Imagine an office of 100 people which means that each have a birthday each year. They decide to have a deal that every one will receive a present worth 100 dollars on their birthday. They decide to pass around a hat each time and everyone puts in 1 dollar. Each time the hat goes around, the collector takes 10 percent out of the hat as a fee of service and the price of the present is adjusted to 90. 

This means each person has paid the premium of 100 dollars for a 90 dollar present but, the collector has gathered 1000 dollars worth of fees. Was their service worth 1000?

https://i.imgur.com/4WbqCRV.png?1

I am just trying to figure a few things out when it comes to things like home insurance and whether it would be possible to set up a blockchain system that covers on a 'as required' basis rather than with the premiums. 

My home insurance is about 500€ a year in a country of 5 million people and 2 million homes. That means that if 500 is the average, 1 billion is paid in home insurance. If we say that the average value is 200,000€, that means that 5000 home can be completely replaced but, the figure for complete replacement was about 200 homes lost to fires. That means that the cost to replace spread between 2 million homes would be 20€ per household or, 10c per fire. That is a lot less than 500€

Okay, but there are other incidentals than complete fire destruction but what I am wondering is how far could this idea go *if* instead of individuals paying upfront large amounts to middlemen, the community backed each other. Of course, there would still need to be investigators and arbitrators factored in but, would it be cheaper? I *think* so.

What about tax?

What if instead of paying income tax, there was an amount withheld each paycheck (a percentage based on salary) that would be drawn upon in the 'as required' where each person would be able to see precisely where there tax money was used. Depending on 'tax stake' the correct percentage is removed. The leftover could build into a larger pool to cover or be drawn upon by the account holder. Would this make officials more accountable and would it lead to more efficient usage of resources for community purposes?

Infrastructure, education and all of these things *need* to be covered but, governments are largely inefficient mechanisms when dealing with them and the lack of transparency and accountability leaves a lot of room for misuse and corruption. But, without tax, many of these necessary functions would not get the support they require as people tend to only pay for *what they want* not, what they *need*, especially if they feel they aren't getting the direct benefits of it. People say, I don't have a car so I shouldn't pay tax to build roads but, all of the goods they consume were carried by trucks on those same roads.

All of this would be relatively simple to manage on a blockchain (or a few dedicated), wouldn't it? would it free up capital for better usage, higher quality of life. Could it be used to also hold public approval of large expenditures by proposal and consensus to adjust the rate withheld to build the pool? 

The blockchain tech is all about trust and accountability and if there is one area that should undoubtedly hold strong, is on public expenditures and usage of community funds. Perhaps rather than have a division, technology could create a hybrid system that provides a transitional phase to more sensitive, self-governed community but, *still* a community that backs each other without an authority to dictate terms.

There is a lot more complexity to this than I have included here but I wanted to leave it quite open and throw it out there to see what people think and come up with. yes, I know governments don't want transparency or accountability, I know that some don't want to pay for this or that, but, from a technical standpoint, would it be possible *and* would it be better management, or worse?

I am interested to read what comes about and I hope there will be good discussion between each other below the post. 

Taraz
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