways. Cost per can comes back down to what people are willing to pay.
The point here is that the cost of a can of pop can’t become infinite, because we are currently paying for the can plus taxes. Take out my portion of the taxes that goes to this highway use, and let me pay for it in each can of pop. If it’s too high, I’ll choose not to drink pop. If enough people stop drinking pop, we find out that we don’t need millions of miles of highways. Maybe we’d start to think about more efficient ways to transport goods across the country.
Yes, exactly. So we must have an adequately large and complex government supported by taxes so that it is able to address problems that are appropriate for it to address. Q.E.D.
Congratulations, you’ve defeated yourself in argument.
If you’re just kvetching about specific policy decisions that you disagree with then go open threads on those.
But it’s not my strawman. I was asked if insurance was theft, I showed how it it was applied like taxes it starts to look like theft.
You said it wouldn’t make sense to have auto insurance on a per person basis, I agree entirely, that is a stupid thing to do.
But have you notice that we have school taxes that are independent of how many kids you have? In fact, from what I can tell having more kids lowers your tax burden. And if you’re really poor having more kids gets you more money.
Like I said, I’m all for user fees. If we need federal regulation to have insurance companies, make the cost of that regulation PART of insurance. Figure out what it costs, then apply it.
If you can show me that I’d be better off paying a set fee of $380 a year for police instead of having an insurance policy to cover the likelihood of my needing it, I’m all for it.
And now if you’ll excuse me I don’t have time to deal with all your whining.
Since I’m not aware of any insurance policy that does what you describe (i.e. covers the cost of investigating and prosecuting a crime), you may as well compare $380 a year for cops vs. $1200 for leprechaun massages, or something equally hypothetical.
Yes, I’m aware. Do you realize this argument has already been dealt with over and over? If a child goes to the public school near you and becomes a doctor, you are benefiting from his public education.
No, we need an adequately SMALL government so that it only addresses the problems it needs to. And doesn’t feel like it is the only solution to alleviate suffering.
Like you said, there is no universal answer, so stop pretending like government solving problems is the only answer.
Some times it’s going to make sense for us all to chip in for a police department, we all benefit by lowering crime.
Other times it makes us worse off by letting people take more risky behaviour (like not having a smoke detector or fire extinguisher).
As I said, I don’t have time for this, I’ll address the mistake you made about regulation later.