Taxpayer Burden of Wowsers: The High Cost of Good Health.

Over October of last year Gareth Morgan was tweeting on his distaste of paying the health bills of the hedonistic unhealthy, and thus of his divine right to lecture and coerce all of us on how we choose to live; advocating taxes on sugar, fat, higher excises on alcohol and tobacco ... the whole wowser routine – he even took time out from his cat killing pogrom to inform us of this. He does actually have a point in that when we have a tax system forced on us then saving taxpayer money is a valid goal, and thus, in this case, seemingly a lever to use to bully individuals on their lifestyle choices  – indeed, this is part of my objection to the tax state. My reply to him at that time was that he was definitely wrong on a philosophical basis:

… but the mathematics of food fascism and alcohol wowserism, let’s call it fascowerism is interesting.

My argument against food taxes and alcohol excises will always be the philosophical one of … a tax on food choice is a tax on choice, period; it's an attaxk on freedom.

Then regarding his cost complaint, I employed a completely unstudied, therefore unevidenced, logic hypothesising that it was the healthy who were in fact the drain on our healthcare dollar, for lardarses and big drinkers like yours truly may conceivably be doing the taxpayer a favour by generally dying earlier:

So let’s look at the underlying case for costs Gareth is making. I don’t have to research and answer any of the below questions. But Gareth who wants to raise the cost of living for all of us, including, I suspect disproportionately, a large grouping of society who can least afford the higher cost of food, has to answer these if he wants to make his case for fascowerism on grounds of savings to the taxpayer.

Surmise that by taxing food society ends up with healthier, longer living individuals. Okay, but what is the actual change in health costs? Is it a saving?

People who die earlier of obesity related diseases may well impact on health costs for a much lesser period of time than longer living healthier people who are still going to die of something, as well as being around longer to incur injury or disease, the latter of which with their healthier immune systems they might keep surviving from to be admitted into the health system with something else. Amateur prognosticating, yes, but I think the logic unavoidable surely.

Also, some of the obesity related diseases such as diabetes are no doubt expensive because their duration is extended, however, some of the related diseases such as coronary, which without any facts I’m going to assume to be the bigger ailment from inappropriate eating and drinking, oftentimes will have very quick outcomes. Perhaps just the cost of the ambulance to Accident and Emergency. Whereas aren’t healthier, lingering people more likely to die from longer, lingering diseases such as cancer meaning more public health bedtime, drugs and salaries?

So, cognisant of the trade-offs, are there any studies that indicate what the likely change in the cost of healthcare is from people eating healthier and living longer? It may not be that significant, or even savings at all?

Ahem, if you could see my face as I type this, you would note the overwhelming feature would be a huge smile. For given the above, you’ll understand how chuffed I must be to now find evidence that I am right, not the All-Knowing Fascowerist Morgan.  From the New York Times:

In a paper published online Monday in the Public Library of Science Medicine journal, Dutch researchers found that the health costs of thin and healthy people in adulthood are more expensive than those of either fat people or smokers.

[Snip].

The researchers found that from age 20 to 56, obese people racked up the most expensive health costs. But because both the smokers and the obese people died sooner than the healthy group, it cost less to treat them in the long run.

On average, healthy people lived 84 years. Smokers lived about 77 years and obese people lived about 80 years. Smokers and obese people tended to have more heart disease than the healthy people.

Cancer incidence, except for lung cancer, was the same in all three groups. Obese people had the most diabetes, and healthy people had the most strokes. Ultimately, the thin and healthy group cost the most, about $417,000, from age 20 on.

The cost of care for obese people was $371,000, and for smokers, about $326,000.

The results counter the common perception that preventing obesity will save health systems worldwide millions of dollars.

"This throws a bucket of cold water onto the idea that obesity is going to cost trillions of dollars," said Patrick Basham, a professor of health politics at Johns Hopkins University who was unconnected to the study. He said that government projections about obesity costs are frequently based on guesswork, political agendas and changing science.

So, given there is no justification in terms of saving taxpayer dollars for telling me what to eat and what to drink, and I include in this every academic wanting to tax sugar, fat and thus living, we necessarily fall back onto the philosophical argument which for me - a free man - is leave me alone; I take the consequences of how I choose to live, so it’s none of your damned business. Gareth go back to bullying cats, and academics go find a job that doesn’t include you living on my tax dollars, you patronising fascowerists.

Food Taxes: The Mathematics of Health and Tyranny. Gareth Morgan - Fascowerist.

Food taxes and subsidies will probably protect health & reduce inequalities – but the devil is in the detail http://t.co/WG6tmYU8hn
— Gareth Morgan (@garethmorgannz) October 10, 2013

@garethmorgannz A tax on food choice is a tax on choice, period. It's an attaxk on freedom. Go away busy-body.
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) October 10, 2013

@MarkHubbard33 and the tax on booze and cigs? Why should I pay your health bills from your poor choices bludger? Taxes help you think
— Gareth Morgan (@garethmorgannz) October 10, 2013

I won’t bore you with the rest of the exchange, but the mathematics of food fascism and alcohol wowserism, let’s call it fascowerism – not to be confused with radshitzyism - is interesting.

My argument against food taxes and alcohol excises will always be the philosophical one of my first tweet: a tax on food choice is a tax on choice, period; it's an attaxk on freedom. But it appears Gareth is arguing his case from cost considerations: he doesn’t want to pay for bludgers, thus will restrict the freedom of a whole society to achieve what he sees as the worthy miserly benevolence of fascowerism. And by the bye, because he is incapable of seeing beyond his own importance, the irony will be lost on Gareth that I will be able to afford to eat and drink what I want, despite his tax lust.

A free man knows that the answer is not to tax all of us, but to make individuals responsible for their choices via the burden of their own health costs, but statists have an innate belief in their own superiority and your stupidity, thus will never be able to resist the patronising answer that puts them in your house, in this case every meal time, sitting around your table to lecture you from chick pea entrée (*) to fresh fruit salad dessert. That Gareth is convinced of his own superiority is evidenced by the arrogance in his posting to me - whom he doesn’t know from Kim Jong-un - assuming me a bludger, because Gareth is the only one working, right?

So let’s look at the underlying case for costs Gareth is making. I don’t have to research and answer any of the below questions. But Gareth who wants to raise the cost of living for all of us, including, I suspect disproportionately, a large grouping of society who can least afford the higher cost of food, has to answer these if he wants to make his case for fascowerism on grounds of savings to the taxpayer.

Surmise that by taxing food society ends up with healthier, longer living individuals. Okay, but what is the actual change in health costs? Is it a saving?

People who die earlier of obesity related diseases may well impact on health costs for a much lesser period of time than longer living healthier people who are still going to die of something, as well as being around longer to incur injury or disease, the latter of which with their healthier immune systems they might keep surviving from to be admitted into the health system with something else. Amateur prognosticating, yes, but I think the logic unavoidable surely.

Also, some of the obesity related diseases such as diabetes are no doubt expensive because their duration is extended, however, some of the related diseases such as coronary, which without any facts I’m going to assume to be the bigger ailment from inappropriate eating and drinking, oftentimes will have very quick outcomes. Perhaps just the cost of the ambulance to Accident and Emergency. Whereas aren’t healthier, lingering people more likely to die from longer, lingering diseases such as cancer meaning more public health bedtime, drugs and salaries?

So, cognisant of the trade-offs, are there any studies that indicate what the likely change in the cost of healthcare is from people eating healthier and living longer? It may not be that significant, or even savings at all?

And if that is not problematic enough, then the same ethic that leads a society to universal healthcare, also leads to universal superannuation, such as we have in New Zealand. People living longer means a higher superannuation cost. Indeed, a much higher superannuation cost,  remembering it is the cost of superannuation that is in big part responsible for collapsing the economies, thus societies of Europe and the US currently and into the future.

Given this, the algebra becomes:

Taxpayer savings in healthcare of healthier eating = savings in health costs (this could be negative) - increased cost of superannuation.

I can easily envisage this equation ending up a negative number, thus a cost on the taxpayer.

I love a drink or four, but I eat healthy. It would be over a year since we’ve had fish and chips or a take-away, plus I walk twice a day, and kayak when we’re in the Sounds, so I recommend healthy eating and exercise for a good life, but I’m not so arrogant as to impose my values or a joyless fascowerism on anyone else. So on the level of taxpayer savings that Gareth has cast his net, does anyone have any figures to slot into my equation above? Is he even correct on the brutal but necessarily dispassionate level of cost?

If he is wrong in even this, that would be the sugar laden icing on the cake, and I’ll drink copiously to that.

________________________________________________________________

(*) This comment was said for effect, not in honesty. Funnily enough, I love chick peas. With my Friday night bottle/s of wine I eat a can of chick peas rather than a packet of crisps. Stunningly, I did that without a tax on crisps. Albeit I eat my chick peas in the knowledge that like soy beans they’re probably genetically modified, thus will kill me.

Gareth Morgan New Zealand’s Richest Communist. We’re All Renters Now.

Gareth Morgan is worried about the housing bubble still. Quite apart from the fact that house market prices in every area we live – South Canterbury, Canterbury, and Marlborough - are lower than building replacement cost, owing in some large part to the regulatory environment, and meaning the bubble is the permanent and continual growth of government, Gareth is now manically wishing to rush us  down the road to serfdom at pace. No longer, according to Gareth, is a mere capital gains tax  enough, but:

… the tax policies the Labour and the Greens propose – capital gains tax with exemptions for owner-occupied housing – are too timid to be our ticket out of this mess. Not a capital gains tax but a wealth tax which includes owner-occupied housing and is integrated with income tax would do a far better job of meeting those tenets of good tax policy.

Thing is, Gareth, a communist’s good tax policy is a free man’s gulag. And as for a tax on owner-occupied housing, my single tweet sums up what I think:

@garethmorgannz Owner-occupied housing tax means end of freehold. All renters,  govt our landlord. 1st time I've sworn on Twitter: Fuck you.
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) July 8, 2013

A tax on owner-occupied housing is a rental paid to government. We all become renters, the government our landlord, freehold would truly have no meaning anymore. This is the land of renters drawn from the poverty of a rich man’s mind. And no doubt it will be accepted, ultimately, due to a sickness of philosophy in the West that has been fatal, with more of the surveillance police state needed to operate it. Stick to killing cats, Gareth, and please get out of my home, because your latest policy is a home invasion.

I Don’t Like Political Hypocrisy. (Nor Gareth Morgan's Independent Tax Setting Body.)

If you come from a party that believes in the big state, with its big tax take, you have no grounds, certainly not moral, for tweets such as this. File the below hypocrisy in that planet-sized bureaucracy called busy-body bossy left politics.

@DavidClarkNZ And how does a govt that believes in 'hands on' regulation, & that needs a higher tax take, intend to reduce compliance?
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) June 27, 2013

@DavidClarkNZ It's called eating your cake, eating my cake, then having them still, David. U only achieve that thru bogus religion.
— Mark Hubbard (@MarkHubbard33) June 27, 2013

Needless to say, I got no answer. David was trying a cheap shot, and took off his toe again.

I also note this week Gareth Morgan writing of the need for an independent tax setting body to take tax decisions out of the politicians hands – he now sees this as the only way of taxing housing, property, business equity (I seem to remember), that is, capital. Sorry, Gareth, as bad as these politicians are, it’s called representative democracy. I am worse off with a technocrat setting tax policy – and let’s take it for granted I’m not going to agree with your technocrats – than a politician, because at least I have this tiny, incey wincey possibility of helping to vote a politician out of office, whereas I will have no control or voice, whatsoever, in the role, decisions or careers of permanently established Humphrey Appleby technocrats. Technocrats will be as open to self-interest as politicians are, but will be utterly beyond my reach. Worse, this then truly does institutionalise the notion of taxation in our society, and freedom lovers like myself, libertarians, the very odd librarian, classical liberals, are implacably opposed to that. We’ve all forgotten how much of our taxation, certainly income tax, is a very recent concept, and the only revolution that has had lasting good, that American one, was rightly set off by the imposition of taxes at minute levels our current parliaments pass annually without comment, even through excises (forget the really big taxes).

We need a conversation about tax, alright, but that conversation starts in philosophy, and the role of government in our lives, and whether the West is about freedom, or this surveillance state we find ourselves in.

Western Economies – Gone by Glide Time

I can demonstrate, by quoting one simple letter, why Western economies - particularly Europe - are failing. It’s more obvious than just the debt built up by politicians whom Keynes let off the leash of responsibility. It's more obvious than the central banked fiat money system, or democracy under a tyranny of the majority following the bribes of unprincipled politicians looking for a free lunch and no risk. It is, indeed, a tangible thing that covers and smothers you: the massive, moribund, choking, blanket of regulation reaching around the world, that has been patched and patched and patched to stitch us up over the last seventy years.

About fourteen or fifteen years ago ‘we’ – my wife and I being one of those joint account type of families - invested –Jesus, sorry, fell off my chair – we threw $10,000 into a UK investment trust. The plan – note this Mr Taxman – was long term savings into what in those days I thought to be capitalist economies, so providing us alcohol for old age. Trouble is, after at least, two, three, who knows how many inflationary bubbles called economic booms over that period, our $10,000 was at the end of March 2012, worth only $7,102.39. Over that time the damn thing has driven me nuts: the investment trust has changed its name at least four times; I once spent the better part of a day just trying to track it to its new name, as I updated its once a year belly laugh we called a ‘balance’  for our financial statements. Every time we’ve changed house I’ve had to hunt through reams of paper to find the address of the latest registrar – changed at least three times – to send new contact details. So, we’ve decided it’s better to cash up early: we’re planning to put the whole lot - minus loss, admin fees and commissions - into short term deposits while we not so slowly drain it off and drink it, to help get us to old age. And the process has set me to pondering over a glass of wine or three in the interim.

Here’s a big question: is modern portfolio theory such a good idea under crony capitalism? That was the central point I missed at the start of all this, and I’ve been learning to my detriment: the West is no longer capitalist, hasn’t been for a very long time, it is, as George Orwell called it, state capitalism, or crony capitalism, or socialism by any other name: more accurately, it’s statism. Indeed, the misnomer of Keynesian aggregates has effectively given the statist politicians an excuse to build national Ponzi schemes which, in a plot that makes a James Bond movie look daft in comparison, are now set to destroy the world’s savings, and with them, much of the middle class. And we are the generation for whom the chickens of truth have come home to roost and expose the battery cages that taxpayers have been imprisoned in, showing how they are standing on a rank, steaming hubris of shit. More, against this stench, diversification is no safeguard, there’s no clear air anywhere which allows the untaxed, unregulated voluntary transaction, while the maxim of hold long has become the one guaranteed way to lose the nest egg. As bad as my job is, I still thank Job I’m not a financial planner as Western stat(ist) capitalism gets printed on the presses into the end game. I sometimes wonder if this’s why Papa Morgan spends so much of his time chasing penguins in icy southern waters these days: he’s acclimatising to what’s coming for his industry.

Anyway, I detour. We decided to knock the bugger of this investment off, finally, and donate it to the vineyards of Marlborough, despite it aggrieves me the excise tax windfall this will be for an increasingly wowser government. Though it's this process that has given me the final proof of my premise. In cashing up, after finding the latest name of our fund, the latest value (oh dear, $6,987.98), the latest registrar, writing to it (don’t be silly, can’t email them), waiting three weeks, we get in the mail, just this morning:

“Unfortunately, we have been unable to complete your request. Due to legal requirements and regulatory permissions, we are currently unable to offer a Postal Share Dealing service … outside of the UK/European Economic Area (EEA). Please contact your local share dealing provider, such as a local bank branch who may be able to handle the transaction on your behalf …’

Oh, just great. Another barrier to get through, another commission to pay. I know why the West is collapsing: it’s collapsing because I can’t do something so simple, anymore, as get my own money back out of an investment due to ‘legal requirements and regulatory permissions’.

Though pity these poor sods at the registrar concerned, because, defeated on my first tilt at it, I’m going to have to send this issue nuclear: I’m handing the whole sordid affair over to the lovely wife. She’s the only person I’ve come across that can move a bureaucrat with any speed: for note that's what these businesses are now, bureaucracies - that’s what they had to become after the onslaught of regulation, after regulation, after regulation, which was all about, supposedly, protecting me, the investor. Well I certainly am protected, no doubt about it; I’m so protected I can’t even get what’s left of my money back. And don’t think we’re immune in New Zealand where we’ve just had the new Financial Markets Authority legislated to shoot, or kneecap, any investment still showing signs of life – because life is risk, right, and that must be eliminated - while the SFO was last seen scouring Christchurch for more work to slow up the rebuild, now they’ve ensured no sane person here would want to be a director of a company issuing prospectuses anymore.

Have a good weekend.

Postscript: by the by, tax inspectors in Indonesia are now being given three weeks military training. You see the way this is all going? And look whose using the exact same tactics as the Nazis and Big Brother in Orwell's 1984: hey kids, why not dob in mum and dad to the IRS whistle blower program. What ugly things our social democracies have become.

So many things I’d love to blog about, but alas, no time. Hopefully I'll get a chance to torture some more metaphors over next couple of days. Um, I wonder if some of my 'learned' readership have figured out yet that most of my pieces are written in iambic pentameter, and are written to be read aloud? Don't ask me why ...