[AnthonyMouse]

> You can sit them down and explain precisely why buying something, like a new car, is a bad financial decision and that they cannot afford it anyway, and then watch them go buy it anyway. To the point where I have seen people laugh about how dumb of an idea it is, while in the act of doing it.

And this is actually fine because it comes with its own integrated stupidity penalty. We only need the government to impose a penalty if the person who needs the disincentive when making a decision is different than the person being affected by it.