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A comment on Life expectancy rise in rich countries slows down: took 30 years to prove. Parent comment

Re:Life expectancy rise in rich countries slows down: took 3... by AlexandrB on Wednesday October 16, 2024 @12:39PM (#41861106)
On the subject of (b), shouldn't tobacco companies be paying the risk premium for their customers? Why does the buck stop at the individual consumers and not those making money from their misery?

To put it into more technical, economic terms: why should the individual tobacco consumer bear the full cost of their externalities while the tobacco company does not?

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Re:Life expectancy rise in rich countries slows down: took 3... by caseysoftware on Wednesday October 16, 2024 @01:50PM (#41861770)
> why should the individual tobacco consumer bear the full cost of their externalities while the tobacco company does not?

Because people are well aware that smoking is dangerous and can freely choose to smoke or not.

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Re:Life expectancy rise in rich countries slows down: took 3... by Temporary_31337 on Wednesday October 16, 2024 @03:14PM (#41862722)
Definitely disagree with at least the ‘can freely choose to not smoke’ Nicotine is highly addictive much more so than many illegal drugs.
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Re:Life expectancy rise in rich countries slows down: took 3... by caseysoftware on Wednesday October 16, 2024 @04:24PM (#41863468)
Don't use quotation marks if you're going to rephrase what I said.
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Re:Life expectancy rise in rich countries slows down: took 3... by AlexandrB on Thursday October 17, 2024 @09:20AM (#41869415)
The tobacco company (also composed of people) is well aware of the health consequence of smoking to its customers yet freely chooses to continues to sell tobacco products. Where's the difference?

Actually it's much worse than that. The tobacco company is not just selling tobacco products, it's marketing them and actively encouraging their use!

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Re:Life expectancy rise in rich countries slows down: took 3... by ywvcbk on Saturday October 19, 2024 @04:00AM (#41886382)
> shouldn't tobacco companies be paying the risk premium for their customers

How would that even work? Any such tax would be priced in into the price of the product. It doesn’t really matter if the government is collecting it directly or through the tobacco companies.

Or if we wanted tobacco companies to pay for all the damage they did retroactively they would just go bankrupt, since they don’t have even remotely enough cash/assets to cover it.

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