Wishful dreams for 2018: fixing our societies, our politics and our taxes

With our governments going broke and looking to go even broker, here is my simple wish-list to fix our endemic societal issues, and recoup some much needed tax income, so we can start dreaming about things like improving disastrous education and health services…

Trump is gone …and a new political party emerges in the US that isn’t controlled by greedy corporations and corruptible misogynist dinosaurs. The American voters go back to voting on policies, not stereotypes and hatred.  Wouldn’t that just be so awesome? Is it illegal to dream these days?

Britain finally gives up on Brexit, realizing that changing the color of passports from red to blue doesn’t make up for trashing the country’s economic future and hurtling it back into the 1970s.  Please can we all just admit there is not one single good thing about Brexit for any living being, so we can just consign the whole thing to the time-capsule of bad ideas, along with communism, dodgeball and the George Foreman grill. Bad ideas are OK, as long as we admit later they were bad ideas…

Political leaders finally realize that smartphone addiction is the worst disease to affect society since cigarettes and booze. In fact, it’s worse – they could fund entire health, military and education programs taxing booze and ciggies, but with smartphones, all the money is now getting sucked offshore somewhere, and into Mark Zuckerberg’s and Jeff Bezo’s bank accounts.

Re-open pubs and bad discos. Back in the pre-smartphone era, our social world was centered on bad pubs and even worse dance floors. Yes, we had to get drunk and make idiots out of ourselves to meet people and get married… now it’s just swipe left or right, a few photos and you’re all done.  Where did all the “fun” go?  Can’t governments declare what’s left of our pubs as places of national heritage and conserve what we have left of life before Instagram?  Is the joy of youth consigned to sharing bad selfies and playing online video games alone in their bedrooms?

Tax gym memberships.  What was wrong with a few extra pounds and a beer gut?  Now, if you don’t have a perfect six-pack on your chest, rather than in your fridge, you’re not exacty making friends like you used to… where did all the fun go?  Not sure about you, but I don’t have much energy left for socializing after 45 mins on the treadmill and benchpressing 130lbs, so I might as well donate the $20 I should be spending on booze to the government to fund the reopening of classic pubs.

Tax anyone trying to buy Bitcoin.  Just because.

Tax vendors double for sponsoring every ropy conference under the sun. They’re wasting their money in any case, so why not make them do something useful with it?

Place income tax on robots. This will end the inane conversation about “digital” labor, as everyone goes out of their way to call it something else, like workflow efficiency… which is what it really always was, right?

Tax vendors for using the term “digital” in their marketing.  Why not make some use out of a meaningless overused term…

Tax #fakenews.  Forget the detritus of Obamacare, this will fund a whole new health system, right? 

Tax bloggers for writing opinionated blogs, because they think they can.  Make them realize there’s no such thing as free opinion these days…

The Bottom-line: As we near the end of a ridiculous year, we can all dream, can’t we?  

Happy holidays all =)

Posted in : Absolutely Meaningless Comedy