A friend of mine describes herself as an "IT guy" the person responsible for figuring out everyone's computer problems at a high-end law firm. She thinks of herself as a blue-collar worker in a sea of white collar professionals.She recently 'discovered' the salary of her boss. He made $24,000 during a two-week period. This works out at about $600,000 a year. She told me her husband could not understand how mad she was that this individual was so wealthy. What can you do with that kind of money? She would level at her husband.
One answer is to buy a Ferrari Enzo. It retails at $1,000,000. Enough for five or six readers at our blog to own a home, all paid off and all. Or enough to build 10 schools in Afghanistan for hundreds of young girls to learn to read and write. Or alternatively, in the US, you can speed around at 140mph, endangering the rest of us with your million-dollar tank-like vehicle and pay a $100 fine for the pleasure.
BUT not in Switzerland. Or Germany. Or Finland.
In these countries speeding fines are not like in the US. Here, if my friends' boss speeds in his Enzo, his fine is the same as if I speed in my crappy, tiny Toyota Echo. Last week in Switzerland a multi-millionaire whom the courts tagged as a "traffic-thug" was fined $190,000 for driving his luxury vehicle through a small village at twice the speed limit. While "Roland S." is not going to be bankrupted by this fine, it's a small satisfaction for those of us looking for increased equality and an end to the dictatorship of the rich.
In fact the dude got off lightly. In Germany income-based speeding fines go as high as $16 million. In the meantime, perhaps a few children's lives will be saved by this fines.
For LMV's analysis on the disaster of the car in capitalist society, see our publication: A brief Socialist History of the Automobile
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