[world-vedic] ROOPA, Ch. 2 -- 4 of 5

[Guest guest]

Price Tag: Morality & Regulation in One

Greater the Vice; Greater the Price

 

Here’s the clincher: Returning the full medical cost to tobacco companies

leaves them to curtail the same areas government was trying to regulate in

the first place.

 

Here’s why: the ratio of government regulation generally correlates to the

cost associated with an activity. Each aspect of smoking, for example,

carries its own degree of liability. Adolescent smoking causes greater

medical complications and so carries a higher price tag then do adult

smokers. This is also true of breast-feeding moms and second-hand-smoke. As

expected, government has placed greater restrictions upon minors, moms and

second-hand-smoke Greater the socio-economic cost of an activity, the more

government has tried to regulate it. Presenting tobacco companies the

challenge to reduce cost leaves them to curtail the same areas government was

trying to regulate in the first place. Those areas offer the greatest

savings.

 

This affirms ROOPA’s first premise: every action produces an economic

outcome. ROOPA holds that "good deeds" offer profitable economic returns.

Conversely, "bad" or vice, creates economic liabilities. Greater the virtue,

greater the returns. Greater the vice, greater the cost. If true, an

activities "measure-of-morality" can be found by simply noting its long-term

economic outcome. Vice will always prove costly.

 

This supports ROOPA’s second premise: Greater the vice, greater its cost.

Morally, smoking is generally viewed as a "bad thing." It so happens to carry

a clearly defined "bad" economic outcome. A child’s smoking is seen as an

even greater moral transgression then an adults. This coincides with the

numbers as well. A child’s smoking causes an even greater economic liability.

 

The end result: paying the related costs of vice becomes prohibitively

expensive. ROOPA’s higher priced tobacco will naturally reduce underage

smoking. Studies demonstrate cigarette price increases impacting minors and

mothers more the any other group. Their consumption decreases correspondingly

- the church and government’s intended goal.

 

Here’s the beauty of ROOPA:

· Charging The High Price Tag Of Vice Provides The Natural Regulation Of Its

Activity.

 

Greater the Vice, Greater the Price.

 

Further tampering by church or state is no longer required. The price is the

deterrent, the penalty and the social compensation all in one. The price tag

combines morality and government legislation into an all-purpose, easy-to-use

formula for public policy.

 

 

Product: Producer’s Baby & Responsibility

 

The government’s crack down on underage smoking is a good case in point.

Teenage smoking caries a far higher price tag by way of medical cost. The

tobacco industry can shave off a great deal of its cost by simply eliminating

breast-feeding mothers and underage smokers. The difference? Government

regulation is replaced with the savvy and resources of a tobacco industry now

redirected to meeting these very goals. Well, maybe a little hopeful, but

certainly more active in curtailing underage smoking then tobacco is today.

Is such responsibility really fair to manufacturers?

 

Many of today’s product liability suits are brought because of a

malfunctioning product. As often though, the real problems is with the user’s

stupidity, irresponsibility and greed. There seems to be no such thing as an

accident anymore. ROOPA, however, still ask the same question: Who should pay

for this? Should the parties involved pay - such as the manufacturer and

consumer? Or should everyone else pay as we now do with tobacco? We ask: Why

should the rest of society, the American tax-payer, be penalized for a

consumer’s incompetence? The manufacturer plays the only active role in the

product’s design, safety and marketing - the targeted end-consumer. THE

PRODUCT IS THE MANUFACTURE’S BABY. Just hear the pride of any inventor and

producer. Much like a child, responsibility lies with the parent.

 

The manufacturer should take responsibility of pre-qualifying their client

whether they be a retailer or the end consumer much as a parent does before

leaving their child in another’s care. This policy is not new. Providing

minors with drugs, sex, alcohol, guns or even a car is a crime and carries

serious penalties. Age is simply one of the more common pre-qualify-ers.

There are others, for example, a person’s mental state. A bar here in S.

California was recently sued for a customer’s car accident. The parents of

the child killed by the driver held the bar partially to blame for allowing

its customer to drive after getting drunk. These cases are growing by the

day. This kind of accountability is becoming a social trend. ROOPA simply

formalizes this policy by extending this responsibility to all products and

producers. Arbitrarily singling out one business over another is as unfair as

it is clumsy policy. Manufacturers will prove more effective then government

bureaucrats at implementing these safe-guards whether via product design,

marketing or social, economic compensation. The financial responsibility will

leave industry diligent to safe-guard against their product’s economic

liabilities.

 

Take tobacco again. Under ROOPA, tobacco has a duel interest to cut cost

without isolating potential customers. Their approach will therefore be more

creative than government’s. For example, they may start with a

carcinogenic-free cigarette. The industry considered this, but dropped the

idea for the potential legal exposure. Such a cigarette inherently implies

that all other cigarettes cause cancer. Maybe they would branch into

cancer-care, thereby paying itself for treating their cancer-patients. All

carcinogenic-causing product producers may partner up to finding an

inexpensive cancer-cure. This would reduce their collective cost in treating

their products cancer-victims. This partnership would be more effective and

better financed than the government’s present efforts. It would also present

a commercial counter-balance to the pharmaceutical interest for expensive

cancer therapies. The industry may even find it cheaper to educate kids

about smoking’s harm. Or they may place their own restrictions upon retailers

through in-house incentives and penalties. For example, banning shipments to

retailers caught selling to minors. In a nut-shell, the tobacco industry will

look into alternatives that far exceed the government’s scope of regulation.

 

This is true of most regulations. A few years ago, bikers demanded the right

to ride without a helmet. Helmets reduce head injuries and so medical cost

along with them. Let those who wish to ride without helmets pay the

difference in medical cost as part of a fine or permit. For years, oil-tank

builders fought legislation requiring double-hauled ships. 80% of all

oil-spills could have been avoided had tankers used a double-bottomed hull.

These ships were more expensive to build but certainly less than the cost of

returning the environment to its original state after an oil-spill. Trucking

companies fought having a safety-bar in the back. This saves cars from going

under a truck’s rear-end in an accident. Again, these bars saved lives and

reduced medical cost. Trucking companies would find it less expensive to

put-in these safety bars then to cover the added medical cost to the injured

auto driver. Faced with the cost of compensating consumers harmed by their

product leaves business more diligent then any government regulation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ELIMINATED: Bureaucracy, Corruption & Taxes

 

The other side of this equation is also obvious: layers of government

bureaucracy eliminated; reams of penalty specifications made mute; thousands

of government watchdogs retired and billions of dollars in government

spending saved. Overbooked courts will find relief. All of these expenses and

management have been returned to those responsible - the people. This

effectively abolishes the worst of government bureaucracy - and ALL its

politics. Corruption is no longer an option either. The costs are far harder

to hide than bribing and sabotaging our government. ROOPA is a clean, clear

and efficient mechanism. ROOPA is government on auto-pilot. Here lies the

advantage of a system grounded in science.

 

One will also be hard-pressed to find a policy already practiced as widely or

in need of so little to implement. Again, this "method-of-justice" is already

common to our nations courts, government legislation and business practice.

ROOPA need only be formally baptized into official public policy.

 

For the final grand-prize, both taxes and high (insurance) premiums are

nearly eliminated. The consumer’s up-front price-tag covers these expenses in

place of our taxes now used to compensate for their cost. Trillions garnered

from tobacco alone. ROOPA is as fair as it is effective. ROOPA provides a

system wherein public policy no longer need be remade-from-scratch with each

new issue. Few measures offer a more effective or far-reaching reform.

 

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