Toll Everything...

[Magius]

I had an interesting conversation with the head boss of the company I work for on my lunch hour. I actually ate my lunch while he pontificated his views to me. He wasn’t very open to criticism, nor was he interested in hearing much of what I had to say, but the things he had to say were actually interesting.

He said that in doing his masters thesis he found statistics showing that if all the money in the world were to be gathered up and redistributed amongst everyone equally, that it would take only 8 years for the money to be back to where it is now - amongst the top 5% of the people of the world. He says this is for the reason that the system within which we live is designed to bring and keep money for the few and away from the many.

Anyway, after a lot of complaining about things I have heard a thousand times before, you know the problem of double taxation, problem of democracy, problem of communism, problem of welfare, problem of health care being paid for by taxation dollars, etc - I asked him (finally got a chance to speak) what he proposes as a solution. He said he would tell me the same thing he said in class as a graduate university student “Toll Everything”.

His idea is that if everything was only charged to people as they use it than we wouldn’t have such a huge divide between the rich and the poor. The idea is to be applied to everything, one should only be billed for the amount of water they use, the amount of gas, electricity, etc. We would be charged for the use of all roads, doctors, etc.

We were abruptly interupted and a few minutes later lunch was over and I went back to work. But I wish I had the chance to tell him, what I see, as problematic with his view. There are some things, life health care that need to be there, ready, prior to you actually getting hurt. We cannot go and build an ambulance after someone has called 911 because that is when they need, nor can we have doctors rushing to a hospital from home because someone needs their help in a moment of critical illness. The roads, hospitals, equipment, employees, especially salaried doctors with full time hours need to exist already. If we destroyed taxation and charged people only as per their use, who and how would we pay for the hospital? The equipment? The roads?

I think he is onto something, but has thrown it into too much of an extreme. A more efficient system than the one we live in or the one he proposed, in my opinion, would be a hybrid between taxation and tolls.

I would be interested to hear what the rest of you think on the matter.

What’s your take?

[BluTGI]

I agree the system fails because it gives no room for change. To tweek your ambulance idea. The population of a small town increases by 5000 due to massive migration, do they take the ambulance with them to the small town? The small town will not have the ability to work because they havent the resources.

We are already in a minor mix of taxation and tolls. The reason he went extreme with the idea is because he got rid of taxation. The taxes would have to be completly rewritten. Tax things that arnt taxed now, and reduce the taxes on things that are taxed. Toll the things that arnt now and increase the toll rates of tolls in place.

What this is doing is shrinking the ecenomics and physics of a country back to a state system.

Which is the way history says we will go from here anyway.

[Pax_Vitae]

Here in Ireland we have a big problem with car insurance for people under the age of about 27, and Male. Your car might only be worth about €3500, but if you’re around 21 or under you could be paying as much as €5500 for insurance. Then as you get older it starts to come down and level off at around €800 at 27. It’s insane!

So, the insurers have a new pilot program for car drivers under the age of 25, where they put a Monitor into the car that tracks how fast you drive, and how much mileage you do. It knows what speed zones you’re in and if you break the limit 3 times your taken off the program and put onto the full insurance. The cost for insurance on this program is still around €2000 a year.

Now to the part that links it to this topic. Well the Irish Government likes the look of this program as a way of doing the Road Tax, which everyone must pay and is currently based off the power of the car you drive. In the new version you would have to pay based off the mileage you’ve put up during the year. So people who use the road a lot will have to pay more. At first it sounds like a good solution to taxation, but I don’t like the idea of all cars in Ireland having this Monitoring equipment! I assume it would also then be used to see how safe of a driver you are, and if you were caught speeding it would automatically fine you.

This topic reminds me of an interview I listened to with the creator of the Amiga (a for runner to the PC around, 1987), who was asked, “Where he thought the future of computers would be.” And he being a little paranoid said, “Computers are very good at tracking and recording information and this could lead to people having to pay for things which are now currently unimaginable, as computers become more apart of everyday life it will become easier to charge people based off this recorded information.” He also said that in general all inventions are made to manage and make things more controllable, the question is always what are we trying to control.

I also have a very paranoid friend who is always telling me he thinks the Internet is just a big CIA project for tracking emails and other types of network traffic. He says this is because it was originally a military project, and is still currently doing it’s military task of creating a single way of having all the world’s data travelling along a single source so as to make it easier to monitor. While I don’t believe this, I can see why his conspiracy theory has a leg to stand on.

[Magius]

Another issue that comes to mind with tolling everything, that sprung to mind while reading Pax Vitae’s post is, if everything is suppose to be equal, what do you do about people that live further away from work and hence have to pay more for the use of the extra distance of road, pay more for insurance because they use the car longer, pay more for the gas they use while driving the car, etc? While those who live close to the work place pay less.

Your Ireland example is analogous to the situation in Ontario, Canada. Most males pay between $2000-$3000 a year for insurance on their vehicle. There are certain ways around it, I know cause I took them. There is a special course you can take for $300 before you get your ‘G’ license (there is also a G2 and a G1 which are the first ones you get). This course is just a few classes of road safety and about 20 hours of road driving experience with an instructor. It helps lower your insurance. Moreover, if you are a student your insurance is lower, as well as, if you have a high enough grade point average in school your insurance is lower.
Also, if you go a year or two without any tickets or accidents, your insurance is lower. Presently, I pay approximately $60 a month for insurance which is very low, especially for a guy. Most of my friends pay between $200-$350 a month. Even girls I know pay about $100-$200 a month. At the age of 25 you get an additional discount, that’ll be next year for me.

It was interesting to hear about that program you got in Ireland. We have something like that for people who get caught drinking and driving too many times and still wish to keep their license. There is a breathalyzer doo-higgy in the car, each time you want to start the car you have to breath into the breathalyzer that checks that you are not intoxicated and only then will the car start. A couple a months with this thing and no occurences of being intoxicated will relinquish the governments mistrust and they get it removed.

Off topic: Amiga rocks! I remember that system from way back in the day. I use to have a friend who had one with a plethora of games. Some of them still haven’t been matched by our modern and superior Playstation 2 and X-box.

Pax stated:

I also have a very paranoid friend who is always telling me he thinks the Internet is just a big CIA project for tracking emails and other types of network traffic. He says this is because it was originally a military project, and is still currently doing it’s military task of creating a single way of having all the world’s data travelling along a single source so as to make it easier to monitor. While I don’t believe this, I can see why his conspiracy theory has a leg to stand on.

Your friend may just be right. But if he is right, then the Internet is a form of control that has turned in on itself and has slipped out of the hand of the CIA and is now a free flying bird. Although, it could still be used for important statistics, tracking, and monitoring of people for brainwashing purposes in the future, or who knows what else.

What’s your take?