• 2 Posts
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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 15th, 2023

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  • This is the basis for taxing high sugar convenience food. It was done for cigarettes, and today, consumers overwhelmingly see it as a good program. (Of course tobacco companies lobbied hard against it)

    You’re referring to so called “sin taxes”. I’m aware those exist for cigarettes of course, and I know some places have them for sugary drinks, but I’m not aware of any sin taxes on sweet food. I know many places that do not have sales tax food have exclusions that put candy back under regular sales tax, but those aren’t sin taxes, and the sales tax percentage (usually at or under 10%) wouldn’t come close to the sugar drink sin taxes I’ve seen (which are closer to 50%). In my state there’s no sin tax on sugary anything, only the rules that mean that candy bars would have regular sales tax applied (about 7% in my area).

    Can you cite a particular sin tax or situation where there is excessive taxation specifically on candy?


  • Like it or not, government making things artificially expensive in order to disincentivize people from buying the thing is a form of authoritarianism.

    I’m struggling to think of any scenario I would agree with your statement and I’m not coming up with anything. Further, I think your statement is dangerous because it dilutes the actual dangers and restrictions an authoritarian government would put in place.

    Gov’t should subsidize healthy food.

    Wouldn’t that meet your definition of authoritarianism because it is causing non-healthy food to be proportionally more expensive?


  • The rising price of most sweets and the continued decrease in quality is the greatest disincentive to buying them.

    I’m not a regular consumer of candy bars, but I saw that the price of a regular Snickers bar at a grocery store checkout is now about $2 each. Meanwhile in that same store you can get a box of brownie mix for about $2, 2 eggs will cost you about 60 cents and a quarter cup of vegetable oil will cost you about 10 cents for a total of about $2.70 yielding an entire tray of 15 brownies (or 18 cents per brownie). I get that part of that the candy bar is paying for convenience, but the differential is just too high now unless you just down have a kitchen available to you.




  • My undergrad university offers licensed Windows desktop OS to Alumni free of charge. This is how I’m legally using Windows Education version (which is the same as Enterprise). I got the sense it was part of a packaged software benefit program MS offers to educational institutions. You may want to see if yours does the same so you could get it free too.





  • Budgets (formal or informal)!

    • Have I covered all of my expenses? Yes.
    • Have I properly funded my savings (retirement, emergency fund, other savings goals)? Yes.
    • Do I have money left over? Yes!

    Permission to spend granted!

    Further before I buy something I’ll write it down on a list and essentially not buy it for a period of time (7 days? 30 days, a year?). I’ll come back to that list and gauge my interest again. Many, MANY times (most?) I don’t care about the thing anymore so I don’t spend the money.

    Then I’ll usually try to get the cheaper version (possibly used) of the thing first to make sure it still holds my interest in using it before I would justify buying the more expensive one. So many times the cheaper version does everything I need and I never need to buy the expensive version. When I do exceed the capabilities of the cheap version, and it is still holding my interest, I can then justify spending on the expensive (new?) version. Example: I wanted a bicycle to ride around the neighborhood for fitness and enjoyment. I looked at higher end brands and models, but first I bought a $200 Big Box Store Schwinn. I’m still using that same bicycle 6 years later with no need to replace it. One note, about two years into ownership I took it to an actual bicycle store for a tune up. The cost was about $80, I think. I wish I had done that on day 1! The bike’s brakes worked much better and the gear shifting were MUCH improved! Prior to the service, I would regularly have the chain come off from bad shifts. The last time that happened was 3 years ago prior to the service.


  • I mean, I get your frustration, but I would imagine many charitable organizations live by promotion of their mission or efforts. Lets say you get your way and they can’t use pictures of you. If you, in the act of providing services for that mission, appear in photographs, they can’t use any of that to promote their efforts.

    You are doing a good thing by volunteering. Keep looking for an org that matches what you’re looking for.


  • They elude to it in the second line after the title but they never point it out:

    Five years ago it was a lot easier to buy a car for less than $30,000.

    …and later in the article…

    New cars costing less than $30,000 were just 13.9 percent of all car sales in the first half of this year; for the first six months of 2019—before the pandemic drove up new car prices by so much—they made up 38 percent of new car sales.

    I think the answer is simply inflation:

    $30,000 in 2019 is worth $37,722.15 today

    …and…

    $24,000 in 2019 is worth $30,177.72 today

    So for apples to apples comparison the question should be, “How many fewer cars costing $24,000 in 2019 are there that cost $30,000 today?”, but the article doesn’t ask or answer that question.



  • However, being local

    Local meaning what does local have to do with it unless you’re allowing that bank to make a subjective decision about lending to you because they know you or the area? That’s how we got people of color being denied loans for houses in certain areas of town via “Redlining”. If we allowed this we might also have discrimination based on being LGBTQ or being an unmarried mother.

    and requiring proper collateral instead of just giving n people money en mass

    So if you need to get a car loan, and you don’t own any assets to put forth for collateral you just don’t get a car?

    Furthermore, if people couldn’t get loans for school so easily (in fact, guaranteed!) then college tuition would be but a fraction of what it is today.

    Furthermore, if people couldn’t get loans for school so easily (in fact, guaranteed!) then college tuition would be but a fraction of what it is today.

    And college would only be available to the rich that already have money, or the middle class with assets (like a house) to borrow against. The poor, without money or assets, would be shut out entirely.





  • If you work at your local library, you have to see how much it costs of acquisition of the collections as well as the facilities and staff that make these wonderful institutions possible. Public Library funding is frequently under attack and underfunded with many communities lack the services needed to serve the needs they have.

    Do you honestly believe that in your preferred system of a small group of people voluntarily paying would be enough to replace the tax driven system we have today? Your suggestion about front lawn free libraries as a replacement suggests you may not have a full grasp on the expenses of a modern well run public library system.