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Comment by maratd | Hacker News Reader

> US has no shortage of zombies who don't think on their won.

A human being is at the most juvenile when he encounters a view contrary to his own and ascribes it to stupidity.

If only everyone was as enlightened, as educated, as brilliant as he ... then everyone would understand.

No. Grow up.

I will never be wealthy and I will still continue to vote for a fair tax system. A flat tax system. Because everyone should pay the same, regardless of status or income.

I won't always be healthy and I will still continue to vote against a socialist healthcare system. Because everyone should pay for what they use, no more and no less. Not just with healthcare, but with everything.

You don't believe what I believe? That's fine. But how dare you ascribe my beliefs to ignorance? That in itself, is ignorance distilled. The refusal to even consider anything but your own stunted views.

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> I will never be wealthy and I will still continue to vote for a fair tax system.

What makes you think that's fair? I didn't say what is fair or not, you brought that into the discussion. Do you think marginal utility doesn't make sense. Why is linear, percentage based, tax "fair"? Seems rather arbitrary to me.

> I won't always be healthy and I will still continue to vote against a socialist healthcare system. Because everyone should pay for what they use,

Ok except that the world where each individual is isolated and should just get what they need for themselves by paying and nothing more is a fantasy world. Exactly the kind of a situation I was talking about. Turning human lives and their health into a marketable commodity is craziness. Letting emergency services handle terminal heart patients, which would have been managed better by preventive care is insanity. Checking people's accounts before pulling the ambulance to the door is a pretty scary society, and maybe you evaluated it and decided to vote for that, I decide not to. Starting wars just to fuel the military industrial complex, is craziness. Letting old people die of hunger and neglect is craziness.

> You don't believe what I believe? That's fine. But how dare you ascribe my beliefs to ignorance?

I dare because it seems at least some of your beliefs are crazy and are hurting not only yourself in the long run but others. Maybe you'll say that you don't care about others, and it shouldn't matter what happens to them, and I say that's crazy as well.

> ... their health into a marketable commodity is craziness

> ... fuel the military industrial complex, is craziness.

> ... old people die of hunger and neglect is craziness.

> ... your beliefs are crazy

> ... and I say that's crazy as well

When you develop the maturity to actually consider another human being's view point and respond in an intelligent manner, I'll be happy to respond in kind.

Let's try a random example.

> Letting emergency services handle terminal heart patients, which would have been managed better by preventive care is insanity.

I see where you're coming from. You no doubt feel that by reducing the costs to preventative care through government subsidy, we could create a reality where the overwhelming majority of the population would be actively screened for heart disease and treat it as soon as detected, reducing overall costs.

You're wrong. Even the poorest of the poor can afford to see a physician once a year to get screened. Even if they paid out of pocket. The kind of tests you're talking about cost less than a hundred dollars.

So why don't they? They choose not to. Maybe they despise doctors, maybe it reminds them of their own mortality, maybe they feel like it could never happen to them, but they do make that choice. And it's not because of cost.

See how that works? I made an effort to understand why you said what you did, I thought about it, and then I responded without calling any of your ideas crazy, insane, ignorant, or stupid.

Now you try.

A flat tax? That's a bit too socialist for my tastes... should a man making $100k per year really be forced to pay twice as much as a man making $50k per year, just for being more productive? Wouldn't a head tax be better, since everyone would then pay equally? Plus you would not have the disincentive effect on marginal labor of your "make twice as much, pay twice as much" scheme.

Also, why should I be forced to pay for your military and your police force? Shouldn't it be my choice to consume what I want?

What if your paying the way for the other guy, who is 20 years your junior, allows him to better pay your medical bills when you get sick at age 70, and have no money to pay yourself (through no fault of your own you have lost a lot when X disaster occurred)? The swings and roundabout of the system aren't ever simple. Likewise, what about the 5 year old who needs state help, has contributed nothing, has had no chance to and has done nothing wrong. Who should pay if the parents don't?

I assume/hope scarmig is being sarcastic here? ;) But yes historically (middle-ages and before) head-based tax systems were considered fair.

Anyhow, non-progressive taxation and market-based health-care is a waste of human capital, not to mention that it leads to grossly inhumane situations.

People that don't get that should look at the stats and/or study some basic economics. For example, how does the UK spend only about half as much on healthcare, and still has a higher life-expectancy than the US?

I will never be wealthy and I will still continue to vote for a fair tax system. A flat tax system. Because everyone should pay the same, regardless of status or income.

Trouble with a flat tax system is the poor can't afford the tax rates the nation's current expenditure would require. It would work O.K. if the expenditure was much lower, but I see no way to get from here to there.

Aside from that, I've come to believe that a flat tax system isn't actually fair. The less income someone has, the more taxes cut into basic living expenses (because a greater portion of that person's income is spent on basic needs). On the other hand, someone with large incomes sees no tightening of basic living expenses because they make enough that the money lost to taxes falls solidly into the "extra income" region.

I'm not very good at describing this idea yet, but I tie it back to the idea I have happened upon that (for example) a 25% raise to a person making $40k is in terms of spending power much more than a 25% raise. This is because discretionary income is much smaller than $40k. The new $10k can be considered added discretionary income (assuming the person was meeting basic needs before) thus making it in effect much larger than a 25% bump.

I am not an economist, but it sounds like you're getting at something similar to the diminishing marginal utility of money. I can't find a good source online that explains this, but the basic idea is that the more money someone has, the less each additional increment is actually worth. For example, a $10,000 raise is a lot more useful to a person that makes $50,000 a year than to one who makes $500,000 a year.

There may be a connection with progressive taxation, in the sense that if money has diminishing marginal utility, then a flat tax on money is actually regressive in terms of utility. So then a progressive tax on money is closer to being "fair" in the sense of being a flatter tax on utility.

Thanks, this ties in to what I was saying very well.

That's correct. Alfred Marshall's theories of utility are the basis of modern economic analysis. Todd Buchholz' New Ideas from Dead Economists has a great introduction to these ideas while being more accessible than the typical econ textbook.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Ideas-Dead-Economists-Introduction...

"The less income someone has, the more taxes cut into basic living expenses (because a greater portion of that person's income is spent on basic needs)."

Covered by Milton Friedman's proposal of a flat tax with a minimum standard of living deductible, e.g. 10k USD. Furthermore, those making less than that 10k would get the 'refund' as some sort of social security. Developed in his book "Capitalism and Freedom".

"I'm not very good at describing this idea yet,"

What your describing is, as far as I can tell, the concept of "marginal utility".

Oh god. Don't give them a refund, just make the first X,000 tax free. That's better than circulating the money through the hands of a bunch of bureaucrats.

I think the act of actually paying a tax is quite important, despite the bureaucratic overhead. For the same reason, I think payroll taxes and the like should be directly paid by checks (not just deducted from pay and handled by the employer). This way, a person would actually have that money and then have to commit the physical act of giving their money to the government instead of just seeing it as money not in their paycheck.

rdtsc's not talking about you personally, but about the median voter. Many political arguments are founded in ignorance (in contradiction of available data or in defiance of logic), and observing this fact is not equivalent to a judgment of people who happen to hold the same opinions.

Having said that... Because everyone should pay the same, regardless of status or income. [...] Because everyone should pay for what they use, no more and no less.

These are perfectly valid opinions to hold, but to express them as if they were facts is to assume the correctness of your premises. I can see why you hold those positions, but I can also think of compelling arguments for the opposite positions.

> But how dare you ascribe my beliefs to ignorance?

Because they do seem to stem from ignorance with regards to the purpose of a society. Why should I refrain from robbing you if I am sick and hungry whilst you seem to have more than you need? We have entered into a society in order to protect ourselves, which means that even the poorest in our society must have healthcare and food on the table, which again requires all of us to pay a certain amount of our money for things we might not directly need. You might not need healthcare, roads, public transportation etc. but you do need to not be killed and robbed by people who have nothing.

You speak with the confidence of a young man. If it's not too intrusive, may I ask your age and gender?

Because your views are stupid. Easy example: a homeless tramp dying of ebola.

(You can substitute a bunch of other diseases naturally occuring in the USA if you like)

You'd normally want to pack that guy into a medical isolation unit pronto. You probably won't save him but at least you'll stop other people from catching it from him.

But no! maratd vetoes this because it's not fair. The hobo should pay for his isolation unit and until he can, he should be kicked out into the streets to act as a plague vector.

Rinse and repeat for all the other issues you haven't thought about properly.

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