Not likely in Minnesota. I can hear the complaints from the smaller cities in the state already. Why should they have to pay for the fancy gov’t buildings that Mpls/St Paul has… 
It is a cool place, worth a visit. I went into a small fraction of the places, since I somewhat limit my drinking especially when travelling. I skipped the place with a hospital theme and saw no nurses. I’m sure the area attracts every kind of character.
I speak little Japanese but I’m this area many speak a little English. The Japanese* can find English very difficult and many do not speak it really well (although many do). They can be self-conscious about trying, except when drinking.
- People are individuals and no offence is meant by the broad overgeneralizations based on fleeting personal impressions. I am often wrong.
Including sales tax in the price labeling.
I would be very very happy if bars like that existed in my area, so that’s a plus one for something that should exist worldwide, or at least in some big cities. I mean, who wouldn’t like it, really.
As for population, a quick Google gives Tokyo a population of 14m but its “metropolitan area” approaching 38m.
There is one case for a store near me that actually does something like this. It’s basically a place next to a university that buys the used textbooks for courses that students take and then want to get rid of after the course is over. The store then sells and/or rents the books to other students who want to get the book but not pay full price. That’s what the store makes its profit on. The store also has a section for other books. I suspect that lots of the students want to get rid of most of their books of all sorts when they graduate (or drop out of) the university. They don’t want to look at books again after leaving the university. So they sell the books at very low prices (or maybe for nothing) to the store.
So there is a section of the store with a lot of books at typical used book prices for a mix of books that aren’t current textbooks for the university. There is also a section for such books that have a sign near them that says “2 books for a dollar”. The first time I was in this store I bought six books from that section. I expected to pay $3.18 for them, since this is a 6% sales tax state.
Instead, I only paid $2.99.
I asked the clerk how that could be. She explained that the “2 books for a dollar” sign actually meant that two books cost $.94.
There was also $.06 for the sales tax if you only bought two books.
Since I bought six books, that meant that the price was 3 times $.94, which is $2.82.
The 6% sales tax on $2.82 comes to 17 cents. The total was thus $2.99.
That is common in some situations, such as refreshment stands at a stadium or amusement park. But I have noticed that in those situations, the price is almost always listed as
Price Tax Total
$.94 + .06 $1.00
I assume the reason is because if the price was listed as $1.00 the taxing authority would interpret the listed price as “before tax”. And one thing I have always wondered about this system is exactly what is described above - where 2 books for 94 cents means 2 books for a dollar when tax is added , but 6 books is $2.99 instead of three dollars where does extra penny go? In this case Wendell didn’t pay the extra penny but in most places I see with tax-inclusive prices, it seems that they want to minimize giving change and every price ends in either .25,.50,.75 or .00. So they would charge $3.00 rather than $2.99 - and I’m not sure if the vendor keeps the penny or if it goes to the tax collector.
My 11 year old son has an iPhone. When, as an experiment, we tried to add a debit card to his Apple Wallet, it does not allow it. It says he is too young to use mobile payment.
I thought I had seen this thread active recently, there might be a similar one that a search didn’t bring up.
Something I saw today on a Russian TV seires is traffic lights that aren’t a solid color but are numbers counting down the seconds remaining until the light changes. I’ve never seen or thought about that before, but it seems like a great idea.
In Vietnam (if you actually get a traffic light 
) and some parts of Thailand this is commonplace. I wish we had the same in Australia.
I’m not sure if I’ve posted my druthers previously in this thread (apart from the post above) but I really wish that we had real street-food. Like anybody who wants to cook anything they like, sitting on the street and selling their fare.
We have so many food-safety regulations etc that it’s not possible for anyone to do so…but I reckon it should be a case of caveat emptor, and if I want to buy some curry or tacos or chicken-rice from some bloke with a big pot on a portable gas-cooker, then I should be able to.
We don’t have that in Canada, but what is increasingly common is countdown timers for the pedestrian crossings, so if you look for the pedestrian signal as you approach, you can get a sense of how much time you have until the traffic light changes.
In our household, we file our annual income taxes with both the US and an EU country.
For the European taxes, there is barely anything to fill out. The tax authority has already calculated what we owe. We can either adjust this calculation or accept it as is. Then we pay via bank transfer. We do this all online. It takes only a few minutes.
It’s a stark contrast from filing taxes with the shamelessly dysfunctional, hopelessly retrograde IRS. Americans should be outraged at what they have to deal with.
For most of us in the UK income tax and National Insurance are deducted at source by whoever pays you, according to a “tax code” that indicates how much you’re allowed tax free and the relevant rate of tax. You’re on your honour to volunteer if you have additional income, and you only need to bother with the paperwork of expenses and the like if you’re self-employed or claiming something extra over and above the tax-free allowances.
It’s the same in South Africa.
Yeah–I’ve said for years that a president whose campaign was “I will make the bureaucracy work better” could get hella votes. For one thing, every government agency ought to talk to every other government agency: if you get veteran’s benefits, the Social Security Administration should know about it and not need proof of those benefits, and the IRS should also have that on file. You sohuld never have to bring your birth certificate to get a driver’s license, because you shouldn’t have to deliver government documents to the government.
A country where you don’t have to spend hours doing your taxes every year? Yes please!
I fully agree. We had the same challenge in Toronto years ago. A food cart selling hot dogs, etc. was perfectly fine, as long as it was hooked up to a water source. Well, what were food cart operators supposed to do? Open up a fire hydrant? That rule effectively shut down food carts, and street food in Toronto.
Then, thankfully, some city councillor had some sense, and said, “Listen, folks, if we’re going to be Canada’s New York City, as we like to think we are, then maybe we should be like New York City. Let’s allow food carts to operate without a water supply, just like in New York City.” And it happened.
And I can tell you, the Big Smokie Hot Dogs from the vendor outside Union Station on Front Street in Toronto, are fantastic. Even without a water supply.
I like the idea of it in theory but I don’t think it could ever work, for two reasons. One of which is that part of the reason for bringing the birth certificate is to prove your identity, the idea being that there are a limited number of people of the appropriate age who might possess a particular birth certificate. It is of course not in any way foolproof - but if all you need is a birthdate and name and the issuing agency can look it up, there’s no point in requiring a birth certificate at all.
The second reason is that unless there is a drastic change in the way everything is done there will still be the issue of people getting driver’s licenses or other ID in a different jurisdiction than where they are born or where the birth records are kept. Maybe I’m getting my license in NY and I was born in Canada or I’m getting a non-driver’s ID in New Jersey but was born in Pennsylvania. Or maybe I’m getting a NYS license and was born in NYC, which keeps its own birth records.
Do you mean without running water or without any water supply at all? Because I don’t particularly care if the hot dog cart has running water - but I do want the vendor to be able to wash their hands. ( and NYC does generally require water but it can be in a tank )
That seems to make sense, but the reality is that government is a vast entity that deals with many different aspects of our lives, and the information that different departments hold are subject to different levels of security. Making everything the government knows about you into an information monolith seems really risky.
Otherwise I agree with you. The income tax folks here in Canada (Canada Revenue Agency) are far easier to deal with than the IRS. One story that I think I’ve told before is about a very unusual convoluted tax situation where I was being assessed income tax for income that was technically taxable according to the rules, but should not have been taxable according to simple logic that could be understood by anyone with even half a brain.
Needless to say, no one in telephone support could help, other than the usual “them’s the rules, sucks to be you”. So I wrote a letter to the CRA explaining the whole situation.
I didn’t get a personal letter back in response, but what I did get was a revised “Statement of Assessment” that corrected the situation and reversed the taxation.
All I ask of our government is that they be sane and that their policies make sense.