Comments on: How Much Should a Person Consume? http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/01/paradoxes_of_ex.html The Law, the Universe, and Everything Sun, 22 Nov 2009 02:17:18 -0700 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.3 hourly 1 By: daisuke nogami http://www.concurringopinions.com/archives/2008/01/paradoxes_of_ex.html/comment-page-1#comment-50649 daisuke nogami Sat, 19 Jan 2008 23:22:35 +0000 http://www.solove.org/archives/2008/01/how-much-should-a-person-consume.html#comment-50649 So, if I spend 100 minutes a day reading to my kid, while my brother only spends 1 minute a day reading to his kid, in Frank's perfect world, either (a) my kid should be taxed for consuming 100 times more reading time than my brother's kid, or (b) I should be taxed for introducing such outrageous disparity of reading time into the world. Americans consume more food more Kenyans not because we take anything from Kenyans, but because we produce more food. The solution is to help Kenyans produce more food (via strengthening their markets and institutions that support private property and trade), rather than creating disincentives for Americans to produce food. So, if I spend 100 minutes a day reading to my kid, while my brother only spends 1 minute a day reading to his kid, in Frank’s perfect world, either (a) my kid should be taxed for consuming 100 times more reading time than my brother’s kid, or (b) I should be taxed for introducing such outrageous disparity of reading time into the world.

Americans consume more food more Kenyans not because we take anything from Kenyans, but because we produce more food. The solution is to help Kenyans produce more food (via strengthening their markets and institutions that support private property and trade), rather than creating disincentives for Americans to produce food.

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