roastpotatothief

Inheritance tax is not working. That's because of a conflict between two needs:

1. Allow people to pass on their property to their wives and children
2. Prevent families from living off old money for generations, and becoming wealthy freeloaders.

This leads to trade-offs and to weak and ineffective taxation. But there is a simple way to achieve both goals fairly with a modified tax.

Someone should be able to leave money to his wife, nearly tax free. If he is estranged from his wife, he should equally be able to leave money to his mistress. If he's not married, he should be able to leave money to a sister, or a friend or neighbour. There is no reason these people should suffer tax, any more than a wife would.

People leaving money to their children should pay a high tax. Grandchildren should pay a much higher tax, because the money is skipping a generation. Really, old money should pay inheritance tax twice to pass down two generations.

Leaving money to a much younger wife or friend. It's debatable whether a high tax should be paid. This argument requires that it should.

The answer is to apply a tax based on the age-difference. For example the tax rate could be 0.5*(deceased_age-beneficiary_age). There should also be a threshold below which no tax is paid. This simple change allows inheritance tax to meet both its requirements, and treat all kinds of relationships fairly.

After reading what Varadkar said about genocide yesterday (“Varadkar rules out joining South African genocide case”), there are many things you could say. I’m going to gloss over whether a man who contradicts himself in mid argument is fit to be in government, and focus on a bigger issue.

Genocide is where somebody selectively kills part of a population because of their race, religion, ethnicity, creed, etc.

It is not necessary to kill every member of of the target group, to commit a genocide.

Genocide is a two part process. The target population is first isolated in a certain place, then massacred. If non-target people are first given the opportunity to leave, before the massacre starts, then that is further evidence of genocide.

Common definitions of genocide (and there are several) focus on intent. Intent is difficult to prove. Definitions of crimes only make sense when they focus on the actual act, not on speculation about actor’s intent.

A bombing is not a genocide, nor is a massacre. Isolating a certain population inside a walled off region, and then bombing it, is a genocide. Isolating a people in a certain region, then withdrawing the supply of water, or blocking the importation of medicine, is also genocide. Driving into a town and shooting everyone, is not genocide.

After reading what Varadkar said about genocide yesterday ("Varadkar rules out joining South African genocide case"), there are many things you could say. I'm going to gloss over whether a man who contradicts himself in mid argument is fit to be in government, and focus on a bigger issue.

Genocide is where somebody selectively kills part of a population of a certain race, religion, ethnicity, creed, etc.

It is not necessary to kill every member of of the target group, to commit a genocide.

Genocide is a two part process. The target population is first isolated in a certain place, then massacred. If non-target people are first given the opportunity to leave, before the massacre starts, then that is further evidence of genocide.

Common definitions of genocide (and there are several) focus on intent. Intent is difficult to prove. Definitions of crimes only make sense when they focus on the actual act, not on speculation about actor's intent.

A bombing is not a genocide, nor is a massacre. Isolating a certain population inside a walled off region, and then bombing it, is a genocide. Isolating a people in a certain region, then withdrawing the supply of water, or blocking the importation of medicine, is also genocide. Driving into a town and shooting everyone, is not genocide.

So this exists. The goals are

• people get financial security by having more than one employer.
• people can change jobs and careers more fluidly. they can experiment with new careers without risk.

There is also an idea I've written about before, of everybody serving 1 year conscription in the civil service. (I now know this is not a completely new idea.) The goals are

• Give a critical mass of people insight into how the public service really works, what are the weaknesses and problems, what is it like to do these jobs. This could lead to societal improvement
• Allow people to try new careers
• Make corruption more difficult. For example if the police were routinely torturing people or record holders destroying peoples documents, it would be much more difficult to keep it a secret, with new uncorrupted people arriving in the office each year, observing all, and leaving again.

It is debatable if this should be optional. If it is not, it could delay people starting their real careers by forcing them to do a job they resent. Or it could be educational, changing peoples minds about their planned career path.

All of the above is good for individuals, for society, and for employers.

Now combine the two ideas. Like this:

Friday is designated an overwork day. Employees get a legal right to not work Fridays, for any or no reason, with a proportional salary cut.

Employers can hire new people to work Fridays only, with the eventual hope of poaching the employee.

Employees also get the right to 6 months unpaid leave. This can be used to try out working in the civil service or another employer.

This combined policy has even greater benefits.

It looks like the current government will not take action on the urgent issues of our time. The most urgent is climate change but it's not the only one.

Any maybe no future government will take action either. It's the nature of our political system that governments ignore long-term problems.

There is only one way to force them into action.

We must find a single issue with overwhelmingly popular support. Then we organise a national strike over it.

It must be a specific actionable realistic issue. For example

• A fair sales tax on all products which produce carbon dioxide or methane, in proportion to their global warming effect per kilo. This would include concrete, beef, fertilizer, fossil fuels, steel. The money shall be used to fund a cut in the general VAT rate. So these products rise in price and everything else, every less polluting product, drops in price.
• A boycott on Israel until it grants non-Jews in territories it controls equal civil rights.
• A ban on vulture funds owning housing.

First we need a public figure, or anyone influential or persuasive, to spearhead this action.

Who can do it?

It looks like the current government will not take action on the urgent issues of our time. The most urgent is climate change but it's not the only one.

Any maybe no future government take action either. It's the nature of our political system that governments ignore long-term problems.

There is only one way to force the issue.

We must find a single issue with overwhelmingly popular support. Then we organise a national strike over it.

It must be a specific actionable realistic issue. For example

• A fair sales tax on all products which produce carbon dioxide or methane, in proportion to their global warming effect per kilo. This would include concrete, beef, fertilizer, fossil fuels, steel. The money shall be used to fund a cut in the general VAT rate. So these products rise in price and everything else, every less polluting product, drops in price.
• A boycott on Israel until it grants non-Jews in territories it controls equal civil rights.
• A ban on vulture funds owning housing.

First we need a public figure, or anyone influential or persuasive, to spearhead this action.

Who can do it?

So there is a name for it. This situation we are in where nearly everyone wants to improve their society and avoid climate crisis etc, but there is no change an individual can make to improve the situation. So everyone keeps doing the same thing, helplessly knowing their strategy contributes to everything being terrible.

The technology exists to have cameras everywhere, and we should. Criminals avoid punishment because there is no evidence, especially when they are politicians or police or soldiers.

The obvious special cases are police body cams and dash cams, where some types of crime would stop of people knew they were surveiled.

The trick is to have total surveillance but also privacy.

HDMI is an existing technology where video data can only be transmitted once a secure key is provided. So video can be recorded by a box and encrypted on internal storage. It can only be decrypted and viewed if the user has a certain key.

This is perfect.

Secure encrypted video camera systems can be built cheaply, using existing technology. In general nobody will ever be able to view the recordings.

If somebody alleges a crime, the camera can be brought to court, where a judge can order the key to be found. The key will only be held by a specially elected group of officials who must all be present for the video to be viewed.

This way we can have both security and privacy.

Although it is possible HDMI could be hacked, even if this happens this system is much better than we have today. Today the surveillance is transmitted to many places and people insecurely. It can be used for many things. The recordings can even be remotely deleted after a crime is committed, which does happen sometimes.