Based on the excerpt from this Discworld book, what other items do you use regularly that would fit in this theory? (Boots and shoes are fair game!)

Text transcript for people who want it:

[The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money.

Take boots, for example. He earned thirty-eight dollars a month plus allowances. A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. Those were the kind of boots Vimes always bought, and wore until the soles were so thin that he could tell where he was in Ankh-Morpork on a foggy night by the feel of the cobbles.

But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while the poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.

This was Captain Samuel Vimes ‘Boots’ theory of socioeconomic unfairness.]

Bonus: suggest ways you can repair/restore your item/other people’s items.

  • damnYouSun
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    1 year ago

    In the UK you have to pay car tax which basically is a tax on vehicles which obstensively covers road maintenance.

    If you pay monthly then you have to pay 12 units for one year.

    However if you can afford to pay one lot all in one go then you only have to pay the equivalent of 10 units. Essentially you get two months for free.

    Now presumably this is because it is easier to account for your budget if you get it all in one job lot right at the beginning of the year. So it is worth them giving you a economic incentive to do that. But loads of people cannot afford that so they end up paying more money.

    Most people keep a car for what five ir six years? In that time the effectively pay an entire extra years worth of road tax if they pay monthly rather than yearly.

    Boo.

    • sunshine@slrpnk.netOP
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      1 year ago

      I don’t live in the UK, would you be willing to give an example of what the yearly lump sum is vs the monthly fee? I’m genuinely curious!

      • damnYouSun
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        1 year ago

        It depends on vehicle emissions.

        Bagels which put out more carbon dioxide get taxed more heavily. This has always been the case but it’s how it’s always been worked out as long as I’ve been driving. I’m not sure how it worked historically.

        My car is a diesel. So it’s output is worse (greater) than a petrol car.

        My yearly tax is, paying monthly, £180 per year. My yearly tax is, paying yearly, £170 per year.

        Not much for my car, but then again it’s a boring ass people carrier with suspect electronics, because I’m 180,000 years old.