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Kafka Esq. posted:It was me referencing Paul Wells. Nigel Wright made the PMO lock down to the point where his influence was the only thing that mattered. It simultaneously actually made the PMO nicer, but also vulnerable.  Shoulda guessed it was you Kafka
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Oct 6, 2014 21:37
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Helsing posted:My understanding is that teenagers are very price sensitive when it comes to alcohol and tobacco products. When you make those things more expensive then teenagers consume less of them, and since many people develop dependencies during their youth we probably can reduce the number of addicts by pricing young people out of those consumer groups. Yeah, it's definitely a very effective instrument in terms of stopping people before they start, I just question if it doesn't come at an unacceptably high cost to current addicts. There's definitely people spending money they can't afford to spend on their addictions, both legal and otherwise. I'm not sure how best to solve that problem. One issue that I have is that sin tax rates continue to increase regularly -- surely that's not necessary just to price them out of the "easily affordable for teenagers" range.
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Oct 6, 2014 21:41
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PT6A posted:Again, why should specific categories of products (especially as narrow as "cigars" and not simply all forms of tobacco) be singled out for this sort of thing? Why not just have a higher GST rate on anything other than food or clothing, or anything above a certain price? A cigar is only an expensive luxury good in Canada because our taxes drive up the price considerably; if they were taxed by weight similar to how pipe tobacco is taxed, they'd be far more within the reach of the average person. Further, it's not like obvious luxury goods like watches that cost more than my salary are subject to an extra punitive tax that in some cases reaches over 100% of wholesale value (and, by the time markups are applied, contribute much more to the cost of the final product). Oh, I'm not. In my earlier post I specifically said that we should be taxing the amount of tobacco or nicotine in order to curb consumption, not in order to tax cigars as a luxury product. It's very clearly weird policy. Helsing posted:My understanding is that teenagers are very price sensitive when it comes to alcohol and tobacco products. When you make those things more expensive then teenagers consume less of them, and since many people develop dependencies during their youth we probably can reduce the number of addicts by pricing young people out of those consumer groups. You're right, and in fact the data seem to bear it out as well.
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Oct 6, 2014 21:41
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a primate posted:Oh, I'm not. In my earlier post I specifically said that we should be taxing the amount of tobacco or nicotine in order to curb consumption, not in order to tax cigars as a luxury product. It's very clearly weird policy. It would be nearly impossible to tax based on nicotine levels, since it's a handmade agricultural product. It would also be a little silly, given the fact that we can't even have cigarettes called "light" or "mild" anymore (less nicotine doesn't make a safer cigarette), and the fact that nicotine absorption patterns differ greatly between pipe, cigar, and cigarette smokers. On the other hand, we already tax other forms of tobacco by weight, so we should probably do that. We even already have a rate set up for it!
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Oct 6, 2014 21:44
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PT6A posted:Again, why should specific categories of products (especially as narrow as "cigars" and not simply all forms of tobacco) be singled out for this sort of thing? Why not just have a higher GST rate on anything other than food or clothing, or anything above a certain price? A cigar is only an expensive luxury good in Canada because our taxes drive up the price considerably; if they were taxed by weight similar to how pipe tobacco is taxed, they'd be far more within the reach of the average person. Further, it's not like obvious luxury goods like watches that cost more than my salary are subject to an extra punitive tax that in some cases reaches over 100% of wholesale value (and, by the time markups are applied, contribute much more to the cost of the final product). I can't speak to cigars specifically, but one very important rationale for having higher sin taxes rather than just a higher GST is that, once again, you're monetizing the cost of a negative externality, in this case primarily the healthcare costs caused by people drinking and smoking any kind of tobacco, both of which are incredibly bad for you health-wise and increase your risk for a number of different costly diseases. Sin taxes may not be hugely effective at stopping people from buying alcohol and tobacco, except for poor teenagers, but they do force those people to contribute to the government which then foots the bill for their health treatment, or for the police who arrest them when they drive drunk, or for the counselors who try to help addicts quit their addictions in the first place, and so on. a primate posted:Disagree: they're all terrible (MGD is the best though, you're right) To be honest, by this point this is probably how many people it takes to keep six CF-18s flying in adverse conditions.
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Oct 6, 2014 21:54
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It'd be pretty fun if we just made it illegal to sell tobacco, fullstop. You can't easily mass produce that poo poo illicitly like weed, and there's no immediate intoxicating effect (such as with other substances) from it which would lead to a huge black market demand, so once the current filthy addicts died off we'd be free of it once and for all! 
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Oct 6, 2014 21:57
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Rime posted:It'd be pretty fun if we just made it illegal to sell tobacco, fullstop. There would be 1000 people gunned down in illegal tobacco smuggling rings within a week of the prohibitions start.
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Oct 6, 2014 22:00
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Okay, so, here's iPolitics with a rundown on what we learned in QP today:quote:Canada’s military contribution to fighting ISIL in Iraq is either a moral imperative or the first step towards a familiar quagmire; that much was clear from the motion the Harper government tabled Friday, and the opposition’s immediate, well, opposition. edit: You know what, here's the whole evening brief because it's the longest I've seen: quote:The Lead: Kafka Esq. has issued a correction as of 22:22 on Oct 6, 2014 |
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Oct 6, 2014 22:19
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Rime posted:It'd be pretty fun if we just made it illegal to sell tobacco, fullstop. I both a leftist and a statist but there are limits to what the government can do as well as perverse consequences to some policies, especially when it comes to prohibition. That doesn't mean it is impossible or even automatically a bad idea to ban something but these kinds of policies need to be considered very carefully before they are implemented. It's all to easy to create mutually reinforcing legal and illegal hierarchies, I.e. government agencies on the one hand and criminal syndicates n the other, both of which can grow parasitically off the dynamics of outlawing a popular and addictive substance.
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Oct 6, 2014 22:22
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vyelkin posted:I can't speak to cigars specifically, but one very important rationale for having higher sin taxes rather than just a higher GST is that, once again, you're monetizing the cost of a negative externality, in this case primarily the healthcare costs caused by people drinking and smoking any kind of tobacco, both of which are incredibly bad for you health-wise and increase your risk for a number of different costly diseases. Sin taxes may not be hugely effective at stopping people from buying alcohol and tobacco, except for poor teenagers, but they do force those people to contribute to the government which then foots the bill for their health treatment, or for the police who arrest them when they drive drunk, or for the counselors who try to help addicts quit their addictions in the first place, and so on. I know my post wasn't phrased perfectly, but I was referring just to the value-based taxes instead of the quantity-based taxes, which, I believe is specifically what Rutibex was responding to in the post I quoted. I get that smokers and drinkers need to pay for the externalities we cause, but I don't see why my decision to smoke a more expensive cigar versus a cheaper cigar of the same size means I need to pay an additional, very punitive sin tax. I am doing the same amount of damage to myself and society. Also, given that cigars, although dangerous, are not associated with nearly the same level of damage to the cardiovascular or pulmonary systems, either over the short- or long-term, it could make sense to tax them less than cigarettes by weight. I don't really think that would be wise, mind you -- let's just tax tobacco by weight, the same across the board, and be done with it.
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Oct 6, 2014 22:35
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a primate posted:Yea, that's why I think we should make the pricing staircase such that the first step is a doozy, but the rest aren't separated by much. We aren't doing the public any good making high-end liquor so expensive, so why bother? except that those taxes are (presumably) put towards social programs (to some extent) so the public does benefit. e: looks like somebody else made the same point, not trying to belabor it here.
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Oct 6, 2014 22:40
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PT6A posted:I know my post wasn't phrased perfectly, but I was referring just to the value-based taxes instead of the quantity-based taxes, which, I believe is specifically what Rutibex was responding to in the post I quoted. I get that smokers and drinkers need to pay for the externalities we cause, but I don't see why my decision to smoke a more expensive cigar versus a cheaper cigar of the same size means I need to pay an additional, very punitive sin tax. I am doing the same amount of damage to myself and society. Because Progressive Taxation.
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Oct 6, 2014 22:41
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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PittTheElder posted:Because Progressive Taxation. ...aaand we're back to "why doesn't this apply to other products?" Cigars have an "image" of being very high class and expensive, but if we taxed them roughly the same as we do other forms of tobacco, this would not be the case. In the absence of tax, you can get a decent cigar for the same price as a decent bottle of beer. Other luxury items do not have a separate tax applied (only GST), and other forms of tobacco are taxed by weight instead of wholesale price. What's so very different about cigars, then, that they should have an addition ad valorem tax applied, something which is not done for any other product?
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Oct 6, 2014 22:47
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Can we just get to the cheese chat and get this over with?
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Oct 6, 2014 22:50
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PT6A posted:...aaand we're back to "why doesn't this apply to other products?" Cigars have an "image" of being very high class and expensive, but if we taxed them roughly the same as we do other forms of tobacco, this would not be the case. In the absence of tax, you can get a decent cigar for the same price as a decent bottle of beer. Other luxury items do not have a separate tax applied (only GST), and other forms of tobacco are taxed by weight instead of wholesale price. What's so very different about cigars, then, that they should have an addition ad valorem tax applied, something which is not done for any other product? perhaps they know the market for fancy cigars can (and will) bear the increased tax and are just doing it to spite you?
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Oct 6, 2014 22:50
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JawKnee posted:perhaps they know the market for fancy cigars can (and will) bear the increased tax and are just doing it to spite you? Many markets would bear the increased price. Jewelry, watches, expensive fashions, business-class air travel, etc. All much more expensive and equally unnecessary. I think it's odd that they focus on this one case; if I were a cynical man, I'd say it's because they know they can paint anyone opposed as being supporters of Evil Tobacco Use! I just think it's a bad policy, and no one's been able to defend it with any kind of logic. Again: if you want to talk about increasing the GST, or instituting a tax on all luxury goods across the board, that's a valid discussion, but as it stands, this is an ill-conceived policy and it exists only because the people who instituted it knew they could easily get away with it.
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Oct 6, 2014 22:53
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I hate I ever even accidentally agree or even engage on this subject, but in terms of X and Y product of the same cost and same "vice content" (be that tobacco or what ever) being taxed at totally different rates, that seems like bullshit that isn't really serving anyone. A $50 box of cigars and a $50 box of cigs with the exact same tobacco content should be taxed at the same percentage (percentage, not total tax) Where I absolutely don't agree is the concept that a $10 bottle of wine and $50 bottle of wine both having the same tax amount based on alcohol content. It makes sense and seems "fair" from a naive libertarian viewpoint. If we're taxing the vice alone and these two bottles of wine are the exact same size and exact same alcohol content why not apply a flat tax based on that? The problem is, to then make up the difference in tax revenue cheap stuff would have to get more expensive so that the expensive stuff could get cheaper. So where you had, after tax, a $10 bottle of wine and a $50 bottle of wine you now have a $20 bottle of wine and a $40 bottle of wine. In the end of the day poor people are paying more taxes so wealthier people can save a few bucks on their nice wine. That's not how progressive taxation is supposed to work and no matter how "fair" it sounds it's still an outright attack on the poor at the benefit of the rich.
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Oct 6, 2014 22:58
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PT6A posted:instituting a tax on all luxury goods across the board, that's a valid discussion This would be my position on it, yes. And I'd say doing it because you know you can get away with it is pretty on-par for politics.
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Oct 6, 2014 23:00
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Baronjutter posted:Where I absolutely don't agree is the concept that a $10 bottle of wine and $50 bottle of wine both having the same tax amount based on alcohol content. It makes sense and seems "fair" from a naive libertarian viewpoint. If we're taxing the vice alone and these two bottles of wine are the exact same size and exact same alcohol content why not apply a flat tax based on that? The problem is, to then make up the difference in tax revenue cheap stuff would have to get more expensive so that the expensive stuff could get cheaper. So where you had, after tax, a $10 bottle of wine and a $50 bottle of wine you now have a $20 bottle of wine and a $40 bottle of wine. In the end of the day poor people are paying more taxes so wealthier people can save a few bucks on their nice wine. That's not how progressive taxation is supposed to work and no matter how "fair" it sounds it's still an outright attack on the poor at the benefit of the rich. Except we already do that for alcohol and every form of tobacco apart from cigars (in fact, the excise tax on wine is based on volume, not percentage, beyond a few ranges. Most of what we would call wine, which is to say >7% ABV, is taxed all at the same rate federally). Again, why should this progressive sales tax apply solely to cigars (or even just to alcohol and tobacco)? Surely, if it's a good idea, it should be applied to all things. I'm guessing the tax revenue you could make off one full business-class cabin or a nice Rolex far exceeds the tax money you're going to make off my stogies in a year, especially if taxed at the same 82% federal level as cigars are. I think that's a ridiculous tax rate, even for luxury products, and that's before provincial tobacco taxes are even considered.
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Oct 6, 2014 23:16
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My position on new taxes like tobacco and booze is that okay, I'm a leftist and think things should be taxed, but it's most of the time the poor who smoke and drink booze (even if EVERYBODY drank booze statistically there aren't as many rich people), and if you increase taxes here and there and give more tax cuts somewhere else then we end up the same except the poor have even less to live on and no new or better services for them. It's a distraction and a way to milk more money out of the average person, at least at the moment.
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Oct 6, 2014 23:33
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PT6A posted:Except we already do that for alcohol and every form of tobacco apart from cigars (in fact, the excise tax on wine is based on volume, not percentage, beyond a few ranges. Most of what we would call wine, which is to say >7% ABV, is taxed all at the same rate federally). 82%?? jesus christ, that sounds like some retarded legacy tax that the government forgot to update, like import taxes on textiles. I wasn't really following the tobacco chat, is there a reason in our history that cigars in particular got targeted like this that got mentioned?
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Oct 6, 2014 23:41
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PT6A posted:Except we already do that for alcohol and every form of tobacco apart from cigars (in fact, the excise tax on wine is based on volume, not percentage, beyond a few ranges. Most of what we would call wine, which is to say >7% ABV, is taxed all at the same rate federally). The problem is that taxes aren't set by benevolent philosopher kings, they are based on the tug of war between groups of producers, consumers, government bureaucrats and elected politicians. Since wealthy individuals and corporations are very good at evading income taxes or getting them reduced, which moves the burden of those taxes onto the middle class. The middle class feels over taxed and they vote for politicians who promise to cut their tax burden. Since people also expect services from the government that leads to taxes on consumption. Since producers / consumers will also lobby to escape taxes, that shifts consumption taxes onto items that for one reason or another are comparatively easy to tax. Tobacco is one of them, and since cigars have a smaller consumer base than cigarettes they probably present a particularly appealing target for taxes. If you want to break out of this dynamic but, presumably, don't want to abandon liberal capitalism, then you really need to think about ways to reduce the political power and influence of corporations and wealthy individuals. Otherwise you're going to be stuck in this dynamic where taxes get levied at disorganized or unpopular interest groups. You're stuck otherwise - the middle class are always going to demand government programs and tax credits that benefit them and they're often going to be resentful of being asked to pay the full tax burden for them. So until we have a system with the political mechanisms necessary to put the burden of those taxes on the wealthy you're probably going to end up paying more for things like cigars.
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Oct 6, 2014 23:54
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Maybe if we taxed our oil industry like a real country we could afford to lower taxes on fine cheese and cigars.
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Oct 6, 2014 23:57
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Rime posted:It'd be pretty fun if we just made it illegal to sell tobacco, fullstop. It's not like there is a giant country right next to us, where tobacco is legal, and a giant unguarded border.
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Oct 6, 2014 23:57
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Ron Paul Atreides posted:82%?? jesus christ, that sounds like some retarded legacy tax that the government forgot to update, like import taxes on textiles. I wasn't really following the tobacco chat, is there a reason in our history that cigars in particular got targeted like this that got mentioned? No, and it's being actively increased. When I started smoking cigars, I believe it was at 65%. Also, provincial tobacco tax is, in many cases, even higher than that! I don't wholly object to sin taxes, or even the idea of some sort of tax on luxury goods, but the way cigars are treated is just insane. On the other hand, the massive revenue stream associated with tobacco almost guarantees that it will remain legal forever, so it's not all bad.
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Oct 7, 2014 00:16
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Baronjutter posted:Maybe if we taxed our oil industry like a real country we could afford to lower taxes on fine cheese and cigars. That would be utter insanity. Instead, we should tax anything we deem to be too luxurious for the proletariat to engage in, until all activities in Canada can be considered revolutionary. JawKnee posted:This would be my position on it, yes. What is your criteria for "luxury goods"?
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Oct 7, 2014 02:31
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Helsing posted:The problem is that taxes aren't set by benevolent philosopher kings, they are based on the tug of war between groups of producers, consumers, government bureaucrats and elected politicians. This is a great post, and it describes the problem precisely. The incremental change in a democracy leads to this, and it's not a perfect system but it's not like we could do any better with a philosopher king.
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Oct 7, 2014 03:27
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The latest news out of the Toronto Mayoral race:National Post posted:With Rob Ford in the audience at Sunday’s debate, mayoral candidate Ari Goldkind grilled the Toronto mayor on his alleged use of “the K word,” an anti-Semitic slur.
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Oct 7, 2014 03:37
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Oct 7, 2014 03:45
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Whiskey Sours posted:The latest news out of the Toronto Mayoral race: How do you botch the "I'm not anti-Semitic, I have a Jewish friend" copout that badly.
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Oct 7, 2014 03:46
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It's been a long time since a Canadian political cartoon made me snort
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Oct 7, 2014 03:47
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One of them is black and the other is Asian and they both work like dogs. Great people.
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Oct 7, 2014 03:52
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Ahahahaha you think people like that couldn't possibly be real Then the Fords come along
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Oct 7, 2014 04:32
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PK loving SUBBAN posted:
"Jean!" Baird was noted to shout; "JEAN!" he repeated. Professor Shark posted:Apparently Propeller is very popular and well regarded by beer-nerds. I used to drink it exclusively because it was local, but the novelty of traditional beers made using time-honored recipes started feeling nouveau-yuppy and now I drink lighter stuff or my own. Propeller is what I drank when I was at Dal - it's also amusing to note that they brew/ed a special proprietary beer (or just re-label the Bitter) for the gay bar down the street, which should produce enough leftist feel-good feelings to allay any yuppiness.
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Oct 7, 2014 04:44
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The insane rates of our sin taxes are pushing poor people and teenagers towards cheaper drugs like 2$ meth pills. I have to work almost two hours to buy a 12 pack of the cheapest beer available. Meanwhile I could stay geeked up on speed for a whole week for the same price. It's something to think about.
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Oct 7, 2014 04:47
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smoke sumthin bitch posted:The insane rates of our sin taxes are pushing poor people and teenagers towards cheaper drugs like 2$ meth pills. I have to work almost two hours to buy a 12 pack of the cheapest beer available. Meanwhile I could stay geeked up on speed for a whole week for the same price. It's something to think about. Pretty sure you're more effective at work on speed than drunk, so that sounds good to me. Net win for society.
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Oct 7, 2014 06:16
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Professor Shark posted:Can we just get to the cheese chat and get this over with? CanPol thread, I have a confession to make. I... I... (hands shaking) used to love MacLaren's Imperial cheese as a child. (racking sob). 
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Oct 7, 2014 13:13
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Just to continue beer chat, PEI has PEI Breweries (formerly Gahan Brewery). Good beers. Their 1772 IPA is yummy.
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Oct 7, 2014 13:53
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Please replace the picture of JT in the OP with this, tia.
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Oct 7, 2014 14:06
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That image is the best because I honestly can't tell if it's supporting or mocking Trudeau.
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