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utopia [yoo-toh-pee-uh] - any visionary system of political or social perfection.
In modern society, we see some common problems reoccurring year after year.
In New Zealand, we see the following:
- Electricity
- Water
- Health
- Education
So, has anyone got an answer?
Power companies make a fortune every year, water is charged at obscene levels and increase every year at a rate higher than inflation, health care is expensive and in tatters, and education is underfunded and costs our tertiary students a fortune so they can earn more and pay yet more tax.
Now, some will get where I am heading with this line of thought and go "lefty", "communist" and various other words that even I would not write in this medium.
Firstly, I am neither a lefty nor a righty (ahem, we are talking politics). Some left policies sit well with me, some right policies sit well with me.
Now, let's got back to the word:
utopia [yoo-toh-pee-uh] - any visionary system of political or social perfection.
Imagine a world where services mentioned above were 100% free to the consumer, and at cost to businesses. In a modern society, they are all essential. They are in fact almost required for life in the modern world.
Could it be done? Some will say "what what about the heavy electricity users, or heavy water users" etc etc.
Well, take an aluminum smelter or steel mill - the two highest costs of production other than their raw materials are WATER and POWER.
If their profits increase, the government has more tax take. If the government is running the entities that produce power and water as businesses, but with efficiency rather than profit (call it virtual profit) their cost should not be above the CPI.
I don't know if it is economically feasible. But I will be exploring this idea some more in the coming weeks. |
| Posted by Karl Rohde on June 9, 2008 at 12:00 am | Politics | Trackbacks (0) |
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