19 April 2010 - good is bad 1

In government policy, good is bad and bad is good. For example, high cigarette taxes reduce smoking. That’s good, so we know that if we look more closely we’ll see that it is bad: Tax revenues give government a perverse incentive to encourage smoking. So it must be good, because as the tax rate increases with each recession, eventually only the rich will be able to afford smoking, providing a long-term force to reduce income disparities and stabilize society. Which is bad because then we’re stuck that way.