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Originally Posted by Usually Lurkin
I think the decline in smoking shows that it's already taxed higher than drinking. The "can't be offset" argument isn't very good. Sun tanning is unhealthy and can't be offset.
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you don't use sunscreen? you should.
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Same for excessive caffeine. If someone invents a pill to offset the hazards of smoking, you'd be all for reducing the taxes? I don't think your liberal bretheren would be with you on that.
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some studies don't show that caffeine is bad for you.
if the affects of smoking weren't present, there wouldn't be the need for the tax.
can't spek for others btw.
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who set the price, who decides it's fair, and how does taxing someone after they make money make up for the crappy deal we struck with them in the first place?
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the price was set years ago by a bureaucrat.
we each decide in our own opinion what is fair.
increasing the taxes on their profits does make up for the "crappy deal". that's the whole idea.
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I'm not that simple. Seems to me the sellers of the pet rock make more money off their investments than the oil companies. Sounds like you just want to turn companies that do a good job into government servants.
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it is that simple.
don't know wht the profit margin is for the pet rock. do you?
did the pet rock manufacturers get their rocks for almost nothing out of public property?
nah. bad analogy on your part.
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ht be a simple enough concept for me if you'd clarify your position. Sometimes you're talking about how much money they are raking in as evil, then you're saying you're not talking about how much they sell it for, and now you're talking just saying you don't like the deal they made some time ago to get the oil out. If you decide ten years from now that the house you sold in the 80's just sold in 2006 for an obscene amount of profit for whomever sold it, and you look back at the rediculously low price you sold it for, should you be able to go get money from whomever it was that did such an awsome job buying and selling? Heck no. The most you should be able to do is do a better job sellling your next house.
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you have a hard time following this...
it's not the "making money" that's "evil" (your term mind you), it's the fact the producers get to take PUBLIC GOODS and make an extraordinary profit.
is that house a public good?
no.
another poor analogy.
want to try again?