4 ms·

It's usually better to have a high fee for things you don't want people to do rather than outright banning something. For example, rather than saying "planes m

It's usually better to have a high fee for things you don't want people to do rather than outright banning something. For example, rather than saying "planes must not be louder than 80db to land at this airport at night", you could instead say "planes must pay a $$$$ fee to the city for each db over 80db to land at the airport at night". The large fee means loud planes will very rarely land, but when they do it was because it was really worth it to them. The large fee compensates local residents in the form of reduced city taxes over time. If it starts happening too often and the residents don't think they're getting a good deal, they can increase the fee.

carlosjobim 3y ago
> It's usually better to have a high fee for things you don't want people to do rather than outright banning something. Even better is putting a high fee on things normal people have to do, so that you can continue to finance friends and family in the nomenklatura and make sure they afford everything that pleases them.
danielrhodes 3y ago
What types of activities does this apply to and where does it not apply? Just for the sake of argument, could this also apply to something like murder? i.e. if you wanted to murder somebody, you can do so only if you pay a super high fee otherwise go to prison. If you pay the fee, it must be worth it to you.
- olddustytrail 3y ago
  That was known as a weregild. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild
  - danielrhodes 3y ago
    Sounds similar to life insurance.
- Reefersleep 3y ago
  AKA legalizing murder for rich people?
- jkestner 3y ago
  It already practically does. You just pay the fee to sufficiently high-powered lawyers. Or spend the money to incorporate, where your actions can be divorced from the consequences and maybe you pay whatever the actuarial cost of a human life is.
mrguyorama 3y ago
>It's usually better to have a high fee for things you don't want people to do rather than outright banning something. Why? Any rule with a fine is a rule that the wealthy can just ignore. Why is that a desired attribute of the system? Your example is great because it doesn't mean that planes very rarely land there and are very important, but rather that rich people land there to get a burger next door whenever they want. >If it starts happening too often and the residents don't think they're getting a good deal, they can increase the fee. I don't see how more money makes you sleep better at night when the rich private plane owner is flying over your house most nights.
- bastawhiz 3y ago
  > I don't see how more money makes you sleep better at night Not paying property tax would definitely make me sleep better at night.
burkaman 3y ago
> when they do it was because it was really worth it to them But this is totally unrelated to why the thing was banned in the first place. We don't ban things out of a moral concern that the perpetrators haven't fully considered their lives and decided what's really important to them, we ban things because we don't want them to happen. I also disagree that "I am willing to pay a lot of money" has any correlation with "this action is worth a lot to me". To make that relationship work, the fine would have to be set at "whatever you personally consider to be a lot of money".
vGPU 3y ago
Yes, that would be a great example, especially when applied to gasoline. What could possibly go wrong from adding a sudden huge load to our already unstable and crumbling infrastructure? It’s not like we don’t have any spare parts for the majority of our grid or anything, right? Oh.
feldrim 3y ago
> The large fee compensates local residents in the form of reduced city taxes over time. I wish lowering the taxes by compensating with other means was a more common approach. The most usual approach is accumulating income in whatever way possible.
- 29083011397778 3y ago
  Isn't this in part because so many cities need all the cash they can get to fund individually-insolvent infrastructure? [0] If the goal is to be able to maintain roads that can't pay for themselves by enabling revenue generation, then I can absolutely see why cities would need to accumulate income in whatever way possible. [0] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/8/25/if-strong-towns-is-right-and-cities-are-insolvent-why-do-so-many-seem-to-be-doing-so-well https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/8/25/if-strong-town...
  - zbrozek 3y ago
    In my town's it's to pay an infinite parade of the city manager's friends as consultants on various non-issues.
    - sgtnoodle 3y ago
      You should become one of those consultants!
frognumber 3y ago
I agree, but ideally, the high fee should be proportionate. Cement is about $130/metric ton. A 30% surcharge seems comfortable. A 100%, I won't squirm at. An 800% surcharge feels punitive, rather than good policy. I'd like far more surcharges for consumer-unfriendly and environmentally-unfriendly actions, but mostly in the 1-5% range. That's enough to impact most margin-constrained firms, but not so much as to avoid innovation or distort strategy. Examples: - Make products repairable - Provide service manuals and full schematics - Provide parts at no more than e.g. 2x cost of the product (e.g. if I wanted to buy all the parts for my washing machine to build a new one, it might cost $1000 instead of $500) - Provide long support lives for e.g. security updates and parts - Make firmware / software open-source (consider my air conditioner, rather than Microsoft Office) - Use standard batteries and chargers - Avoid plastic - Minimize packaging ... etc. In a commodity market (like basic air conditioners), a 5% surcharge is way more than enough to influence behavior. On the other hand, if I have a genuinely better battery, or something super-confidential in my firmware, I can still keep it secret at modest cost.

carlosjobim 3y ago

> It's usually better to have a high fee for things you don't want people to do rather than outright banning something. Even better is putting a high fee on things normal people have to do, so that you can continue to finance friends and family in the nomenklatura and make sure they afford everything that pleases them.

danielrhodes 3y ago

What types of activities does this apply to and where does it not apply? Just for the sake of argument, could this also apply to something like murder? i.e. if you wanted to murder somebody, you can do so only if you pay a super high fee otherwise go to prison. If you pay the fee, it must be worth it to you.

olddustytrail 3y ago
That was known as a weregild. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weregild
- danielrhodes 3y ago
  Sounds similar to life insurance.
Reefersleep 3y ago
AKA legalizing murder for rich people?
jkestner 3y ago
It already practically does. You just pay the fee to sufficiently high-powered lawyers. Or spend the money to incorporate, where your actions can be divorced from the consequences and maybe you pay whatever the actuarial cost of a human life is.

mrguyorama 3y ago

>It's usually better to have a high fee for things you don't want people to do rather than outright banning something. Why? Any rule with a fine is a rule that the wealthy can just ignore. Why is that a desired attribute of the system? Your example is great because it doesn't mean that planes very rarely land there and are very important, but rather that rich people land there to get a burger next door whenever they want. >If it starts happening too often and the residents don't think they're getting a good deal, they can increase the fee. I don't see how more money makes you sleep better at night when the rich private plane owner is flying over your house most nights.

bastawhiz 3y ago
> I don't see how more money makes you sleep better at night Not paying property tax would definitely make me sleep better at night.

burkaman 3y ago

> when they do it was because it was really worth it to them But this is totally unrelated to why the thing was banned in the first place. We don't ban things out of a moral concern that the perpetrators haven't fully considered their lives and decided what's really important to them, we ban things because we don't want them to happen. I also disagree that "I am willing to pay a lot of money" has any correlation with "this action is worth a lot to me". To make that relationship work, the fine would have to be set at "whatever you personally consider to be a lot of money".

vGPU 3y ago

Yes, that would be a great example, especially when applied to gasoline. What could possibly go wrong from adding a sudden huge load to our already unstable and crumbling infrastructure? It’s not like we don’t have any spare parts for the majority of our grid or anything, right? Oh.

feldrim 3y ago

> The large fee compensates local residents in the form of reduced city taxes over time. I wish lowering the taxes by compensating with other means was a more common approach. The most usual approach is accumulating income in whatever way possible.

29083011397778 3y ago
Isn't this in part because so many cities need all the cash they can get to fund individually-insolvent infrastructure? [0] If the goal is to be able to maintain roads that can't pay for themselves by enabling revenue generation, then I can absolutely see why cities would need to accumulate income in whatever way possible. [0] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/8/25/if-strong-towns-is-right-and-cities-are-insolvent-why-do-so-many-seem-to-be-doing-so-well https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/8/25/if-strong-town...
- zbrozek 3y ago
  In my town's it's to pay an infinite parade of the city manager's friends as consultants on various non-issues.
  - sgtnoodle 3y ago
    You should become one of those consultants!

frognumber 3y ago

I agree, but ideally, the high fee should be proportionate. Cement is about $130/metric ton. A 30% surcharge seems comfortable. A 100%, I won't squirm at. An 800% surcharge feels punitive, rather than good policy. I'd like far more surcharges for consumer-unfriendly and environmentally-unfriendly actions, but mostly in the 1-5% range. That's enough to impact most margin-constrained firms, but not so much as to avoid innovation or distort strategy. Examples: - Make products repairable - Provide service manuals and full schematics - Provide parts at no more than e.g. 2x cost of the product (e.g. if I wanted to buy all the parts for my washing machine to build a new one, it might cost $1000 instead of $500) - Provide long support lives for e.g. security updates and parts - Make firmware / software open-source (consider my air conditioner, rather than Microsoft Office) - Use standard batteries and chargers - Avoid plastic - Minimize packaging ... etc. In a commodity market (like basic air conditioners), a 5% surcharge is way more than enough to influence behavior. On the other hand, if I have a genuinely better battery, or something super-confidential in my firmware, I can still keep it secret at modest cost.