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Comment Re:Gid Rid of All Sales Taxes (Score 1) 229

This is true. It is also true that only 50% of people actually pay income tax. If we had a flat tax with no deductions, the whole population would be interested in reducing government spending. Right now 50% of the population wants more government spending because it doesn't cost them anything. Who wouldn't?

Comment Promote innovation by taxing it... (Score 1) 380

..end troll headline.. I propose that IP (ideally both patent and copyright) be taxed. Now as a good republican, this feels revolting, but I think it might help. Owners of IP would state the value of their IP. In order to keep the size of government from swelling like a festering bug bite from all the audits, people should be able to purchase the IP at face value into the public domain. This will keep the owners honest while giving potential non-owner innovators a known cost forward. (wheeda turns on lawyer shield. Shields at maximum!) The original owner will be fully compensated for their contribution to society, or even make a hefty profit depending on their stated value, while the rest of the community is able to further leverage the idea. I believe this approach will make being a patent troll very expensive, while busting up the tie that bind innovation. Further more, in this climate, passing a new tax should be relatively simple. Not simple, just relatively simple.

Comment Re:Think of the jobs (Score 1) 561

Rather than holding society back because we don't want people to lose their jobs, we can pay all the current drivers to hold road signs. Of course, I'm not sure why we would need road signs if we have automated driving. Similarly, I would be happier to send my accountant a $1000 check for doing nothing than actually going through all the hassle of actually using an accountant. (flat tax please...)

Comment Re:I wold love a car that drives itself... (Score 1) 561

The other efficiency angle to look at this is traffic density. We can probably triple traffic density using automated cars. Figure out the cost to implement automated car. Figure out the cost to triple the number of lanes on all our freeways. I'll bet getting automated cars working is more financially efficient.

Comment Re:I wold love a car that drives itself... (Score 1) 561

I believe that the way for this to take off, in addition to the tech being worked out, is legislation that requires auto insurance companies to charge auto insurance rates for self driving cars vs human driven cars that is proportional to the relative safety of the two. As small of a cost as auto insurance is, suddenly everyone is going to want a self driving car, not because it is actually cost effective initially, but because people hate pay for insurance. I would say a similar thing happened with fuel costs and Prius'. I own a Prius. I don't actually believe the car is saving me money, I just _hate_ paying for gas.

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