2010 Prius V. My town is pretty fair towards me about valuing vehicles, so it's usually on the $50 range unless it's a really new and expensive car. The CTS-V might run a few hundred per year, which you can likely afford if you found yourself with such a vehicle (even as a lease).
That is what existing road taxes are for, and have been for for over fifty years.
If by road taxes you mean gas taxes, then yes. But now cars are more fuel efficient and people are driving less, so the amount of fuel being used is less as a portion of miles driven.
If you're thinking taxes in terms of toll roads, the money raised in that manner doesn't go into general road construction, but to maintaining that toll road.
My town has an excise tax for local roads based on the value of the car rather than how many miles driven or kind of car it is. My car is about $50 per year, or equivalent to about 3000 miles at 1.5 cents per mile. I drive a lot more than that.
Because roads still need to be maintained no matter what's driving on them. Those costs won't change. You're better off increasing the gas tax itself which then hurts less efficient (and presumably heavier) vehicles while reducing the impact on more fuel efficient (and lighter) vehicles.
Than again, all-electric vehicles don't pay a dime for road maintenance. Maybe a per-mile charge is better.
I have a Smart TV but I don't use any of the functionality of it. I have separate devices that I can use to do the exact same functions and I can replace them easily for a small amount of money if I want new/different features.
For an example of why I do this, there's how google changed their YouTube API so a bunch of older devices no longer work with it. Watch YouTube on a TV? Replace the entire TV. Watch it off a Chromecast and want to replace it? $35
Oh nice. I think the one I have didn't support that functionality (or I missed it).
Yes. Sorry, meant USB.
I have one of the earlier devices. It generates a OTP that goes along with your normal password. So you plug the device into an SSH port, ssh somewhere, enter your username, then password, then press the button on the Yubikey. It emulates a keyboard and spits out the OTP directly to wherever the keyboard has focus.
Handy, but I have way too many systems to manage to add this in and have it make sense. I think the newer versions allow you to use NFC so you can put the OTP on a phone or tablet.
They were under JFK too. He proposed reducing the top rate to 70% (which I'd be in favor of as well) but it didn't pass until LBJ was president.
You mean jack income tax rates up to 90%? Half kidding, but I'm curious what you see about the differences between Democrats now vs. JFK era.
Just because dead people are registered to vote doesn't make it voter fraud (it makes it registration fraud, but that's completely different). Now, if you had dead people actually voting (setting IL aside), then you might have a problem. However, the linked article says:
There's little evidence that this has led to widespread voter fraud, but it has raised concerns that the system is vulnerable.
Using this as a basis for demanding IDs to vote is completely dishonest and disenfranchises far more people from voting than you'd catch or prevent at voter fraud. My town sends out a yearly census that you fill out and send back in. Verify your registration details, sign, and send back in (you can probably also deposit it by hand at town hall or fill out the forms there). Not filling it out implies they'll take you off the voter rolls, and seems to be a good compromise if there's no reply after a few years.
Yes.
That too.
Maybe. Gold didn't necessarily help here in the US in 2008.
So let's say the world goes to hell in a handbasket. The job creators Go Galt and leave the rest of us with nothing. Civilization burned to the ground. Dog and cats living together, etc.
Salt has value since it's a preservative, flavorant, and necessary for life though it's fairly easy to get for most of humanity that lives near the oceans. It might have value for people further inland that don't have access to the shore, but that's because salt is needed to survive. Silver has some antibacterial properties and gold is malleable and shines, but other than that neither are required in order to support life so their value is pretty much 0 in this scenario.
"Sometimes insanity is the only alternative" -- button at a Science Fiction convention.
