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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   5103 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for December 10, 2023

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Shower thought: the state should manufacture luxury items, or alternatively subcontract the work to a few officially approved brands, which would pay enormous taxes for the privilege. If you buy from them, you know you’ve overpayed through the nose, so you must be rich. Basically the state sells you a licence to signal your wealth. Why should the perfectly good money of morons go into Bernard Arnault’s slimy pockets?

I always thought the state should find ways to get donations from citizens, normalize it, reward it somehow. It is technically a big charity with an army. I want to see politicians and business leaders prance around with their million dollar StatelyTM cufflinks.

I think the issue with that is often luxury products are actually marginally better than the defaults, and I don't think the state could consistently make actually good products. It's one thing to pay $10k for a watch that's 1% better than a $500 watch, it's another to pay $10k for a watch that's 1% worse

They could just repeal the ban on civilian post-'86 machine guns, but add a huge stamp tax. The wholesale prices will come back down to Earth by unrestricting the supply, but the retail prices would remain high due to the tax, and the government gets the windfall.

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