California will have a proposition on the 2022 ballot eliminating foam packaging and imposing a 1 cent fee on plastic packaging to be paid by manufacturers.
https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/20/new-california-ballot...
https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/07/20/new-california-ballot...
> The measure is opposed by the plastics industry. Tim Shestek, a spokesman for the American Chemistry Council, a trade association that includes large companies such as Dow, DuPont, 3M and ExxonMobil Chemical, called the measure “a massive taxpayer-funded giveaway of billions of dollars to fund a variety of special interest pet projects.”
> He said it threatens small businesses like restaurants and that the plastics industry is committed to reducing plastic waste.
Oh, good, the plastics industry is coming to help reduce how much plastic they sell. It's transparent to the point of being satirical!
It's also just funny to me that the slightest price signal ($0.01 per piece of packaging) is deemed completely untenable, and further a 'giveaway' of funds. Give me a break!
The market works on price signals. We are allowed to create signals to indicate our preferences (less trash everywhere please) in order to have the computer (the market) solve for a more optimal solution. Collective action (eg legislation like the one mentioned) is the way to do this!
The vast majority of the containers work just as well as the plastic ones did.
These aren't the same! For instance, a plastic grocery bag costs minimal energy but produces infinite-lifespan waste, while a reusable cloth bag costs like 10,000x energy to produce (between farming cotton, spinning it, weaving it, etc), but if left outside would only last for several years (ie a 1/10,000 lifespan).
We have to consider both these tradeoffs! Bioplastic probably is somewhere closer to a happy middle: costs 2x the energy of a tradplastic but lasts 1/10,000 shorter.
Admittedly I've made up all these numbers but: all compromises aren't equal, we can do better than we do now, the multipliers matter
Indeed they are, and I'd argue that in current situation, we can and should ignore one of them.
Climate change is an immediate existential threat to human civilization. Long-living, mostly inert waste is an inconvenience. As long as we're still sourcing majority of our energy from fossil fuels, more energy use = more carbon footprint = worsening the crisis. The issue of plastic waste is irrelevant relative to that - we can clean the house up after it is no longer on fire.
It's adorable that CA thinks that manufacuters will be the ones bearing this cost.
Its adorable that you think that a activist groups having enough money (ballot signature gathering up to the small minority needed to qualify a ballot measure is pretty tightly correlated with spending on the purpose) to qualify a ballot measure says anything about what California thinks.
Also, adorable that you think that the measure’s authors thinking that manufacturers are the most efficient place to collect the a Pigovian tax on plastic packaging says anything about who will bear the cost; the point is to make the use of the packaging more expensive to influence consumer behavior away from products with it, of course consumers bear the cost (though not exclusively.)
One of the reasons why I oppose VAT style taxation
Each citizen should at minimum see on a itemized bill the amount of money the government is collecting from them, IMO each citizen should be forced to write out a check to every government entity that needs to collect money
Automated, and hidden taxes is one of the reason the government can actually steal errrr collect as much money as it does, because if people had to pay their taxes like they do their utility bill there would be continual protests in the streets
We have that. It's called a "tax return".
> each citizen should be forced to write out a check to every government entity that needs to collect money
You do understand how that would increase government bureaucracy, right? Whereas I'm sure your goal is the opposite.
> if people had to pay their taxes like they do their utility bill there would be continual protests in the streets
Maybe you would protest. Most people likely would not - they bear far worse from their governments on the daily.
I believe GP's point is that a tax return only lists a small subset of the taxes being collected from a citizen, giving the impression that the amount is smaller than it is.
Social Security taxes are a great example of this - for W2 employees they don't show up on their tax return at all. And even if the employee looks at the box labeled "social security tax" on their W2, that's still only half of it, because the other half is a "payroll tax" that the employee never sees, even in their "gross income".
When you add consumption taxes, making sure to include both the ones that show up as "sales tax" on a receipt and the ones that get baked into the price (e.g. gas taxes), it becomes extremely difficult to come up with an individual's fully-loaded tax rate.
Frankly "taxes are theft" is a narrow-minded point of view that I have little time for. Complain about how high your taxes are, complain about how the government wastes money. But it's not "theft", at least in democratic countries. It's the price of living and working where you do.
Frankly the rationalization that taxation, specially income taxation is anything other than theft because of "democracy" is absurd
The fact is that the government, like a theif, says to a person: Your money, or your life. And many, if not most, taxes are paid under the compulsion of that threat.
The government does not, indeed, waylay a person in a lonely place, spring upon him from the road side, and, holding a pistol to his head, proceed to rifle his pockets. But the robbery is none the less a robbery on that account; and it is far more dastardly and shameful.
The theif takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber.
He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a “protector,” and that he takes a person's money against their will, merely to enable him to “protect” those infatuated travelers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these.
Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful “sovereign,” on account of the “protection” he affords you. He does not keep “protecting” you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villanies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave.
The government creates, and then rents to us (usury), the money we all use [1]. It holds a monopoly on money creation.
Governments can create money to build infrastructure, hospitals and housing (many leftist governments in Europe have [2]) at will. Government doesn't need to collect taxes to do any of the things I mentioned, that's a myth. External constraints on national budgets are a myth. National budgets are just monetary debts by the government carried by citizens. [3]
[1] Inequality: Why are the rich getting richer? | Positive Money: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZzCegQVljdY
[2] What could Vienna’s low-cost housing policy teach the UK? | Rent controls mean public sector workers and those on lower pay can afford to live and work in the Austrian capital: https://theguardian.com/society/2017/dec/12/vienna-housing-p...
[3] The truth is out: money is just an IOU, and the banks are rolling in it - David Graeber, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/mar/18/truth-...
Fiat Currency requires a careful balance of fraud like pozi scheme to convince people that is is worth something, if they did away with the "myth" as you call it then the entire fraud would collapse like pozi schemes normally do
So you are objectively wrong that the government can create money at will, while technically true they do so at the risk of complete monetary collapse
Will adding this disposal cost make certain products prohibitively expensive? Sure. But if no one can (or will) pay for your product after all the associated costs are baked in, then that's just the market's way of telling you that you shouldn't be making that product.
This enables the workflow where anyone can simply walk up to a retailer and hand them their old white goods free of charge - and they legally have to collect it, even if they didn't originally sell that item.
Here[1] is a polystyrene case of 200 for $28.99 retail, this would make that cost $30.99. The eco-friendly version is $57.99: [2], and that doesn't even have the compartments that the foam does; if you want those it's closer to $90. I'm sure the costs to the manufacturers themselves are lower than that.
To a restaurant, it's a 2-dollar fee on a 30-dollar case that doesn't make the 60-dollar alternative a smart financial decision. Alternatively, it's a 1-cent fee on a 14-cent product, compared to a 29-cent product.
I like when a restaurant gives me my food in an eco-friendly container, now I know that it cost them about 15 cents of my purchase to do so.
[1] https://www.webstaurantstore.com/dart-90htpf3r-9-x-9-x-3-whi... [2] https://www.webstaurantstore.com/ecochoice-9-x-9-x-3-biodegr...