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1. I'm perfectly fine with mandatory liability insurance. Requiring assurance that someone can pay for any damage they do before granting them access to our roa

by ikeboy 7y ago

1. I'm perfectly fine with mandatory liability insurance. Requiring assurance that someone can pay for any damage they do before granting them access to our roads is fine. 2. "state governments have also determined that it's in our collective best interest to not allow for bad behavior by insurers in overcharging drivers for things not directly related to risk." This doesn't follow. You need to argue for a market failure of some sort to justify regulation. Seatbelts are mandatory, but it doesn't follow from there that the government must regulate the pricing structure of seatbelt manufacturers. 3. "The reason for this is that making car insurance generally unaffordable to classes of people tends to exacerbate divisions in society, at least in the United States." This is properly handled with subsidies, not mandates, as I already mentioned in other comments. 4. "Finally, it cannot be taken for granted that companies always discriminate fairly when there are no laws to prevent them from not doing so." We don't need to take that for granted. The only relevant question is whether there is competition. If there's a monopoly, perhaps created by onerous government regulations, then there might not be sufficient competition. Again, you need to argue for a market failure, which you have not.

jmcqk6 7y ago
You're acting like the parent you're responding to was making an argument for something, instead of describing the current reality.
- ikeboy 7y ago
  Perhaps. My "why are states in that business" was meant as a moral question, not a factual question.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- SilasX 7y ago
  Gotcha -- so it wasn't even trying to answer the prompt, and was just block of text that doesn't contribute to the discussion. Flagging, then. (not really, just saying ... keep your eye on the ball, commenters)
  - Edman274 7y ago
    Hold on. Here is the literal word for word question that I replied to: "Why is the government in the business of disapproving prices in the first place?" My answer was long winded and did not directly answer that question, but requires a person to come to the point themselves. Here's my answer: The government is in the business of disapproving prices because it requires people to purchase a product in order to engage in behavior that we feel is valuable, and the "government" (effectively, all of us) have decided that prices should be correlated with risk, and not discriminate on historically discriminated groups of people. Are you seriously suggesting that the only answers to a rhetorical question should be arguing in favor of a position rather than explaining the logic behind a position?
    - ikeboy 7y ago
      You deleted your other response after I had already written a long response, so I'm going to reply here instead. <Deleted comment:> I do not believe it is a valuable use of my time to write, nor is it a valuable use of your time to read an argument in favor of the concept of a representative democracy, which is ultimately what an answer to "Why is the government in the business of disapproving prices in the first place?" would entail. The morals in play are these: 1. Do we consider the supposed "right" of a corporation to discriminate on the basis of race in pricing to supersede the right of a driver to affordable insurance? 2. Does a government have the right to require people to buy insurance? 3. Is the action of the "free market" in correcting unfair price discrimination so robust that government intervention is not only unnecessary, but counter-productive? 4. Is collectively subsidizing bad risks something that should be done explicitly (through government subsidies taken from taxation) or implicitly (through pricing that forces the cheapest insureds to pay a little more and the most expensive insureds to pay a little less)? Answering these questions is an enormous waste of time if you're a libertarian or an anarchist. Asking a rhetorical question and expecting to get a moral justification for why "a government does a thing" is arguing in bad faith if you don't straight up say "Why is the government in the business of rejecting prices? Also, I don't think the government should reject prices because the free market will figure it out. I am not going to change my mind on this." </Deleted comment> My reply: 1. Entirely irrelevant. Corporations have no rights. Neither does anyone have a right to cheap services. It may be a good public policy goal for certain services to be more affordable than the market clearing price - I believe this should be addressed via subsidies absent a strong market failure argument. 2. I already agreed with this. Although I wouldn't frame any of this as a "right", the question is if it's a good idea for the government to do so. The government has a "right" to pay people to dig ditches and then refill them, but it would be a bad idea. 3. The burden of proof should be on the person arguing for additional regulations. I reject the attempt to shift the burden of proof. I'm asking for the case for regulation; "you can't conclusively prove that it's harmful" is not a positive case for regulation. 4. This is a legitimate question. You've made no arguments on this question so far, but I will reply to any arguments you may make on this issue in good faith. My prior is that explicit subsidies are likelier to be more efficient. I'm not a libertarian or an anarchist. I'm just skeptical of government action and expect strong justifications for regulations. It's clear that many regulations are harmful and that some are beneficial, and it's also clear that many lawmakers or regulators have not thought all that deeply about what the best system of regulation is. Being skeptical and expecting justification before something like price controls is hardly bad faith. Finally, "I think this particular thing the government does is harmful" is a very different claim than "I don't believe in representative democracy". Let's stipulate that representative democracy is better than any realistic alternative. That still doesn't tell us whether any particular action is good. P.S. I tend to favor regulations that involve higher transparency, as opposed to banning actions completely, as there are strong economic benefits to information. I also like pigovian taxes on negative externalities. Don't assume that everyone you meet is the most extreme strawman that shares those views.

by ikeboy 7y ago

jmcqk6 7y ago

You're acting like the parent you're responding to was making an argument for something, instead of describing the current reality.

ikeboy 7y ago
Perhaps. My "why are states in that business" was meant as a moral question, not a factual question.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
SilasX 7y ago
Gotcha -- so it wasn't even trying to answer the prompt, and was just block of text that doesn't contribute to the discussion. Flagging, then. (not really, just saying ... keep your eye on the ball, commenters)
- Edman274 7y ago
  Hold on. Here is the literal word for word question that I replied to: "Why is the government in the business of disapproving prices in the first place?" My answer was long winded and did not directly answer that question, but requires a person to come to the point themselves. Here's my answer: The government is in the business of disapproving prices because it requires people to purchase a product in order to engage in behavior that we feel is valuable, and the "government" (effectively, all of us) have decided that prices should be correlated with risk, and not discriminate on historically discriminated groups of people. Are you seriously suggesting that the only answers to a rhetorical question should be arguing in favor of a position rather than explaining the logic behind a position?
  - ikeboy 7y ago
    You deleted your other response after I had already written a long response, so I'm going to reply here instead. <Deleted comment:> I do not believe it is a valuable use of my time to write, nor is it a valuable use of your time to read an argument in favor of the concept of a representative democracy, which is ultimately what an answer to "Why is the government in the business of disapproving prices in the first place?" would entail. The morals in play are these: 1. Do we consider the supposed "right" of a corporation to discriminate on the basis of race in pricing to supersede the right of a driver to affordable insurance? 2. Does a government have the right to require people to buy insurance? 3. Is the action of the "free market" in correcting unfair price discrimination so robust that government intervention is not only unnecessary, but counter-productive? 4. Is collectively subsidizing bad risks something that should be done explicitly (through government subsidies taken from taxation) or implicitly (through pricing that forces the cheapest insureds to pay a little more and the most expensive insureds to pay a little less)? Answering these questions is an enormous waste of time if you're a libertarian or an anarchist. Asking a rhetorical question and expecting to get a moral justification for why "a government does a thing" is arguing in bad faith if you don't straight up say "Why is the government in the business of rejecting prices? Also, I don't think the government should reject prices because the free market will figure it out. I am not going to change my mind on this." </Deleted comment> My reply: 1. Entirely irrelevant. Corporations have no rights. Neither does anyone have a right to cheap services. It may be a good public policy goal for certain services to be more affordable than the market clearing price - I believe this should be addressed via subsidies absent a strong market failure argument. 2. I already agreed with this. Although I wouldn't frame any of this as a "right", the question is if it's a good idea for the government to do so. The government has a "right" to pay people to dig ditches and then refill them, but it would be a bad idea. 3. The burden of proof should be on the person arguing for additional regulations. I reject the attempt to shift the burden of proof. I'm asking for the case for regulation; "you can't conclusively prove that it's harmful" is not a positive case for regulation. 4. This is a legitimate question. You've made no arguments on this question so far, but I will reply to any arguments you may make on this issue in good faith. My prior is that explicit subsidies are likelier to be more efficient. I'm not a libertarian or an anarchist. I'm just skeptical of government action and expect strong justifications for regulations. It's clear that many regulations are harmful and that some are beneficial, and it's also clear that many lawmakers or regulators have not thought all that deeply about what the best system of regulation is. Being skeptical and expecting justification before something like price controls is hardly bad faith. Finally, "I think this particular thing the government does is harmful" is a very different claim than "I don't believe in representative democracy". Let's stipulate that representative democracy is better than any realistic alternative. That still doesn't tell us whether any particular action is good. P.S. I tend to favor regulations that involve higher transparency, as opposed to banning actions completely, as there are strong economic benefits to information. I also like pigovian taxes on negative externalities. Don't assume that everyone you meet is the most extreme strawman that shares those views.