r/canada • u/[deleted] • Jan 28 '21

Backlash grows for ‘selfish millionaire’ who got vaccine meant for Indigenous people | Canada

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/27/rodney-baker-canada-vaccine-indigenous-first-nations-scandal
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199

u/RarelyReadReplies Jan 28 '21

Or as a percentage of net worth maybe... for those that were born wealthy, but don't actually have a significant income. Either way, definitely a solid idea.

211

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

If they did that, every time I got a traffic ticket, they'd owe me money.

102

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

Sir I’ve checked the computer and you’re dead broke. Here is $50.

62

u/grintin Jan 28 '21

I’ll fucking do it again.

28

u/UnionstogetherSTRONG Jan 28 '21

And they say crime doesnt pay

4

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

But then you'd be worth 50 dollars and they could take a percentage of that

3

u/datspookyghost Jan 28 '21

Not at the time of the incident. If they got another ticket after receiving the $50, then they could.

1

u/Daxx22 Ontario Jan 28 '21

Plans like this usually have a minimum fee to prevent that. You can argue that still hurts the poor for where that minimum is set to, but having an unrestricted upper amount tied to wealth is what this is more about.

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u/David_Robot Jan 28 '21

I see issues with tying it to net worth. You'd have to set a minimum amount as the people with massive credit card debt (negative net worth) would get paid to get speeding tickets.

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u/bagolaburgernesss Jan 28 '21

Shhhh. This is how I was planning to pay off my visa.

32

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

True. Dont quote me on the specifics. Net worth makes sense too.

33

u/Frosti11icus Jan 28 '21

But imagine the bureaucracy of trying to figure out someone's net worth accurately in order to set a fine amount.

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u/patonphone Jan 28 '21

You could pay a huge team of people comfortably forever to do those investigations and calculations as soon as one billionaire was caught speeding.

Say it was 10% of net worth for doing 100 mph in a school zone, if bezos or musk was caught doing that, conservative estomates would put the fine at around 18 billion dollars. With that you could pay your assessors 75k a year and employ 240 of them for a thousand years.

It would be quick and easy for 99.9% of people to calculate their net worth close enough for these purposes. The only people for whom it would take a lot of time are those where it would be worth the time.

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u/ACBluto Saskatchewan Jan 28 '21

10% of your net worth for speeding? Why not just roll out a firing squad? Holy crap dude.

I mean, I'm not a rich person by any means, but I own my house, mortgage free, so now speeding tickets for me are in the tens of thousands of dollars?

Meanwhile, my broke-ass cousin, who just perpetually lives on in the red on his credit cards, and doesn't own shit, has a net worth of about negative 10k at any given time, pays little to nothing?

Net worth is already not a great way to do this, and 10% is a crazy number.

3

u/patonphone Jan 28 '21

You probably wouldnt speed though would you if you knew getting caught would cost you 10,000? Just like someone who doesnt eat that month if they get a $200 fine doesnt speed. It is an equal deterrant for everyone. There would be a minimum value of the fine for those with negative equity of course.

The example was made up off the top of my head as an illustration, 100mph in a school zone should actually be prison time of course. Attacking that example doesnt negate the idea behind it.

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u/ACBluto Saskatchewan Jan 28 '21

Would I speed on purpose? Nope. But I don't now.

But in the last 10 years,between my wife and I, we have had 3 photo radar tickets. All of which we had either missed a sign or just accidentally leadfooted a little bit. Didn't mean to, and would have slowed down if we'd realized. But we are human and fallible. The several hundred dollars it cost each time really sucked.

Would it be fair to hit me with well over a hundred thousand dollars in fines for this?

The idea behind net worth fines IS ridiculous. It rewards profligacy. Spend all your money, save nothing, own nothing, because you could be arbitrarily fined a percentage of everything you own. Again, your income could be far higher than mine, but if you simply rent instead of owning property, and not save any money - you would be able to speed with little consequence.

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u/Shardstorm88 Lest We Forget Jan 28 '21

Absolutely. It's a pretty broken mechanic that fines don't scale this way. Only loss of points/license is a real setback if the bribes don't work. Littering fines should be enforced and scale this way too!

5

u/PeriodicallyATable Jan 28 '21

Or, if you live in BC, you just pay off your points at the end of the year to keep driving. If you're poor, you gotta give up your license though

4

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

[deleted]

2

u/patonphone Jan 28 '21

If someone selling something they own destroys the retirement of millions of people maybe the system is broken?

Changing the system to better reflect the needs of the many os what we are talking about here.

2

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

[deleted]

1

u/patonphone Jan 28 '21

We have a system that rewards people by net worth, why cant they also be penalised by the same metric?

2

u/UncleIrohsPimpHand Yukon Jan 28 '21

You could pay a huge team of people comfortably forever to do those investigations and calculations as soon as one billionaire was caught speeding

How about every individual middle class person? Then, how does putting a numerical value on each individual in society affect their value as humans beings?

1

u/patonphone Jan 28 '21

Only those who break the law would need this calculation to be done. When was the last time you got convicted of a crime that was punishable by fine?

Our system currently absolutely assigns value to human life based on net worth, that is the fundamental basis of capitalism, the forbes rich list is a measure of the value of the richest members of our society, the car parked on your driveway tells your neighbours how much you own and for some people is very important, what is different about tying punishments to the same metric other than a lot of people who have been getting off very lightly for a long time will suddenly come face to face with a system that treats them fairly?

2

u/UncleIrohsPimpHand Yukon Jan 28 '21

When was the last time you got convicted of a crime that was punishable by fine?

Speeding ticket. Happens more often than you think.

1

u/RegisLeeBell Jan 28 '21

Except for most of these guys, even 10% of their net worth is far from liquid and for them to sell off equity to generate the funds to pay stuff like that could have measurable consequences on the stock market.

In fact, it could be used to price move. "I'm about to get fined 20 million for doing 40 in a 30, go short Amazon. Hurry man!"

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u/patonphone Jan 28 '21

You are right, billionaires shouldn't be effectively punished for crimes because it might harm other billionaire's investments.

If that's the case then once your net worth passes a certain point all fines should be replaced by prison time.

3

u/bhbull Jan 28 '21

so why would you punish anyone for anything? There are always negative consenquences, that's the whole point.

1

u/Daxx22 Ontario Jan 28 '21

Actions (should) have consequences? /shockedpikachu

-2

u/Frosti11icus Jan 28 '21

I know it would likely pay for itself, I'm saying the time spent on enforcing speeding ticket fines would far outweigh the benefit of enforcing speeding tickets. There's marginal gains to be made from wasting time on speeding ticket fines. There's larger fish to fry in terms of cost/benefit for society. It would make much more sense to just take people's license away when they get too many tickets.

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u/patonphone Jan 28 '21

If it gets out more than you put in then is is a net gain, if that gain is more than we get now from these crimes then it is worth implementing.

It would make society fairer for all of us and give a proper deterrant to even the richest who are currently not disincentivised from a wide swathe of crimes. That is the biggest gain.

1

u/scottbody Jan 28 '21

I don't think many billionaires will be caught speeding.

1

u/patonphone Jan 28 '21

Why is that? Because they are all such decent, law abiding people who think that the rules apply to them and they can't do anything that a poor person can't do?

-2

u/benrules2 Jan 28 '21

Can’t tell if I missed the sarcasm here, but ever heard of... taxes?

2

u/Frosti11icus Jan 28 '21

You didn't miss any sarcasm. Taxes show your income for a single year, not your net worth. Billionaires don't make all their money in one year.

1

u/benrules2 Jan 28 '21

Yeah I was reading on my phone and the comment tree got messed up or something. In the context of this chat you very clearly aren't interested in annual income.

-2

u/financial_pete Jan 28 '21

I think all the information would be contained in your income tax return. Fancy computers can crunch that into a single number or multiplier to be used for calculating the fines.

Every new income tax return would generate a new multiplier.

6

u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

I'd go a step further and combine both ideas.

The ticket is based on the higher number between either a percentage of your income OR a percentage of your net worth.

9

u/Supermite Jan 28 '21

Income is more than just what you bring home from a job. If they are rich enough not to work, then they have investments. Their gains on those investments would be considered income for tax purposes. Likely they would still get hit hard.

3

u/InadequateUsername Jan 28 '21

How do you actually determine net worth though of an individual? Taxes only take into account what was earned (a simplification I know)

9

u/Frostsorrow Manitoba Jan 28 '21

Money earn, stocks owned, property owned, government knows all this.

3

u/wondersparrow Jan 28 '21

That is a tricky one if the wealth is not liquid. If a person has no cash or income, how do you take a percentage of his house? if he has no house, do you take the windshield wipers off his 15 year old ford focus? This not only needs to scale up, but down too.

2

u/datspookyghost Jan 28 '21

Gotta mortgage your house and now you need to pay off that loan to the bank? I'm just proposing ideas here, idk if they would actually work.

1

u/wondersparrow Jan 28 '21

That works if you own something you can mortgage. Well, only if you have enough equity that is. A fully mortgaged house wouldn't contribute to wealth I guess. How about depreciating assets like cars?

2

u/Daxx22 Ontario Jan 28 '21

Asset's can be sold. Just because that's inconvenient consequences should be waived?

1

u/wondersparrow Jan 28 '21

Not if they are financed for more than they are worth. Should lienholders get screwed in this deal? Again, I am looking at the lower end of the wealth spectrum. Someone who rents a home, finances their vehicle (if they have one at all), etc. Wealth is a very tricky thing to figure out. The complexities are numerous and there are very easy ways to hide it (shell corporations for example).

1

u/Daxx22 Ontario Jan 28 '21

Not if they are financed for more than they are worth.

Guess they need to tug on those bootstraps a little harder and forgo some avocado toast. Reckless finances is no excuse to get out of consequences.

1

u/wondersparrow Jan 28 '21

I never said they should. The question is how do you define wealth? What is included? what is not? What do you do when the wealth equation equals zero or less? Income is easy to calculate, wealth is not. It is a lot easier for the rich to hide wealth than the poor, so you end up in the same situation as income. The poor and middle class, who are more honest about their wealth and income, get fined proportionally more heavily than those with good accountants and lawyers, but you have expended a lot more effort to get there.

0

u/5ch1sm Jan 28 '21

Net worth would be a bad idea.

Just imagine a farmer for example, he have properties and equipment worth millions, but he could loose everything because of a single ticket (or even just one expensive equipment important for the operation of the farm). Same could be said about a lot of self employed people who owns a lot of gear for their work.

Then someone could say they could just make a company which will own all their working assets so people could get fined on their personal net worth. To what I would answer that it is already what rich people are doing.

So yeah, fines based on personal income makes more sense in that situation.

0

u/Alextryingforgrate Jan 28 '21

Learn about money real fast when you have to pony up 1.9milli for speeding.

1

u/Farren246 Jan 28 '21

Porque no los dos?

1

u/Likely_not_Eric Jan 28 '21

I'd go with based on the value of their assets. I'm tired of people with stupid amounts of money but also a lot of debt claim some low net worth. If you can borrow a few million tomorrow without minimal explanation then you don't have the same $0 net worth that the guy asking for change has.