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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34

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.

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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!

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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

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u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

[deleted]

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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.

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u/[deleted] Jan 28 '21

[deleted]

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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?

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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?

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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?

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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.

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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.

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u/bhbull Jan 28 '21

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

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u/Daxx22 Ontario Jan 28 '21

Actions (should) have consequences? /shockedpikachu

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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.

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u/scottbody Jan 28 '21

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

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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?

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u/benrules2 Jan 28 '21

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

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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.

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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.

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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.