barbos
Contributor
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The cost of smoking
- Thread starter Loren Pechtel
- Start date
barbos
Contributor
I thought tobacco was a state tax. I mean federal tax would have been the same regardless of the state.
EricK
Senior Member
You are no doubt correct. My comment was just a joke about governments' inconsistencies regarding various narcotics.
SimpleDon
Veteran Member
You have to ask yourself a simple question. Why are you so desperate to latch on to any small whiff of an reason to blame the poor for being poor?
So far in no particular order you have told us that the poor are poor because,
- They are bad parents.
- They have a culture of poverty.
- They refuse to go into debt to go to college
- They don't value education.
- They prefer to live on the overly generous welfare provided by the hard working tax payers.
- They don't realize that a free education is available on the Internet.
- They are congenitally lazy.
- They prefer crime.
- They take drugs.
- They live in bad neighborhoods with bad schools.
- They gamble.
And now, because they smoke cigarettes instead of investing the money. Presumably in highly leveraged derivatives paying 15% a year.
All of the time avoiding the simple fact that the poor are poor because their wages are too low.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
The "cost" of tobacco addiction is a combination of the cost of procuring the drug and the resulting health costs.
laughing dog
Contributor
Still waiting for a casual explanation on how smoking causes poverty.
Playball40
Veteran Member
I gave up underwear for smoking. Guess I'll break even.
T.G.G. Moogly
Traditional Atheist
That means you can't smoke in your underwear. Better watch where those hot ashes fall.
ronburgundy
Contributor
Let's step back from the ideological agenda's for a moment.
Smoking cannot plausibly be a cause of initial poverty, since even the most unrealistic estimates of lost $ presume long term impacts.
However, it is highly likely that once a person is in or close to poverty that smoking is a factor that exacerbates and intensifies poverty and makes it harder to emerge out of once in, and increases future poverty of ones offspring.
As to lost investments, that is ridiculous notion that could only be put forth by someone completely ignorant or the realities of being poor.
If rich people who smoke quit, they could invest that money. IF poor people who smoke quit, they'd need to spend that $5 per day on more and better food or clothing for their kids. Maybe they could use a portion of it to pay their debts and bills and thus avoid some of the massive fines and interest rates they pay on such debts (a surprisingly valid point made by Derec). But again, this only matters for the debts of people already poor and unable to meet their basic food, clothing, and shelter costs. By this route, the $1800 actual cost of cigs per year could plausibly mean closer to $3000 in debt per year. IT makes their debts bigger and last longer. It means their kids already born into poverty suffer more from it and thus be even less likely to get out of poverty themselves.
As to poverty hardships causing more smoking, that almost certainly true as well. But that is not a counter to the above. It just means that poverty promotes behaviors, such as smoking, that make poverty worse. IOW, poverty causes future and worse poverty and smoking is among the mediating mechanisms.
This is a non-ideological attempt to reason about the issue. As to how that analysis can be used to advance political agendas, it cuts both ways. On the pro-liberal side it is part of a mechanism supporting the idea that poverty causes more poverty and undercuts conservative claims about how easy it is to get out of poverty by just working harder. On the other hand, though a serious biological addiction, it is possible to quit. Thus, there should be concerted efforts point out the economic harms of poverty, and it could be argued that high cig taxes should be reduced because they worsen poverty and its impacts.
Smoking cannot plausibly be a cause of initial poverty, since even the most unrealistic estimates of lost $ presume long term impacts.
However, it is highly likely that once a person is in or close to poverty that smoking is a factor that exacerbates and intensifies poverty and makes it harder to emerge out of once in, and increases future poverty of ones offspring.
As to lost investments, that is ridiculous notion that could only be put forth by someone completely ignorant or the realities of being poor.
If rich people who smoke quit, they could invest that money. IF poor people who smoke quit, they'd need to spend that $5 per day on more and better food or clothing for their kids. Maybe they could use a portion of it to pay their debts and bills and thus avoid some of the massive fines and interest rates they pay on such debts (a surprisingly valid point made by Derec). But again, this only matters for the debts of people already poor and unable to meet their basic food, clothing, and shelter costs. By this route, the $1800 actual cost of cigs per year could plausibly mean closer to $3000 in debt per year. IT makes their debts bigger and last longer. It means their kids already born into poverty suffer more from it and thus be even less likely to get out of poverty themselves.
As to poverty hardships causing more smoking, that almost certainly true as well. But that is not a counter to the above. It just means that poverty promotes behaviors, such as smoking, that make poverty worse. IOW, poverty causes future and worse poverty and smoking is among the mediating mechanisms.
This is a non-ideological attempt to reason about the issue. As to how that analysis can be used to advance political agendas, it cuts both ways. On the pro-liberal side it is part of a mechanism supporting the idea that poverty causes more poverty and undercuts conservative claims about how easy it is to get out of poverty by just working harder. On the other hand, though a serious biological addiction, it is possible to quit. Thus, there should be concerted efforts point out the economic harms of poverty, and it could be argued that high cig taxes should be reduced because they worsen poverty and its impacts.
Smoking is an addiction, and addiction has to do with how the environment affects the mental and emotional state. Poverty is but one aspect of an environment where addiction flourishes.
Tobacco taxes are state excise taxes, which are levied per pack, without regard to the retail price of the pack.
There was a time, and this may still be true, when it was more lucrative to counterfeit New York state tobacco tax stamps, that US currency. Organized crime racketeers could buy a truck load of cigarettes for less than 25 cents a pack(1960's prices)in North Carolina, bring them to New York, affix the counterfeit stamps and sell them at the regular price.
In 2002, I was stuck in Torrance, CA for a few days. I had no car, but the hotel courtesy van would take guests to a nearby mall. The mall tobacco shop was holding a "going out of business" sale. I stopped to browse and was shocked by the price of cigars. I had been in Houston a week earlier and found the same cigars for about one quarter the California price. The shopkeeper explained the California tobacco tax made up the difference.
Taxes on alcohol and tobacco have always been called "sin taxes." The alcohol and tobacco industry have generally gone along with the heavy taxes on their product, because it seemed to have little effect on sales volume.
The premise of this thread has had many names in the past, everything from "drink is the curse of the working class," to "Mr. Potter's thrifty working class." It's all based on the idea that poor people are ultimately responsible for their condition, because of their poor habits.
The numbers are based on 8%--which has long been considered the standard of what you can get from equity investing. While the number is wrong it's still widely used, I won't blame them for using it.