Brad Wardell's views about technology, politics, religion, world affairs, and all sorts of politically incorrect topics.
Published on March 10, 2009 By Draginol In Politics

In Finland, how much you make determines the amount of a fine.

For instance, a Finnish millionaire recently got a 112,000-euro speeding ticket (he was about 10 over).  That’s because the fine is calculated using what he earned last year.

So the guy who inherits his wealth and sits on his butt is fine. But the guy who’s working his rear end off gets penalized more.

Taking this to its logical conclusion, a young person should get more time in prison because he has more life available to him than an old person.

I understand the rationale – you want the punishment to be felt equally by all citizens. But this flies in the face of the concept of all people are equal in the eyes of the law. If the concern is that speeding is such a big deal (or any given crime) then lock them up.  But looking at how much someone earns as a means to determining punishment is repellent.

Consider this: Two people making the same amount per hour. One person chooses to work part time. The other person chooses to work 60 hours a week.  Both are caught speeding.  The person who works more ends up having to pay more.

It creates a society that punishes achievement. Luckily for Finland, it has a population of 5 million and is largely homogenous. So it can get away with this kind of thinly veiled class warfare.

In the United States, by contrast, such policies would be a disaster.

But take a look at how left-wing Digg users react:

http://digg.com/autos/Finnish_millionaire_gets_111_888_euro_speeding_ticket


Comments (Page 2)
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on Mar 11, 2009

Two people make $10 per hour.

Person A works 50 hours a week and thus earns $500 a week.

Person B works 20 hours a week and earns $200 a week.

It gets worse.

Person A will soon have more experience than person B and hence make more money per hour. So now he is getting punished not just for working longer hours but also for having done so consistently over a long time and for being more useful to society.

I sometimes wonder what people think is the reason for unequal pay. "Some guy worked harder and became better at his job" seems to have been ruled out already.

 

on Mar 11, 2009

"Some guy worked harder and became better at his job" seems to have been ruled out already.

It's an article of leftist faith that all are due the same because all have the same 'intrinsic' worth.

on Mar 12, 2009

It's an article of leftist faith that all are due the same because all have the same 'intrinsic' worth.

Which is odd, considering that leftists do believe that some people are smarter than others when it comes to politics.

 

on Mar 12, 2009

Which is odd, considering that leftists do believe that some people are smarter than others when it comes to politics.

Touche.  Wonder if Alec Baldwin is willing to act for GM assembly line wages.

on Mar 12, 2009

Touche. Wonder if Alec Baldwin is willing to act for GM assembly line wages.

From what I have about those wages I think it might be possible.

The current veteran UAW member at GM today has an average base wage of $28.12 an hour, but the cost of benefits, including pension and future retiree health care costs, nearly triples the cost to GM to $78.21, according to the Center for Automotive Research.

http://bentcorner.com/2008/11/how-much-does-an-american-auto-worker-make/comment-page-1/

That's nearly as much per hour as I make, but I don't have a pension. To be fair, I am uneducated too.

 

on Mar 12, 2009

Two people make $10 per hour.

Person A works 50 hours a week and thus earns $500 a week.

Person B works 20 hours a week and earns $200 a week.

Person A and B get a ticket. Because Person A makes twice as much, he is fined $100.   Person B is only fined $40.

 

Alright lets compare it to the status quo:

 

Three people, A, B, C, make $10, $200 and $200 per hour.

Person A works 50 hours a week, earning $500 per week.

Person B works 20 hours a week, earning $4,000 per week.

Person C works 50 hours a week, earning $10,000 per week.

They all commit a crime which has a punishment of $500 (or with an earnings linked system, max{500,1weeks income}.

Current system: A gets punished $500, and is deterred from committing the crime since it's a weeks income.

B gets punished $500 and it is of little deterrent seeing as it's only 12.5% of their weekly income.

C gets punished $500, and it's of almost no deterrent, being just 5% of their weekly income.

Alternative system: A gets punished $500 and is deterred.

B gets punished $4000 and is also deterred.

C gets punished $10k and is also deterred.

 

So the principle aim of the punishment, to deter people from doing it, is met. Now lets look at the less important side, the 'equity' issue:

Current system:

A is punished 1 weeks income, or 50 hours of labour

B is punished 12.5% weekly income, or 2.5 hours of labour

C is punished 5% of weekly income, or 2.5 hours of labour

Alternative system:

A is punished 1 weeks income, or 50 hours of labour

B is punished 1 weeks income, or 20 hours of labour

C is punished 1 weeks income, or 50 hours of labour.

 

It's not perfect - B is still being punished in fewer 'hours of 'labour' than A (or now C), but the difference is greatly reduced under the new system. Furthermore it is actually a deterrent in the new system, while it isn't in the old system. To focus on the problems with the new system while ignoring the even greater issues with the current system isn't consistent. Now maybe you might want to improve on it by having the fine look at someones hourly income, and take into account wealth, but you also have to bear in mind the practicalities of that, which might make such an approach too complicated and not worth it. That doesn't mean that the deterrent and equity benefits of the new system should be ignored.

on Mar 12, 2009

Aerortar, you just completely ignored what I wrote.

MOST income inequality in the United States is due to amount of hours worked. Not differences in per hour.

on Mar 12, 2009

Leauki
Why not punish people by forcing them to do social work of some kind for a fixed number of hours?

That would still punish the productive more, regardless how rich they are, because they have less time. But they could combine this with unemployment benefits.

Instead of fining speeders 100 bucks (or 100,000 bucks if they are rich) they could force them to work in a soup kitchen for 10 hours (or 20 hours if they are on the dole).

 

 

this is really the best of both worlds, it is not a class warfare / punish the rich type deal, nor is it a tiny fixed fine that is unfelt by the rich.

For crimes that don't merit prison time, you should get community service instead of a fine. Or forced to work at minimum wage job for X hours to pay a fine, no matter what your dayjob is.

on Mar 12, 2009

this is really the best of both worlds, it is not a class warfare / punish the rich type deal, nor is it a tiny fixed fine that is unfelt by the rich.

Yes.

 

For crimes that don't merit prison time, you should get community service instead of a fine. Or forced to work at minimum wage job for X hours to pay a fine, no matter what your dayjob is.

No, that would be slave labour, i.e. the state providing cheap labour to employers.

on Mar 12, 2009

No, that would be slave labour, i.e. the state providing cheap labour to employers.

There are always government jobs to do- raking leaves, cleaning up rest areas, picking up trash.....

on Mar 12, 2009

Leauki: Your solution is the fairest but also the most destructive to society. Whenever you take society's producers out of commission it's not good for society so it should be done as a last resort.

In my opnion, the ideal but impossible to do solution would be to have the fine be calculated based on the how much someone makes per hour of labor.

So speeding might represent say 8 hours of labor. If someone makes $100 an hour, that's $800. Someone who makes $10 an hour it's $80.

But that way, you're not punishing the guy who simply works more while the lazy guy gets off easy.  It would be impossible to enforce because how do you figure out how many hours people work?  This time of year, I work 70 to 90 hours a week. But in the Summer I only work 40 to 50.

on Mar 12, 2009

which is probably why they simplified it into a fixed fine... as long as fines are rare, making them based on how much you earn is sensible, as it works as an actual deterrent. Get too fine happy though...

on Mar 13, 2009

you just completely ignored what I wrote. MOST income inequality in the United States is due to amount of hours worked. Not differences in per hour

So covering differences in hours worked in my example is completely ignoring that?!

You seem to have ignored what I wrote however, since MOST of the point of a fine is to deter people from doing it again. Meanwhile I'd be fascinated to see figures that show the difference in income inequality wrt income per hour and hours worked in the US after excluding parents (in case you're wondering why, parents will have higher essential costs since they're having to provide for their children as well as themselves, meaning that a $500 fine has a far greater impact on them than a single person with the same income, since the single person has more cash available to spend that isn't going on essentials. Furthermore it stands to reason that you are more likely to work part time if you have children, since the children will restrict your ability to work). In fact I'd be interested to see what you're using to back up your assertation that most income inequality is due to hours worked itself, since you seem to be using this to completely ignore the other side of it, that some people earn more per hour than others.

The benefits of the income based system are only heavily reduced when everyone earns an incredibly similar wage per hour. Once you have meaningful differences, then the equality benefits quickly emerge. Or is it just that it's fine for a poor person to have to work many more hours than a rich person in punishment, but it's a completely different thing when it's 'unfair' on the rich person?

 

Why not punish people by forcing them to do social work of some kind for a fixed number of hours?

Well if you punish them with a fine that is of an equal punishment level to them, they get punished the same amount, but the community benefits far more, since the amount of money they earn per hour from their job will be more than the value of any community service they do. That is, if I'm a super-rich person earning $1000 an hour, wouldn't society benefit more from saying 'we'll take 20 hours of your job's income' than 'go clean up some streets for 20 hours'?

It's the same with charity work - why go and volunteer to do some free charity work to help out others if you could work at your job for that same length of time, donate it all to the relevant charity/people, and have a far bigger impact on their life? Or in the case of a story I heard about in Italy, why distribute siezed caviar to the homeless when you could sell it and distribute the money to the homeless instead (making a far greater positive impact)?

on Mar 13, 2009

personally i never liked the idea of fines. Fines give the state an incentive to make up crimes.

For example, red light cameras, there is a big scandal because the minimum SAFE period for a yellow light has been determined. But many counties are installing red light cameras, and setting the yellow light below the safe minimum, resulting in a 95% increase of rear end collisions in those intersections. (but also a great increase in their fine income)

If a crime is REALLY severe (mass murder, etc): death

If a crime is major / not 100% certain about a really severe crime: life in prison

If a crime is medium (graft, etc): imprisonment...

And for minor crimes either very short stints in jail (aka, a few days for a speeding), or corporal punishment (aka, a few lashing for vandalism) depending on the NATURE of the crime. (jail is appropriate for speeding, lashing is appropriate for vandalism, but not vice versa... actually I don't think anything other than vandalism should warrant a lashing)

Yes, a week in prison for a "great producer" is more detrimental for a non producer in the abstract. But if they keep on commiting crimes than they are not such great producers are they? If speeding resulting a few days in jail, regardless of your money or status. I doubt you would see bill gates in jail, often or at all.

Firstly, he could have a professional driver, so he cannot speed.

And secondly, he KNOWS the value of his time and will just not speed.

on Mar 13, 2009

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Quoting was messed up again. Trying to fix...

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