Instead of taxing private golf clubs at the open-space rate normally used for farms etc, create a category of land tax halfway between true open space and full taxation, and allow clubs the choice of either:

(1) truly becoming open space, with no fences and allowing non-members some reasonable degreee of access (like one day a week the links are open to the public), or:

(2) remaining exclusive and paying more taxes because there is no public benefit.

This particular idea strikes us as an excellent one.  It was emailed in after the show.  I might elaborate on it in a future posting.

Have a “job swap” board where people in certain occupations (like nursing, teaching etc.) could find someone to switch positions with, to be able to work closer to home.  (Obviously this swap would have to be approved by the bosses but what boss wouldn’t, other things equal, prefer employees who live in the community?)

Put a heating coil in windshield wipers so that windshields don’t ice up.

Instead of raising the prices of stamps, provide an option of MWF or Tuesday-Thursday delivery (Saturday delivery isn’t going to last much longer anyway) and assess an extra charge on people who still want delivery every day instead of raising prices for all of us.  Daily delivery is by far the most labor-intensive portion of the US Postal Service.

For some reason going to the bathroom seemed to be a focus of ideas: 

(1)    Stall doors should open out instead of in to allow easier access. 

(2)    Wastebaskets could be placed outside the restrooms so that people can open the doors with a paper towel.

Likewise, driving was also on people’s minds, idea-wise.  The best driving idea was to turn lights to flashing red/yellow late at night.  Don’t you feel like an idiot waiting at an intersection in the middle of nowhere without a car in sight?

And, finally, one that was not quite original but excellent nonetheless and I might elaborate on it another time:   Instead of charging for auto excise taxes, registration/license fees, insurance etc., put a chunk of those fees right in the price at the pump. 

Then, to use auto insurance as an example, you’d get an annual statement instead of a bill from your insuror to reconcile the price of insurance with the paid-at-the-pump portion.  You might owe money or get a check, depending on how expensive your car is, how much insurance you bought etc.  The advantage of “variabalizing” these fixed costs is that avoidable driving of inefficient cars (and hence using either imported oil or oil from places that tend to have spills) is discouraged vi higher gas prices…but without a politically unpalatable gasoline tax.

Finally, here is the interview itself:

http://www.wbz.com/topic/play_window.php?audioType=Episode&audioId=4613376

The winner, submitted by Cara from Cambridge, is for someone (presumably an environmental group) to make available little stickers showing “walking fingers” with a BIG GHOSTBUSTERS-TYPE SLASH THROUGH THEM.  (The design is my idea.)  There would be a law saying that if you put one of these on your door, the yellow pages companies are not allowed to leave their books on your doorstep.   Imagine a “do not call” list for yellow pages delivery.

I myself generally carry them right from the doorstep to the recycling bin.   So why would they deliver these books if no one wants them?  Simple — the advertisers are promised a certain amount of distribution.    Presumably Darwin will take care of those advertisers at some point and the yellow pages companies will go out of business, but until then, Cara’s idea rules.

Within a day or so, I’ll put up the link to the entire interview for anyone who wants to hear more ideas.  And every few days I’ll post a couple more good ones.

Better yet, the most popular registries are located in shopping districts or malls.  It would be easy to get local businesses (or the mall itself, as in Watertown) to sponsor these pagers. 

Customers would be happier, the Commonwealth would save money, and local businesses would benefit.

During tax season, millions of people become victims of government-licensed loan sharks. That temporary storefront in your local neighborhood might say “tax preparation,” but in some cases it should say “high-cost loans.”

Here’s how it works: After these tax preparers calculate a customer’s tax refund, they offer a 90 percent payout on the spot, a so-called Tax Refund Anticipation Loan. For example, if you’re due a $100 refund, the preparer might offer you $90 in cash immediately in exchange for signing over your rights to the $100.

Since refund checks normally arrive in 10 to 15 days anyway, that $10 “haircut” is almost 1 percent per day in interest - about what loan sharks charge. Yet almost 9 million lower-income customers accept these offers. In fees and interest, the loans drain these taxpayers of more than $1 billion annually.

Naturally, consumer advocates have proposed abolishing them. But trying to outlaw a free market service would simply drive it underground (think Prohibition). Also, some people really do need the money quickly - otherwise, why borrow it in the first place?

Instead of making these loans illegal, how about simply making them obsolete, freeing up cash for those 9 million consumers while saving the government money? The IRS could achieve this dual benefit by adding a single line to the federal tax return: “Check here if you would like 99 percent of your refund immediately deposited in your bank account instead of 100 percent mailed to you.”

Even that 1 percent haircut for a two-week “loan” carries a high enough interest rate that the government would make money on these instant refunds; borrowing money for two weeks costs the government much less than 1 percent. More important, these taxpaying consumers would save more than $1 billion per year. (Some customers of tax preparation companies do not have bank accounts and would have to pay an extra percent or two to the tax preparer to print the refund check in his or her office. Even so, they are better off than with a high-cost loan.)

It’s not just the storefront customers who would benefit. Anyone due a refund could get 99 percent of it instantly to pay down high-interest credit cards or to just spend sooner, benefiting the entire economy.

So why isn’t this standard IRS policy? It’s not because of fraud concerns. The preliminary tax return analysis done before issuing refund checks is pro forma. The IRS simply reviews the math and income-expense documentation electronically, while real fraud can take years to detect. The IRS can’t argue that this proposal requires congressional approval, because it doesn’t cost the government anything or require any new laws.

It could simply be an idea whose time has come. It’s hard to imagine any legitimate reason not to see this option on our 1040 forms next year. It’s an easy way to save consumers and the federal government billions just by providing an alternative to usurious moneylenders.

Al Lewis is credited with inventing disease management; he seeks out original economic policy ideas on his Web site www.whytheheck.com and pays $500 to $1 million for the best ones.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/04/09/ED7H1CSB4H.DTL#ixzz0knGPwBBg

Today we tackle the “Tax Refund Anticipation Loan,” a total rip-off even as compared to the rest of the consumer-lending industry.    These loans work like this:  Tax preparers determine a client’s tax refund, and then offer to “advance” it, less fees and interest.  The problem is that “fees and interest” often amount to about 15% of the refund.   Refunds show up two weeks after filing anyway, which means that people are paying APRs that often approac h four figures for that two-week loan.

Multiply the 8-million of these loans by those fees and interest charges and you are looking at $1.5-billion being siphoned off from the working class.

The “inside the box” solution, as suggested on another blog, is to make these loans illegal http://www.paydayloanfees.info/news/Refund-anticipation-loan.html.   However, there are people who need the money and, in any event, making consumer loans illegal just drives them underground, increasing price and the potential for loan-sharking.

www.whytheheck.com instead proposes that the IRS simply add a line to the Form 1040 after the “This is your refund” line that says:  “Check here if you prefer 99% of this loan immediately deposited in your bank account as payment in full.”   (For people who don’t have bank accounts, 98% could be printed out in a check in the tax preparer’s office, with the other 1% going to the tax preparer for use of his printer.)

Even while giving consumers a big break, the government would actually make money on this transaction because its 1% “haircut” exceeds its cost of capital for those two weeks.  So everybody benefits.

The argument against this idea?   It would encourage fraud.  But the government doesn’t do anything to tax returns between filing and refund other than check math and plausibility – exactly the same level of scrutiny that it could do under this proposal. 

This proposal would raise money for school districts and provide jobs and inexpensive access to fitness, but Joe’s big insight is that part of the arrangement with the health clubs is that the kids be allowed to use the gyms free during these hours and school vacations. 

This arrangement would give kids something to do just when their parents most want them to be doing something (especially during vacations, which are anything but for most parents), and would be a healthy alternative to watching TV or playing video games.  Also, sedentary behaviors lead to obesity, and many schools are in districts that don’t have many fitness options other than at the schools themselves.

Finally, the health clubs that are subcontracting the space are likely to want to upgrade the equipment in the gym too, in order to attract more members, which in turn makes the facilities more attractive to the kids and more of an asset to the school districts.

ThinkOOB normally does not endorse candidates (especially at 5:52 AM on a Sunday morning) but we are going to make an exception here and throw our considerable weight behind Joe Malone’s candidacy.  Great outside-the-box idea, Joe!

You were probably brought up being told that we were the richest country on earth.  Maybe that was true back in the days of Gilligan’s Island, where roughly one in every seven inhabitants was a millionaire (or his wife).     But now fast-forward from Gilligan’s Island to Survivor, where the islands are so poor that the set designers can’t even afford light bulbs.  

You see my point?  That’s okay.  Neither do I.  But one way or the other, our standard of living has fallen to roughly 20^th in the world now.   We are even behind Switzerland.  Switzerland.  What a bunch of wimps.  Whereas the United States makes manly products like beef and guns and forklifts and Jumbotrons and Quentin Tarantino movies, Switzerland’s major industries are tourism, watches, trains, cocoa powder, sheep, milk chocolate, dark chocolate, Nestle’s Quik, Ovaltine, and yodeling.

What’s the solution?  To buy OOBonomics, of course.  You can now buy the prototype draft directly from me, and get it signed and numbered, or you could buy it from Amazon here . 

It is full of ideas to help make the economy more efficient without more government spending.  The book won’t solve the country’s economig problems totally.  But at the very least it will take your mind off them for a while.

You’ll also be helping the environment.   Why? Because the ideas are simple enough that OOBonomics can present an entire program to increase our standard of living — in responsible, equitable, sustainable, ways — in less than 220 pages.  Brevity is paramount because leading environmentalists are now urging authors to shorten their books, in order to conserve valuable resources, such as paper, ink, and semicolons.    So you see, just by buying OOBonomics — even before you read it — you are helping to preserve the environment by reducing the average size of books sold in America.  That means the more copies you buy, the more trees you save.  Do the math if you don’t believe me.