I think this is the confusing thing to foreigners. The notion of formal party membership doesn’t seem to apply much if at all in the US. Here, internal party matters such as choosing candidates are decided by the party’s own membership (and by certain affiliated organisations, in some cases). The idea that other people can stick their noses into it, or that the State gets involved, seems bizarre. It’s a private matter for the party.
ISTR from previous discussions about this that it goes back to the founding fathers’ dislike of the whole idea of political parties, which has led to them being much more loosely organised that parties in other countries.
Thanks, Typo Knig. In Spain there are some parties that hold primaries but it’s completely an internal matter. To me what’s befuddling in your case is the notion of “registering in a government database which party I vote for”, it seems to go against the concept of “vote secrecy”. There’s also the fact that in states with party registration, the parties are using government resources to run what I’m used to seeing as a private matter - but this is my perception, colored by my own customs, it is clearly not the American perception.
If I’m remembering right, I think we did eventually get another key, but it took a while since it the light issue always seemed to happen at awkward times - either in the morning when the front desk staff was busy checking in dozens of people, or at night when there was no front desk staff. Or something like that, I’m not remembering quite right. I just remember cursing the damn “I need my key to get the lights on!” thing.
I suspect your experience may have been a-typical; I’ve been in many European single rooms in the past year (business…) and have always got two keys at check-in.
Another one from Taiwan, lottery numbers are printed on every receipt, and every two months the government publishes combinations of winning numbers in the newspaper: people can look through their old receipts and win anything from 10 US dollars to a couple of grand.
Why do they do this? To ensure every consumer asks for his or her receipt – and ensure that the merchant is paying sales tax on every transaction.
I am just trying to think of things that could be implemented without much political dispute, not because I don’t think access to healthcare is important (and should be a right).
I guess it falls in the bureaucratic category but the US could really use an arms length elections office that sets election standards and sets electoral districts.
That is a very good one. Additionally, it serves a form of charity. Since going through all your past month’s tickets to see if you one a couple hundred bucks NT, you just drop it in one of the donation receptacles that are all over the place. Then they go through the numbers and any money won goes to that group.
That’s the difference, UHC isn’t the same as single-payer, which does make it a political issue. I think I successfully avoided “single payer” (and politics) by describing one of the several health systems available in Mexico (above).
Oh, that’s the good one. While it’s not universal in Mexico, there are two chains that sell tickets online. You can either purchase online and pick your seats then, or you can make a reservation and pay at the ticket counter. The latter option, though, means you have to be there 1/2 an hour before show time, because reserved seats are opened back up to the general pool. This only applies to the VIP and Platino cinemas, though, not for the normal US-style cinemas. What’s the difference? Huge reclining, leather chairs, waiter service, a decent food and cocktail menu, and although expensive by Mexico standards, it’s still cheaper than the crappy US theaters. Spanish an issue? Nope. Mostly only kids’ movies are dubbed. Regular movies are in English with subtitles.
Well of course, which is why I made the distinction – but I’m pretty sure he was thinking of Healthcare in general.
Slightly off-topic – Is Israel, too, only kiddie movies are dubbed, and even those are shown in two versions, dubbed or sub-titled, with the format generally well-marked on all listings. But maybe we should probably save this item for a “good ideas” thread about <European country that dubs all foreign movies> (I think there are several of those)
I just thought of another one in Taiwan: wearing masks when you’re sick. This apparently started with the SARS epidemic, but it has already become so ingrained that it is considered rude to be coughing (or just obviously sick) without a mask over your mouth and nose. After a while, you get used to this, and now back in the US, I’m almost uncomfortable around people who are coughing near me, covering it with their hands, and probably spreading all sorts of germs.
A wide range of countries sell things where the price listed is the actual price. It’s not the price+tax, which varies from state to state, and city to city. I get that as a national manufacturer, you want to set a national price and then every local community wants to add their tax to it, but as a consumer, it irritates me that when I go to buy something, I have to always have ‘a little extra’ to account for whatever the tax is. A local restaurant near me recently started doing the ‘price on the menu is what you pay’ style of pricing (with tax already included), and I never realized how much I appreciated it until they did that.
Hell, with all the propositions over the years that raise our local sales tax by half a cent here and there to fund various programs, I don’t actually know what my local sales tax is anymore. A motivated sales clerk looking to make extra money could just charge a nickel or dime more for all total purchases and I would bet 99.99% of the consumers would never even notice, because we are so used to get dinged a few percent for sales tax everywhere we go, who pays attention?
I also like that in some countries, you can negotiate the price of a cab to take you to a specific location like the airport or a major tourist attraction. Here in the U.S, it is $3.40 to start plus $0.25 every 1/10 mile or five minutes or similar stupid pricing scheme that makes it impossible to figure out what the fare will remotely be in advance. And you get charged for getting stuck in traffic, etc. In other words, I come to your random U.S. city, and only have a rough idea where my hotel is. If I take a cab, it could cost anywhere from $10 - $50 depending on the time of day, the route the guy drives, etc. I would rather the cab guy just said, “it’s $35 to go to this part of the city from here”. Then you could easily decide if it was worth it for the convenience versus the headache of figuring out the public transportation in a random city. Even in 2010, it is still a baffling process to figure out taxi pricing.
The law here states that retailers are forbidden from charging a price higher then the one on the label - no surcharges, and no taxes. What you see is what you get.
It also means prices are much rounder, which means you end up handling much less change.
Not quite on the “all”. Spain is a dubbing country, but movies which aren’t expected to have a big following (“cineclub movies”, (1)) don’t get dubbed, most large towns have some theaters which specialize in subtitled movies, some theater chains show movies dubbed at regular hours and subtitled for the midnight run and TV programming is moving more and more to “dual versions”, where you can choose to watch a movie in the original language (be it Spanish, Italian, English, Catalan… you name it) or dubbed and also choose subtitle languages. A lot of this would simply not have made sense before there was a high demand to learn foreign languages or the technology for dual versions. My experience and that of my Translation classmates in other dubbing countries has been similar, better technology and more demand are creating a subtitling market.
(1) Akira was shown in Japanese with Spanish subtitles because some guy who owned a very small movie theater managed to get a copy and badger a couple of nerdish translators of his acquaintance into preparing the subtitles; after showing it to a full theater for a month, he was able to convince a distribution company to have it dubbed. This is a very extreme case in that the audience wouldn’t have been able to understand anything other than “Akira”, “Tetsuo” and “arigato” without the subtitles/dubbing, but there have been other sleepers.
For major inter-city (e.g., airport) runs in Israel you can either accept a “List Price” (yes, there are actually lists for this). Or use a shared taxi. For start/destination pairs not on The List, you can haggle. Or you can always tell the driver to run the meter.
Note: we do have a nation-wide VAT, which has to be included in the displayed price. Except where we don’t (Eilat Free Trade Zone). This means that items like newspapers (that have the price pre-printed on them) have to come with two prices: One for general circulation, and another one for Eilat FTZ.
It is to laugh. X.[sup]99[/sup] everything, just like anyplace else… :rolleyes: (not at you, at the practice)
True, although it prevents prices like $5.74 for a $4.99 purchase; besides, as the smallest coin is worth 0.10 shekels, prices are most often rounded off.
On the issue of pricing, I also think it would be very beneficial (especially for more expensive things) if the US started requiring sellers to list the full price that will be paid at the register for their products (i.e. all taxes included on the tag on the shelf). This has been my experience everywhere outside of the US (IIRC).
On the tax issue it’s the same in Canada as it is in the US and part of the reason for it is rounding. Rounding on each item you buy can produce a radically different number than rounding on the total cost of your entire purchase. If the change occured and everyone had to make it at the same time it would be fine and since I’m working on retail sales systems implementations right now it would keep my job secure longer. I vote yes!