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I decided to post an old-fashioned debate thread because I came across an interesting bit of reasoning from a textbook of mine. Be it resolved that we should stop funding fire departments from general revenue sources. Instead, everyone should be required to purchase fire insurance or pay a fee for fire protection. Fire protection of local properties is a municipal responsibility that is financed from local revenues. Some municipalities, however, charge neighboring municipalities for fire assistance. In addition, some municipalities charge individuals -- or, through them, their insurance companies -- for the provision of emergency services by the fire department in response to traffic accidents. The issue is whether funding fire protection out of general revenues is "fair and efficient". Although the presence of positive externalities in this case suggests that funding out of general revenue is appropriate, the externalities tend to be reciprocal-- that is, they work both ways and are likely to cancel each other out. Reciprocal externalities create a basis for charging every taxpayer full direct costs. There is no need for general-revenure funding of fire protection; instead, everyone should be required to buy fire protection. Prices for fire protection, as distinct from police protection, already exist through the extensive use of insurance policies. Fire insurance premiums reflect the different levels of risk associated with different structural types and materials and with matters such as the presence or absence of sprinkler systems. The factors that determine insurance risk also determine municipal expenditures for fire services. Failure to vary the municipal price charged for fire protection on the basis of risk means that the owners of high-risk properties have no incentive to undertake actions that will reduce their demand for municipal fire protection; consequently, spending for fire protection is higher than it would otherwise be. The practices of charging neighboring municipalities for fire assistance and charging individuals for emergency services in the case of road accidents indicate the appropriate direction in which to move, although it is not clear that the prices currently charged for these services are correct. Since insurance premiums take difference in property values, fire probability, and susceptibility to damage into consideration, they could provide a basis for a municipal user fee. If the charge were varied to reflect varying risks, a more efficient level of service would ensue. Finally, the existence of a private market for fire insurance premiums suggests that the administrative costs of managing such a system would not be prohibitive. tl;dr: people will be rational and will be less likely to create potential hellfire deathtraps if they get a discount on their "fire protection insurance and/or user fee"; much like how private medical insurance incentivizes you to be healthier! have a picture of a fire duck 
sitchensis fucked around with this message at 15:56 on Dec 10, 2015 |
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Dec 10, 2015 15:24
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 "Pay me or burn. Your choice." I think we're better off not regressing back to literally ancient Roman practices in TYOOL 2015 IMO. P.S. Private medical insurance incentivizes racketeering, health is only incidental for the financially well-off.
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Dec 10, 2015 15:49
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Pay less taxes but please pay more expensive fees for the same services. I am looking at you working poor.
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Dec 10, 2015 15:55
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Sure but take it out of property tax obviously if you want to incentive the right people.
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Dec 10, 2015 15:59
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I'll buy a townhome that sits smack in the middle and save so much by not paying fire insurance. Of course the fire department is welcome to let the fire spread/damage/weaken my neighbors' homes.
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Dec 10, 2015 16:00
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Fires spread, you dumbass. Even if we have to go with your brutally capitalistic mode of thinking, fires are a threat to the whole city, not to a specific building, so it is in the city's interest to fight every fire to at least protect the
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Dec 10, 2015 16:00
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Gravel Gravy posted:I'll buy a townhome that sits smack in the middle and save so much by not paying fire insurance. I think the point is that there is no fire department anymore, you've just got to let the poo poo burn down, or attempt to stop it on your own and later collect on the insurance for any damage. This will be an incentive for people to not set their houses on fire, like they do now, and presumably also make nature entirely complicit in this so natural disasters also do not occur.
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Dec 10, 2015 16:03
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You realize that Emergency Medical Services and Fire Departments are all rolled into one usually right? As someone who actually served as a Firefighter EMS emergency technician getting rid of your fire department will also get rid of all of your ambulances in some cases as well. 90 % of Firefighters calls is as first responders for medical issues. It's more efficient because all of your emergency response is in one system. So yeah it'd be pretty loving stupid to do and it shows a laymans understanding of what Emergency Services does. Firefighters don't just fight fires.
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Dec 10, 2015 16:04
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Ddraig posted:I think the point is that there is no fire department anymore, you've just got to let the poo poo burn down, or attempt to stop it on your own and later collect on the insurance for any damage. This will be an incentive for people to not set their houses on fire, like they do now, and presumably also make nature entirely complicit in this so natural disasters also do not occur. Oh, I was under the impression that "fire protection" meant having to pay a subscription fee for fire assistance. http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2011/12/07/9272989-firefighters-let-home-burn-over-75-fee-again Although I think people typically already have an incentive not to set their homes on fire.
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Dec 10, 2015 16:06
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I personally have to resist the urge to set my house and all my belongings on fire several times every day. If I had to pay an expensive premium in addition to having all my poo poo gone and being homeless, the urge would be far less severe.
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Dec 10, 2015 16:09
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Gravel Gravy posted:Oh, I was under the impression that "fire protection" meant having to pay a subscription fee for fire assistance. lol leave it to the US to make this an actual thing Hollismason posted:
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Dec 10, 2015 16:10
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Ddraig posted:I personally have to resist the urge to set my house and all my belongings on fire several times every day. If I had to pay an expensive premium in addition to having all my poo poo gone and being homeless, the urge would be far less severe. Have you considered fire proof matches? Or cooking with an EZ bake?
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Dec 10, 2015 16:10
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Man, remember when Firefighters were essentially violent, armed gangs Good times
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Dec 10, 2015 16:11
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Seriousy, Firefighters don't just fight fires you idiot. All fire fighters generally have to be Emergency Medical Technicians and First Responders now as well. 90% of the calls the Fire Department gets is for medical related emergency. The reason EMS is tied together with the Fire Department is because it's more efficient to have all your medical response/ emergency response in one department. It's called the Seattle based model of emergency response. Hollismason fucked around with this message at 16:18 on Dec 10, 2015 |
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Dec 10, 2015 16:14
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I'm not convinced OP was entirely serious in his proposition, guys.
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Dec 10, 2015 16:30
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Who What Now posted:I'm not convinced OP was entirely serious in his proposition, guys. Me personally? No. But this is definitely the type of garbage that gets taught in almost every single north american post-secondary economics / political economy course. You can generally tell it's going to be "one of those textbooks" when the author starts throwing around words like 'burden' and 'relief' to describe taxation regimes.
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Dec 10, 2015 16:36
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sitchensis posted:Me personally? No. But this is definitely the type of garbage that gets taught in almost every single north american post-secondary economics / political economy course. You can generally tell it's going to be "one of those textbooks" when the author starts throwing around words like 'burden' and 'relief' to describe taxation regimes. "This graph shows privatization as clearly superior to public options. Ergo, we should eliminate public services."  Literally my macroecon course intro.
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Dec 10, 2015 17:28
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Counterpoint: Fires are bad If we lived on concrete houses, we would have no need for public or private fire departments
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Dec 10, 2015 19:11
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Unfortunately it looks like since 0bamacare got passed,  I was really hoping my house would burn down on principle when I decided to save money on fire payments as well.
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Dec 10, 2015 19:18
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sitchensis posted:Me personally? No. But this is definitely the type of garbage that gets taught in almost every single north american post-secondary economics / political economy course. You can generally tell it's going to be "one of those textbooks" when the author starts throwing around words like 'burden' and 'relief' to describe taxation regimes. Economists are the reason we have single payer emergency care, and the concept of social welfare. These are economic concepts. North America after the 60s just went loving insane and printed a bunch of weirdos and proclaimed them equal to actual economists because they said so. e I said fire departments and that just clearly isnt true
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Dec 10, 2015 19:21
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I'm kinda curious how this sort of policy would apply to apartments. Would all the tenants vote on whether or not they wanted fire protection fees added to all rent payments? If your landlord decided to be a Randian superman, would you just be doomed to die in an electrical fire? Or what about office buildings? Would you have buildings advertising low rents and survival of the fittest to target rear end in a top hat Libertarian CEOs? Would companies have to disclose if you were free to burn to death at your workplace?
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Dec 10, 2015 19:29
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sitchensis posted:Me personally? No. But this is definitely the type of garbage that gets taught in almost every single north american post-secondary economics / political economy course. You can generally tell it's going to be "one of those textbooks" when the author starts throwing around words like 'burden' and 'relief' to describe taxation regimes. Never happened in any of mine, but then all my textbooks have been written by Krugman. Crowsbeak fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Dec 10, 2015 |
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Dec 10, 2015 19:37
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After the waldo canyon fires, colorado springs, an insanely libertarian city, had a ton of ballot issues that basically boiled down to "give the fire departments a shitload more money yo" and they all passed lol
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Dec 10, 2015 19:58
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AfroLine posted:Pay less taxes but please pay more expensive fees for the same services. I am looking at you working poor. That's the American way. We need to privatize everything so we can pay way more for way less service. I'd rather pay a bunch of corporate middlemen to outsource everything than the government.
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Dec 10, 2015 20:17
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The stated proposition has at least two fatally undermining fallacies. One is that all properties are held by private owners, making individual fees a better choice. At minimum 1/16th of any division of land in the US is government property. Charging the government fees for government services in this case is recursive enough to make general revenue funding worth while. Another is the assumption that insurance completely reimburses fire losses. In fact, insurance in the US limits losses. Absent fraud, many fires cause more damage than the cost of extinguishing them. This makes any further need for a cost incentive moot. For other fires, fire's tendency to spread creates a perverse incentive where running an individual cost benefit analysis delays response until it falls into the first category anyway, thus encouraging more fire damage than would otherwise occur. TL;DR: The proposition was written by a con man.
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Dec 10, 2015 20:41
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sitchensis posted:tl;dr: people will be rational and will be less likely to create potential hellfire deathtraps if they get a discount on their "fire protection insurance and/or user fee"; much like how private medical insurance incentivizes you to be healthier! Agreed. Let's take a broken and objectively inefficient system that overwhelmingly screws poor people and apply it to as many things as possible.
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Dec 10, 2015 21:36
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I'd pay them to shut you the gently caress up
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Dec 10, 2015 21:45
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sitchensis posted:lol leave it to the US to make this an actual thing Let it be clear that the people in the fire department's home city just pay through it through normal taxes. The fee is for people who live in the wider regional area, which repeatedly voted down minor property tax increases that would have paid for a regional fire department's costs. Also that guy had refused to pay for the fire services once before and got let off with a warning to pay the first time a home on his massive property (which had 5 houses on it, dude wasn't poor to say the least) caught fire and the fire services were called out. This dude decided to be a skinflint and refuse to pay for fire services the next couple years until another fire went up. Back when that incident occurred in 2011, people found out that the guy owned land that made him worth over a million bucks, even though he was too miserly to pay $75 for the fire services a year. The actual poor of that area? They can get fire protection on a sliding scale that goes down to a nominal fee of one dollar a year with proof of need. Edit: And in general rural low population areas won't have a fire department to speak of. There's simply too few people to support it if they won't implement the necessary taxation, and even were it to be in place you'd be talking response times going up to an hour. It's for the same reason that rural areas often won't have any local police, just the sheriff and a deputy or two who has to take care of the whole county as well. fishmech fucked around with this message at 22:07 on Dec 10, 2015 |
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Dec 10, 2015 22:01
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Spangly A posted:Economists are the reason we have single payer emergency care, and the concept of social welfare. These are economic concepts. North America after the 60s just went loving insane and printed a bunch of weirdos and proclaimed them equal to actual economists because they said so. The rational utility optimizing individual is to economics what the theory of natural selection is to evolution or what the theory of plate tectonics is to geology. It's the unifying master concept that makes the rest of the theory a coherent and comprehensive theory rather than just a grab bag of separate observations and ideas following some loose theme. And the way that the idea of the rational utility optimizing individual gets deployed in most introductory economics courses is pretty close to what is presented in the OP. It should hardly be surprising that economics ended up where it did: there's a lot of momentum toward free market fundamentalism built into the ideological design of modern economics, which is probably not that surprising given that the marginalist revolution of the late 19th century (basically the moment that modern economics takes on recognizable form under the guidance of Alfred Marshal) was prompted in part by the perceived need to provide an ideological counterpoint to the rising theories of guys like Karl Marx and Henry George. For economics to be move past it's current hangups a lot of econ professors would have to accept that they're teaching an empirical social science instead of trying to drill their students on first principles from which said students are trained to derive conclusions (which is how a textbook like Mankiw's works. And Mankiw isn't exactly peripheral to the economics field). Neoclassical economics ended up where it did for a reason. Part of it is that money got shoveled at more conservative thinkers like Friedman, but part of it has to do with the overall intellectual trajectory of the field, something which long predates the 1960s.
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Dec 10, 2015 22:07
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Ceiling fan posted:TL;DR: The proposition was written by a con man. He's in the pocket of Big Fire! 
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Dec 10, 2015 22:13
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Greetings, I'm the independent surveyor hired on behalf of your fire insurance company. What I've found is that you are not in accordance with the guidelines of the policy and the code of safe practices for reducing home fires and thus I cannot issue you a certificate. Until such time that your dwelling receives a certificate it is likely that the local fire insurance company will not respond in the event of a fire. I would recommend that you correct the deficiencies and contact us again at such time that your dwelling is ready to hire us for inspection. Fees for re-inspection will be as per our standard schedule. Expect to be charged a five hour minimum and three hours of travel given your location relative to our office. If you'd prefer that the insurance company's risk prevention specialist perform the re-inspection please contact them to make arrangements. Be aware that they may be un- available due to their current claims load and they will have a copy of our inspection. I cannot provide a copy of the inspection as it is the property of your local fire insurance company. Please contact your risk prevention specialist if you would like to discuss our findings. Best regards,
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Dec 11, 2015 01:30
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BrandorKP posted:Greetings, I stand corrected. That was written by a con man. Or a good businessman. No real difference at that point.
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Dec 11, 2015 06:16
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BrandorKP posted:Greetings, thanks a lot obama
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Dec 11, 2015 06:20
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Ceiling fan posted:I stand corrected. That was written by a con man. Or a good businessman. No real difference at that point. Yes but it's not coercion because
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Dec 11, 2015 06:52
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:Yes but it's not coercion because he was really slick. As slick as oil. Or a snake. Or some combination thereof.
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Dec 11, 2015 07:30
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Ceiling fan posted:I stand corrected. That was written by a con man. Or a good businessman. No real difference at that point. Man just wait till you see the terms at the bottom of the certificate of compliance with the code of safe practices for reducing home fires. Hold harmless for damages, discharge liability( even for negligent performance) past 180 days, limit liability to 10,000$ unless additional limitation amount is purchased, and then top it all off with that the certificate isn't really even saying the property is fire safe. Also it's only valid for the moment when the property is inspected. In no way should the insurance world have any thing to do with firefighting. Edit: Ew, ew, should add a waive the right to sue arbitration clause. Bar Ran Dun fucked around with this message at 22:03 on Dec 12, 2015 |
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Dec 12, 2015 21:53
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Just reworded some work emails off the top of my head.
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Dec 12, 2015 21:57
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