You are correct, it would have been better if I had worded more that equality of outcome as has been practiced by most societies inevitably ends up punishing or restricting everyone but a certain group. The issue being that "willful cooperators" bit. Every attempt that I'm aware of in attempting to create an equality of outcome couldn't acquire or maintain those willful cooperators and instead leaned heavily towards those taking advantage of the situation and forcing cooperation on the rest. Typically those taking advantage of the situation ended up being in the same group that forced it upon others.

At this point it's probably a condition inherent in human societies that lends itself to corruption. It may also be something along of the Second Law of Thermodynamics. Moving from an organized state to disorganized when entropy is applied.

The point was to alienate the right. Creating a scapegoat for all the wrongs or anyone who gets in their way. With Id pol if you constantly push a stance and then claim that that stance is the only correct one or is one that you would choose if you were trying to do the right thing, then you can claim anyone who doesn't agree is wrong. You see it all over in Id pol. The next step is to then make the "wrong" illegal. By doing that you can completely eliminate the opposition by make them criminals. An extreme example of this is the rise of the Nazi regime in Germany. Being Jewish wasn't illegal when they started out but through the use of Id pol or tribalism they demonized an entire portion of the population.

It's always incremental and most of the time doesn't even seem that wrong. Example: racism is bad. Everyone can agree with that. Since racism is bad and group of people are experiencing racism we need to stop it. Since we can't make racism illegal, yet, we need to help the group being discriminated against. How do we do that? Well we start by giving them an advantage to equalize the situation over the top of the racism but by giving an advantage solely to a specific group you now have institutional racism. When that doesn't work, and it never does because it's still racism, you need to make the others not of the group experiencing racism have a disadvantage. This is commonly called equality of outcome. The problem is that equality of outcome doesn't work by boosting a group it only ever works by punishing or restricting everyone but a certain group. This creates the problem of being obviously wrong so to avoid taking the blame politicians need a scapegoat. The usual argument is something like, " well this would have worked but the __fill in the blank__ group stopped it from working. So not only do they still get to push their own agendas they can punish their opponents simply by being their opponents.

His timbre is a bit low for Michael Jackson but the cadence and intensity it mostly there.

Isn't that Ohio?

Or both.

Three reasons why. One, because people are not smart. Example: One store sells item X with the tax included in the price at $4. Another store that is competing then advertises to sell it at $3.50 but the tax isn't included. All most people see is that one appears to be cheaper than the other so they buy the one marked for less.

Two, many of the larger chains or retail outlets set a fixed price for all their stores. So item X will always be $3.50 regardless of where you're at in the country. And given that there are so many different tax rates which can actually change even depending on the type of product in the same jurisdiction it's easier on the retailers to not even try.

Which leaves us to the third point. It's just plain simpler to not include the tax because it's faster and less labor intensive not to mention cheaper. Most place in the US don't actually label each item. They have a single label on the shelf edge for all the items of each kind. They don't print those labels either. They're generally sold to the stores either by the manufacturer or a printing company under contract. Which then leaves us back with number two.

Small or local only business are generally the only ones to actually label each thing and because the rest of the country doesn't, won't, or can't include the tax in the price they follow suit.

I do realize that but I also know that if a producer is selling a particular item to retail outlets the price they sell it at is set. The retailer then has the right to mark up the price to make a profit but some of the larger companies actually have set rates retailers must sell at or they can no longer sell their products. Most only give a maximum limit but let the retailers set the price under that at their discretion.

You are absolutely right about the psychological thing. Grocery stores, chain stores, and major retail have this down to an art form. There's whole departments dedicated to nothing but getting the customer to buy and at the highest price possible.

Would you look at that. Covid cases increased when it got cold enough people started staying inside heated buildings with other people. Shocking!! Also this is useless unless they show when masking and restrictions started. And turn around for mild to mid level covid is roughly 4 weeks. The more people that get it the less that will have it and be able to spread it 4 weeks later. Given finite population size it would mean once it's moved through the population cases will naturally drop off.

There are over 11,000 standard sales tax jurisdictions in the United States. There is no way companies would be willing to price every item for each jurisdiction they ship too. Even neighboring towns can have a different sales tax. Instead of trying to price everything with the tax they just set the price and let the local store add the correct tax. You can still bargain at places like farmers markets, antique malls, and flea markets. They still have add the tax to any sales but the initial price can change.

Every place I've worked, barring one, had the policy to give robbers whatever they wanted and to comply with whatever they said so as not to be injured or harmed.