[65833] in Cypherpunks
RE: Risk v. Charity (was: RE: Workers Paradise. /Political.
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (jbugden@smtplink.alis.ca)
Wed Sep 18 18:53:35 1996
From: jbugden@smtplink.alis.ca
Date: Wed, 18 Sep 96 18:26:17 EST
To: Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com>
Cc: cypherpunks@toad.com
Duncan Frissell <frissell@panix.com> wrote:
>Canada has the world's second most expensive system (after ours) and I
> think is a bit closer to 80% of our per cap expenditures. [...]
>Canadian costs have risen at approx the same rate as ours. =20
=20
Thanks for the figures and historical background. I'll keep trying to verif=
y the
figures I cited, but I see no reason to disagree with you.
=20
> Interestingly, even though government expenditures here are 60% of the
> total, per cap government expenditures on health care are higher here
> than in the UK under the Nattie Health. =20
=20
This is a surprise. I guess it would also be an example.
=20
>Course Canada lost it when smuggling defeated the high tax levels on
>cigarettes. This will be more of a problem in the future as more efficient
>markets enable more smuggling.
=20
At present, provinces west of Ontario have not dropped taxes, while Ontario,
Quebec and New Brunswick dropped them significantly (+50%). The drop had a
predictably negative effect on the smuggling, although due to the rapid inc=
rease
in smoking rates among adolescents pressure is mounting to increase the tax=
es
again.
=20
Most systems have undesired side-effects (e.g. remailers and spam). But if =
you
can keep second order effects from becoming first order, you're heading in =
the
desired direction.=20
=20
Ciao,
James
