We need to start making consumers pay for their negative externalities.

Until the externality cost is not baked into product cost it won’t be paid for.

You can tax producers, who will then increase prices. Or you can apply a tax to the product directly, and make it appear that the consumer is paying. But who is actually paying it is a question of tax incidence and a function of demand and supply elasticities.[1]

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_incidence

▲

Aurornis 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Making manufacturers pay is equivalent to making consumers pay.

The price is passed on to the consumer. The idea of “making manufacturers pay” in commoditized markets like tires is a feel-good myth. Any additional fees will go to the consumer price.

▲

mvkel 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

Consumers are ultimately the party responsible for this pollution though, so we should pay.

▲

Spooky23 7 months ago | parent [-]

Paying taxes doesn’t reduce the harm. You can’t change a complex system with one knob.

	▲	amanaplanacanal 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		Raising the cost incentivizes finding alternatives. Your statement would only be true if no alternatives are ever available.

▲

HeatrayEnjoyer 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Customers have a price ceiling though.

	▲	SideQuark 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		And producers have a price floor. In competitive markets production costs are nearing zero long term profits for manufacturers, so the externality costs must be passed on to consumers or the good stops getting made, since running at a loss isn’t a sustainable business.

▲

7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

▲

bdangubic 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

consumers are already paying heftily… in virginia we pay 4.56% on the value of the vehicle every year plus there is an electic vehicle tax and also million other taxes and fees added.

funny that state with “don’t thread on me” license plate is a bastion of socialism where you are not allowed to own a car but have to pay each year to the state for the right to own the car… the problem of course is all that insane amount of money collected will never be used for anything other than to pay for pensions for former government employees :)

▲

amanaplanacanal 7 months ago | parent [-]

Don't know about your state in particular, but most places in the US vehicle and fuel taxes are not enough to pay for road maintenance, and it is being subsidized out of other taxes.

My state realized a couple of decades ago that they were going to have the same kind of problem with their pension system and recreated it to be self-funding. They still have the old pensions to cover but at least they aren't continuing to dig themselves a deeper hole.

▲

bdangubic 7 months ago | parent [-]

The original commenter stated:

"We need to start making consumers pay for their negative externalities."

Alls I was trying to say is that consumers are already paying crazy money. 26 states have property taxes on cars! In VA even with all that PLUS a special tax for EVs PLUS most of the roads around the DC metro area are tollroads it is still not enough :)

I was being facetious talking about pension funds - what I was basically trying to say that whatever money is collected isn't going to where it should be going - if there is a budget shortfall (and wouldn't you know - there always is...) money gets appropriated to other things...

▲

amanaplanacanal 7 months ago | parent [-]

Yeah my first paragraph was the important one. Building and maintaining roads is really expensive.

	▲	bdangubic 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		No doubt. And in the United with all the corruption happening at the Local levels it is A LOT more expensive than it needs to be (just look at what happens when some major issue arises - https://www.forconstructionpros.com/infrastructure/article/2... - this was fixed in two weeks - if this project was actually done as "normal" infrastructure project it would have take a year at a cost of like $891 million). But money is already being collected for these things through 89 different taxations - so more revenue is 100% not the way to fix this problem.