Elroy, in NZ we have death by 1000 slices. Taxes appear everywhere. "Speeding" is a good one. In the USA, I am quite comfortable at or below the speed limits. In NZ, they set the speed limits so low that it's absurd.
In NZ, my crash risk goes up a lot where there are speed limits because driving at or below the speed limit is soporific and attention wanders. A lot of attention is needed to the dashboard instead of the road to avoid taxes.
But we have places where there are no speed limits. So driving can still be something in which one has to be awake and paying attention. By "no limits" I mean they set the limit so high that they might as well set it at slightly faster than the speed of light because nobody can do the speed limit.
There are places where there are 100 kilometre per hour limits and the roads are twisty, with very limited visibility and they might be gravel too. Anyone doing the speed limit will crash off the road or into something coming the other way around a corner.
I think they could just do away with speed limits altogether and turn anyone who makes a mistake, such as failing to give way where they should do, thereby causing a crash, into body parts to be sold at auction. Pretty soon, people would drive very carefully and traffic flow would improve greatly. They could build traps in the road such as big concrete blocks just around corners so that people pay attention and die if they don't.
Maybe some fine-tuning to the consequences would be desirable,
There are taxes everywhere. Building permits for the most trivial work. Resource Management Act expenses. Permits for everything. Licences for everything else. Documents for everything. Frequent passport renewals. Driving licence renewals which used to be life-time. Driving testing. Laws galore so you have to hire lawyers, who are tax collectors [pay high fees and they immediately pay 39% of that to the government]. Laws for saying anything political in an election year. Goodbye free speech.
Hilariously, the government thinks "free speech" means speech you don't pay for. Seriously, Peter Davis, the Prime Minister's wife, thinks free speech is speech not paid for. The government obviously does too.
My guess is the government does about 70% of all spending. Compliance costs are huge. When I hire an accountant, that is considered to be "private spending" rather than taxation, but it is in fact taxation by another name. I get no benefit from it other than not being further attacked by the government. I don't want or need an accountant other than to attempt [but still fail] to comply with tax laws.
Mqurice |
