Scott Hedrick wrote:

Many years ago, Florida decided to tax services, including construction. The
state simply decided that 1/4 of the cost of a house was labor, and taxed
appropriately. On the other hand, because my dad pretty much stuck to one of
two models with limited changes and so could could almost make kits (less
than 10% of the lumber needed to be cut on site), his actual labor cost was
less than 17%. He almost had to go to court to get the court to stop
overcharging his customers. The state refused to believe he could sell
houses so inexpensively that they sent an inspector to see how he was
cheating. The inspector bought a house, and the tax was eventually dropped.

H.G. Wells cameup with the "Air Dollar" in his book "The Shape of Things
to Come".
This was based on the concept of how much it cost Wings Over The World
to move one hundred pounds of cargo one hundred miles by air, IIRC.
Which sounds nifty, except when some technological advance suddenly
causes the effort to do that suddenly drop.
(Like when the turboprops arrive)
Britain once had the brilliant idea of locking the copper penny into the
actual price of copper...which works great until you hit copper ore
deposits in your empire that cause the price of copper to go clean
through the floorboards.
A copper twopence coin under George III could serve as either a
paperweight or throwing weapon.
http://www.24carat.co.uk/twopencestoryframe.html
You put a Pound's worth of those pence in your pocket, and you're going
to limp. :-D


Pat