Please, talk in marginals and not categoricals!

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The bulk of people I meet speak in categoricals. An example of a categorical statement would be, "toothpaste is good for your teeth." The world really runs on marginal realities instead.

Is toothpaste categorically good for your teeth? What if we dumped 10 tubes on them? It probably stops being good at a certain point. That is marginal speak.

It gets worse in politics. Is government spending bad? Thats a categorical question.

The annoying thing about it is how much people speak in categoricals but actually behave marginally. People are confidence biased and want to give strong, confident statements.

People get this way when talking about politics and government often. "Taxes are bad." Ok, but do you really mean you want no taxes at all? And if so, please state that so we can know that you are a nut.

Its the same when people say they are against regulations. What regulations? You want no regulations? Or do you mean specific ones? Please state specific ones, and if you are against all - please open with that so we know you are a nut.

Why is it that wanting no regulations means one is nuts?

Because it means they haven't read the history as to why we have them. It's just a reflexive statement people make without thinking much about it. Maybe not nuts, but I would call it "someone who isn't educated on the subject."

I'd prefer they open with that so I know they aren't worth my time. Every law is a regulation, even criminal laws. No regulation means people can harm others without recourse, and a basic function of society is to protect rights.

Marginal thinkers will use cost benefit analysis on each one, and maybe accept some BS in the system as a inevitable by product.

A good reminder - I'm sure I'm guilty of this more than I would like to admit.

I do think all current major taxes are, in isolation, bad for the economy... but that has to be weighed against the good done with the revenue they raise. Not only would I rather not have high levels of violent crime, high levels of long-term sick people, inadequate infrastructure, and low levels of education, but those things would also be bad for the economy.

Some taxes are worse than others. Some minor taxes that currently don't raise much money are good for the economy, like carbon taxes that reflect the social cost of carbon emissions, or Georgist taxes. But unless we do manage to pay for all our needs using these taxes, we'll need other taxes. It would generally be better to use the less-bad taxes, like a moderate progressive income tax with a broad base and a tax-free allowance, rather than real economy killers like a capital gains tax so high as to make investment uneconomical.

Similarly with regulations, I think in general regulation tends to be bad for the economy, but that has to be counterbalanced by the good that regulation does, like preventing false advertising or ensuring products are safe, as well as the business benefits that come from international regulatory alignment. While I can think of specific regulations I would like to repeal, particularly those restricting housing supply, or occupational licensing in low-stakes occupations like hairdressing, in general that is difficult to do. The deregulation we have seen in the past is easy to view as good with hindsight, but actually identifying harmful regulations in the here and now is much harder.

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It's Worth Noting That Deciding Someone

Is Not Worth Someone's Time to Learn Anything

New Based on One Ignorant Sounding Comment

Is Also A Way

of 'Categorical

Thinking' Just to Be Clear...

It's Amazing How Much Roses Grow in Manure As Well

As Elite Colleges and Degrees Piled Higher and Deeper too hehe...

No Offense...

Just Simple Wisdom...

i've Learned More From
Folks With Lower Than

70 IQ's As Far as LoVE iN Peace

Goes Than All the Book Learning in the World...

Yet Again, IF One Only Depends on 'Standard
IQ' For 'Wisdom'

Basically

Folks Fail

Higher Level Living in LoVE iN Peace

And War as Well and Minor Skirmishes too...

i Have Several Higher Level
Degrees too Numbering 3 Yes...

Yet i've Learned More About Life

From a Feral Cat Than All the 'Book Learning' in the World...

It Was A Bit Disconcerting at Age 47, to Admit i Basically Knew

Nothing of Real Import of Life, After 33 Years of Work And 3 Degrees,

Retiring Early With the Federal Government At A Marine Major Rate of Civilian Pay...

Yet Never

The Less,

Life Teaches

More Than Words Ever 'Real'...

Or Ever 'Will' If Ya Wanna Nit Pick
Spelling Errors With Deeper Meanings Hehe...

Other Than That At Best, Never the Less, 'The Ignorant'
Learn More From

'The Educated'...

If They Willing

to Actually
Listen To And
See Larger Stories..

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Yes, I don't trust sweeping statements. It's strange to me that anybody makes them. I guess it's something about looking confident and decisive and hoping it will attract people. Doesn't attract me. There's usually another side to any coin, and I wish more people would admit that.

What you said was marginal analysis. A regulation is a cost, as is a tax. The regulation/tax is worth it if the marginal benefit is greater than the cost. Simple as that.

The difficulty with a lot of things is the cost is clear but the benefits are not. If something cost one person a lot but the benefits are small but go to millions of people, its easy for that one person to lobby to eliminate the regulation because they have the concentrated incentive. That is how you end up with things like train derailments. The regulation hits on a concentrated few, and the benefits hit to an unknown group of people. The ones who pay the cost are incentivized to hire lobbyists and the ones that benefit cannot.

One little fun fact about taxes - actually in history they have been argued to be good for the sake of it. The British put a small "head tax" on to force people to participate in the market economy. If you grew your own food and made your own stuff, you didn't need money. But if the government says "give us $100/year," then now you need to sell something to pay the tax. The US bans those taxes.

I don't think that when we talk about regulations we talk about criminal laws. When we talk about regulations we talk about the governmen interference with peoples business. And we are way past the point whether there should be more regulations or not. We live in an overly regulated world that is stagnating the economy and is giving the state too much power. We are at a piont where China doesn't seem a very different place.

I think regulations are necessary to keep corporations from doing whatever they please. They'd like us to believe they're capable of policing themselves, but do they really? No!

We used to have strong environmental regulations. A lot of them are gone now because the conservative libertarians begged too much for deregulations.

Deregulated capitalism gave us the 2008 financial crisis, didn't it? They haven't learned their lesson since.

Could you give some examples of regulations that you are especially concerned about?

Do you think corporations should be allowed to subject their workers to all manner of dangerous conditions? Do you think there should be no safety regulations for airlines, railroads, cars, etc.? Do you think makers of prepared foods, nutritional supplement, and drugs should not be required to list ingredients on their labels?

Ummm, what? Should I have been paying this head tax? What if I don't have a head?

Are you referring to the poll tax that the Thatcher government tried to implement at the end of the 80s? That didn't last long, just a couple of years, and it actually got the British to riot which is fairly impressive given our general willingness to bend over the barrel and brace for impact.

And these are categorial statements. "Too many!" without really talking about anything in specific.

Plus add in the absurdity of saying we are similar to China. That's just repeating wight wing propaganda with no basis in fact. It doesn't work on people who aren't already part of the right wing echosphere.

"Too many regulations" is one of the catch alls that anyone can agree with. Its a categorial statement that applies in a blanket fashion without the person who says it having to support it.

Too many construction regs? Sure got it. Lobby your congressional reps to repeal specific ones.

I hate to tell you, the regulations that kill your freedom are primarily done by local governments, and are broadly popular.

The reason I can't open a bar in my basement is not Washington DC, its my neighbors and I guarantee you that those very same neighbors that would file complaints are the same ones that shout "too many regulations" at the TV. Limiting immigration into the country is itself a regulation that many of those same types are all for.

Almost every locality in the country has building regulations and the primary purpose is to keep outsiders out. Go ahead, try to build an apartment complex without making two parking spots per bedroom and having two tennis courts and a pool. You can't! And if you tried to repeal that, local homeowners would throw a fit. Again, I can guarantee you it would be the same ones that spout off with the "too many regulations" crap.

I am for reducing those; the problem is I don't think people are as anti regulation as they claim to be.

Everyone is a libertarian when it comes to things they want to do. Everyone becomes an authoritarian when it comes to things they want to stop. The problem is we all can't agree and so we end up with everyone being upset about something.

People use politics for their personal gain, this is as old as humanity itself. Liberty is that nobody, be that the king or your rich neighbor, can use their political leverage in order to thwart others persuit of happiness. I believe that we should persue and reinforce liberty.

I know of no such tax in the UK. There's local "council tax" which is based on the supposed value of the house you're deemed to live in, but that's not small and if you're homeless you don't have to pay it AFAIK. There was once something called the "community charge" which was a rather hefty tax based on the individual's existence, or in practice on their inclusion on the Electoral Register, and that was a hefty tax also. Popular resistance forced them to replace it with the Council Tax. In theory I could live in the home of a kindly friend or relative and wouldn't technically be liable for tax on a personal basis.

Sorry I should have been more clear, it was primarily put on colonial possessions. It was more common in older times in England itself. But yes they also have those.

All countries only accept taxes in their own currency as a way of forcing you to participate as well. US government won't accept $2,000 worth of wheat as payment of its tax.

Ah, that's different. I suppose the tax system began historically as a way of ripping off the colonies and the indigenous population of the "parent" country, and then it partly mutated into a redistributive tax-and-spend thing, which at least gives it some kind of moral basis as opposed to being pure theft.

As a USA green card holder and UK citizen I'm not liable for tax at the federal level because of a reciprocal agreement between the US and UK, so I continue to pay income tax in the UK. Unfortunately at the state level in the US it's another matter - whether or not I pay tax depends on what the state decides, and in Arkansas they say I have to pay. It's not much, but there are also horribly complicated tax forms to fill in (in the UK unless you're running a business you don't have to fill in forms, they just take the tax at source), and I also have to pay something to the US as a punishment for not having American health insurance.