Some are even so strict as to try to "mask" the tax rate by not allowing sellers to show with-tax prices before the sale transaction begins. This is why we don't have more stores that say "this item is $5.00, tax included". This is an asinine bureaucratic requirement that needs to be removed and the people who invented it, continued to enforce it, and who support it idealogically dragged out into the street and publicly humiliated and executed.
Meanwhile, one of the most frequent complaints from visitors to the US is that advertised prices don't include the tax component, to them representing a form of false advertising.

I don't think they can force sellers outside of the USA to charge US state sales tax to their customers so I guess I will be buying some stuff 'offshore'
Maybe at that point the reality of America being one of the cheapest, lowest-taxing countries in the western world might sink in.

What do so many Americans have such fear/hatred of Socialism?
Because they don't understand what a false dichotomy is.

I trust in the good of individuals to do the right thing.
No, you don't. If you did, you wouldn't be so paranoid about how they vote to use taxation revenue.

And from litres per 100 km you can then reduce your units and end up with a fuel consumption measured in square millimetres. Volume divided by length gives area.

IIRC, my Smart car used to do about 0.5 mm^2

The statement made was "I bet you're in a lower gear when you're going 60 than when you're going 75".
The point is that most (probably all) modern autos will be in top gear well before 60mph - ie: same gear regardless of cruising speed.
Whether they're designed to be optimal at that speed is an entirely separate issue.

I bet you're in a lower gear when you're going 60 than when you're going 75.
I doubt it. Every remotely modern (under ten years old) auto car I've ever driven has reached top gear by 60km/h or so (=40ish mph). Unless you put it into "sport" mode, or whatever the equivalent in your vehicle is.

Well obviously - it's because your gallons are smaller than proper gallons.

Is Mach 5 just an arbitrary number, or does something interesting happen at that speed from an aerodynamic perspective ?

In my first year at college, I pushed a friend (by accident) through a plate glass window. The college authorities fined me £50 and asked me to be more careful. [friend] was taken to hospital, lost a small slice of an ear IIRC but was otherwise ok.

We were sitting in the college bar, pretty drunk, and there were these thick radiators that ran along the windows which people sat on. [friend] had slid down between the radiator and the plate glass (10' x 10') window, and I thought it'd be a fine idea to get him stuck down there, so pushed him down as hard as I could...

Plate glass windows make a lot of noise when they break...

I do remember grabbing hold of him and pulling him back as soon as it happened, which may be why he still talks to me :) It may also be why he didn't get a sheet of glass through his neck, Exorcist-style.

The dean in charge of my hall-of-residence was particularly scathing when he found out I was studying physics at the time, various comments about the fragility of glass were made, but his (and the college's) attitude was "shit happens around students". The fine was their way of saying "don't be a dick, again".

Of course, this was the UK, not the US. I also wrote a networked virus without ending up in jail...

I've got a better idea that's actually relevant. You tell us what jobs you expect to exist when nearly all manufacturing and services labour is automated.

Maybe you missed the part about there being no jobs ?

We are already a mostly service economy [...]

Yeah. And how has that worked out again ?

For example, under a policy originally introduced during the Franco era, a company must pay a laid-off long-term worker 1.5 months of salary for every year he's been employed at the company. (If he's been there for 8 years, the company must pay him a full year's salary as severance pay.) Especially during the downturn, that policy has made companies loath to hire employees on anything other than temp contracts, contributing to Spain's massive 50% unemployment rate for workers under 26.
Your reasoning is completely arse about face. A policy like that should discourage companies from firing people, not hiring them (unless, of course, they are planning to fire them in the future).
In any event, this is not a policy that impacts "flexibility", it's just an operating expense (ie: you tack another 1.5 months worth of salary onto your costs for hiring an employee).

And when there is no work to be done, what do you propose all those people should do ?

Very, very few people are unemployed because they want to be.