FYI: Currently only in Illinois, Oregon, and Washington.

5-15% is "very little"?

I didn't know Mitt Romney was posting on Slashdot!

Just imagine a Letterman style 'Man in the Street' interview

I presume you're actually referring to Jay Leno's "Jaywalking" segment. (One of the relatively few funny things Jay did as regular host..)

Congratulations, you get to go to the ATM, carry around cash, and pay more(*) for your stuff.

(*) Yes, there are the credit card company fees, but at each individual purchase(**), the price is the same. So I am getting at least 1% back, AND it's faster and more convenient than using cash.
(**) Gasoline (back when I drove a gas car as my primary car) was the single exception I'd run into frequently, but even then, AFTER the cash back portion, paying at a gas station next door that did take a credit card was at most the same price as Arco.. so still more convenient.

Auto ... insurance are now mandatory by force of law.

Not true, as I said in another reply.

At least for CA:

What Are the Types of Financial Responsibility?

Motor vehicle liability insurance policy.
Cash deposit of $35,000 with DMV.
DMV-issued self-insurance certificate.
Surety bond for $35,000 from a company licensed to do business in California.

Source: http://www.dmv.ca.gov/pubs%2Fb...

One can draw an analogy between this and supermarket club cards, where you *can* buy groceries without one, but, it is 25% more expensive.

...and I love the supermarket cards. Safeway has even gone one further beyond the weekly deals to have 'personalized' deals. Most weeks, I get as low or lower than the every-couple-of-weeks specials *on the things I wanted to buy anyway*. (Note, I didn't say "I would have bought anyway", since for many things, I used to wait for the every-couple-of-weeks sales and stock up then.) But now I usually don't have to stock up as much, and as I said, it's even better prices on many of the things I regularly get.

Mandatory insurance of any kind is slavery.

Do you drive a car? You *likely* have insurance.

(At least in CA, you can have one of these types instead of standard insurance: Cash deposit of $35,000 with DMV, DMV-issued self-insurance certificate, Surety bond for $35,000 from a company licensed to do business in California.)

There is no effective difference between the two. There is a rate for people with the monitoring and a rate for people without it, and the latter is higher. The only difference is what you call the "default."

Yes, and that's a difference. Which one is the default makes people who don't care (the majority) more likely to do the default one.

(Very similarly, we give "time off for good behavior" for prison. That's awful.. Good behavior should be the default, they should be able to add time, with some kind of maximum unless a new crime is committed (in prison), for bad behavior.)

They'll grasp at every last penny they can in an effort for tax money.

Kind of ironic, since the story involves California, which has Prop 13.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...

It wasn't really reversed. They made the "male" version all genders, but still have all female competitions.

They should just have all open events. (They also have female poker tournaments, and every once in a while, a guy wears a dress and enters it.)

No, it is not about the home VALUES, but literally the building quality and how long they should last.

I mean, I know a poorer constructed building have a lower value, but that's a consequence, not the subject.

Again, I have no idea if this shoddy workmanship applies to commercial buildings.

would it be worth someone's time to buy some of these unwanted out-of-the-way buildings and then fund (possibly fully) the construction of a line and station covering that area?

I have no idea if this is true for commercial buildings too, but there was a freakonomics podcast episode (2/26/2014 "Why are Japanese homes disposable?") that described that homes aren't built to be long lasting in Japan. Would definitely be worth researching before trying to do this.

I have no idea what you're talking about. My argument is that if people who believe an invisible man in the sky can refuse to pay for others getting their jollies, why can't atheists?

(Yes, I think in general people should pay for their own health care --- or their own insurance. Yes, insurance is "evening out the payments", but I'm talking about doing it willingly. BTW, both of the major presidential candidates were for at least some mandated health care, so I am not choosing political sides here.)

BTW, I feel the same thing about viagra, which IIRC, insurance companies pay for too.

OK, then why can't I be a "closely knit ownership structure" (I did already hear that part today, btw) in the "Church of Money", and my church believes I shouldn't have to pay for things people can pay for themselves?