Then we likewise have to tax people that drive too much. I’m not talking about a long commute, etc. I’m talking about people who have to be going somewhere all the time. Restaurants, the shops, etc. Putting 20k on their vehicle per year or more doing nothing. They aren’t truck drivers or delivery drivers. That’s a never ending rabbit hole that would end up with examination of what you keep your thermostat at, how much food you waste, etc. Silly.

 

Yeah. They already do it with electricity and water usage. It's tiered usage. Your auto insurance is tied to the mileage you drive - duh....

You "need" this much for basic existence, extraneous above that is a luxury, and above that is opulence. It should be priced accordingly. Want to waste water on your goddam garden when you live in a desert, you can pay for it.

Pack of cigarettes used to cost $1.50 and be sold from vending machines when I was a kid. Now it's $8, with much of the excess going to numerous health related insurnaces, foundations, research, etc. etc. They've put a "price" on the harm rendered.

What's silly is thinking that you can change people's behaviors by "banning" things or change it by appealing to their good conscience or something else. Nah, just hit their pocket books. If it's harmful and bad, place a monetary value on that by what it would cost to correct the harm.

The top 1% of the socio-economic ladder generates as much pollution as the bottom 50%. The problem is that luxury goods and services aren't appropriately priced to take into account the true cost. They aren't "luxury" enough. Gotta make it more exclusive...
Wanna fly that private jet and float that yacht all over the place? Jet fuel should increase 10x. Increase docking fees for yachts. Increase fuel costs for non-commercial use boats. Wanna play with toys? You can do it. Just gotta pay for it. Wanna modify your car? That neanderthal test pipe isn't $80, it's $700. Wanna get it registered with that - gonna cost you $2000 (as opposed to the $157 I just paid for my s2k).

Gotta pay to play. Pony up and don't be poor.

 

Is buying a literal tank (aka full size SUV) for your family of three still acceptable? Just trying to figure out what hypocrisy we are choosing to overlook this month. Thanks!

 

I wouldn’t say that is the easy way.

consumption tax cant really have exceptions unless you want it to only have teeth for those least able to pay people to find and defend those exceptions

rich ppl already pollute more as it is, tie that tax to a percentage of income. elon musk wants to fly his private jet and generate a bunch of co2? Sick that will be $100,000,000.

that is the only way something like that can be impactful.

no and never should be.

 

Consumption tax is just a mess though. Food waste is probably the biggest issue the US has. How are you going to police people in their home wasting food? How are you going to get the restaurant and fast food industries to stop wasting so much food? Food waste is the biggest issue, cars aren’t even close. It’s not just the food waste, the landfill issue. It’s all the land, water, nutrients, feed, etc completely wasted. So you have all that land, water, etc wasted + all the physical waste via trash/landfill. It’s a mess. We waste 50% of food grown, or raised in the US. That is got D F’in pathetic. And everyone is fat. 70% are fat or obese. They eat too much, consume too much. And take Covid. That contributed to more people getting sick, more spread, less physical resiliency for someone’s immune system to handle and therefore give it to someone else. So there were thousands, hundreds of thousands of deaths, directly attributable to fat people and their poor immune systems. But we aren’t allowed to talk about fat, can’t fat shame. I mean is eating half way decent and being in shape, for your fellow countrymen really a bad thing? Isn’t this supposed to be America where we actually care about our own people? Nope. People are narcissists. So our biggest problems are overpopulation and food waste, not f’in cars.

Most people do not mod their vehicles in any way. Those few of us that do, at least in the vehicles I’m interested in, AWD turbos, most use a GESI or catted DP. Diesel coal rollers, sure, bust their asses. But other stuff? Come on. Negligible.

And taxing? Makes my skin crawl. The common working stiff, I’m one, well I pay a higher % of tax than people like Elon, and corporations like Verizon or GE, who have the lawyers, lobbyists, etc, to get net zero tax. It’s sickening. And people wonder why we’re trillions in debt. Go to a flat tax and no lawyering bs to negate it or get out of paying it. Pay the fiddler. If the common man/woman has to pay the fiddler so should you. It’s a f’in rigged system that angers me but it’ll never change. High income individuals, corporations, etc, will lobby to keep it rigged. Unless every citizen in this country is armed, and goes out into the streets to their municipalities and corps, nothing will change. It would take war. And nobody is going to do that because that would take away from screen time on their little pacifier phones and social media

 

Yea, I'm going to pass on propping up a bureaucratic apparatus to monitor and decide how to administer taxes on luxury goods, specific to that classification of good and/or person. The apparatus will grow indefinitely and the scope of things they are applying a tax to micro-manage the economy will eventually grow to everything. It will allow the bureaucratic state to control the flow of consumption by throttling tax rates on goods and services. Therefore, they would be able to control which sectors of the economy consumers are able to participate in. Eff that. I don't support it for cigarettes either and I'm not a smoker. If people want to smoke, let them. Everyone knows the harm at this point. If people want to contribute to cancer research of their own volition, great. If they want to die of cancer from smoking without pouring out enough money to cure it, that's fine too. They shouldn't be forced to pay for the research and outreach. By that same token though, I don't want to be forced to buy into healthcare premiums with them nor with people who choose to be obese.

Beyond that, what is the tax money going to in order to offset the theoretical damage to the globe? Buying "Carbon credits" is mostly a racket as far as I can tell. Honestly, I'd have to research carbon capture technology more and how those organizations are run. I'm not inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt or think that they are upstanding. Far too much money in too short of a time period that is forced to be funneled to them. Seems that the organizations that are labeled with the kindest, most charitable goals are also some of the most corrupt.

I have no sympathy for the folks that wax poetic about climate change while flying their private jets around. I'm open to taxing that in some way. Bonus tax if they have put out public statements on climate change. For consumer vehicles and normie goods, eff no. All that this will do is make any automotive hobby the luxury of only the super wealthy. I've mentioned before that I believe part of the reason that nobody with power is willing to go out on a limb and back the car community is because they don't have to. The wealthy can buy their GT3RS track day special that's perfectly sanctioned by the EPA as long as you have enough money. They can afford to be quiet about the aftermarket community being shut down because it doesn't matter to them. Or, if they do care, they can just pay the fine. Endorsing "Emissions defeat devices" is much more costly to their reputation/power than just paying the fines/fees or the supercar. The normal hobbyist with a Miata, S2k, Corvette, Mustang, whatever does not have that luxury.

A S2k that is driven on the road with a high flow cat and a FlashPro custom tune is technically a violation on the clean air act. FlashPro (non-California version) is an "Emissions defeat device" as far as they're concerned. I am not convinced that a 4 cyl. sports car using a high flow cat and a tune is contributing significantly more emissions than the average thing on the road.

 

Apparently you still do not. There's this inconvenient thing called second hand smoke, and if you live an an apartment or condo with shared walls and your next door neighbor is a smoker, guess what? You're now a smoker too... Sounds like this inconvenient pollution thing and the fact that we're all stuck on earth.

You also have zero clue how cancer research works. A lot of the research discoveries in one field are applicable to other fields. The same cancer drugs are used to treat multiple different kinds of cancer. And, if you knew anything about cancer statistics you'd realize that you're a coin flip away from cancer yourself - 50/50 chance of getting cancer for males. And in general, cancer rates continue to increase globally. I'm sure that there's a cause, but, uhhh, who cares, because, it's not me, right?

Unfortunately, for all of us, the vast majority seem to think that their actions only affect themselves and have little to no impact on those around them. But whatever, I digress, everyone continue with their "my actions only impact me bubble." I'm no saint in all of this and am guilty, so I bow out.

Motor on. I'll be at the track next week tearing up the environment. I'm happy that it's so cheap to do it, so that plebs like me can afford it.

 

A bit off topic but you mentioned cancer stats and you seem to know more than I do on this I've often wondered if race car drivers and people who do a lot of track driving have higher rates of cancer ? The stuff coming out of tailpipes , rubber tires, brakes, fluids , are all heavy carcinogens. Drivers are inhaling copious amounts of that stuff, so I would suspect they are more prone to certain cancers. I know one trip to the Dragon I was behind S2000's with test pipes for many hours a day 4-5 days, and I had my limit of inhaling smelly fumes for a lifetime, likely one reason I will never do that kind of trip again.

 

I'd say track/enthusiast driving won't be doing you any favors. FWIW - I got cancer (Hodgkin's lymphoma) at 32. I started tracking an ok amount at 26 - averaging 8 to 10 events a year.

I would assume that it increases the risk factors. Statistically significant higher rates of cancers among taxi, bus, and truck (lori) drivers based on a study out of denmark. And uhhh, speaking of lung cancer again....

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1757547/

 

Thanks for the reply, yeah I forgot about professional drivers of all kinds, that makes sense though. I do a fair bit of highway driving for work, glad that all of my cars have cabin filters , better than nothing at all. Sorry to hear of your diagnosis at a younger age, I hope it has worked out okay, I can see that as a balance between enjoying life and hobbies and protecting one's health. Thanks for the info.