No Step on Birb
"Welcome everycreature! Please take a seat, I am very excited about today's lesson!" Twilight Sparkle cried out as her students funneled into the room, mostly ponies but the young 6 were definitely prevalent, sitting in the front row.
"Now then, I have heard all the complaints kids your age are making these days, even though I think they literally make no sense. How schools teach useless stuff like how, 'the mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell,' or how 'the sun orbits the earth rather than the other way around like what those filthy heretics say' so instead, we are going to go over something crucial to your future education." Twilight said stepping in front of her blackboard with a smile on her face. With a flash of magic, the title of the day's lesson flashed into existence.
"Personal Financial Literacy and You!" Twilight said with a smile. She picked up the chalk and wrote a quick subsection, "Lesson one, Taxes and How to do Them!"
Twilight turned to the class. "Any opening questions?"
Nobody said anything until a certain gryphon raised his hand.
"Yes Gallus?" Twilight asked.
"Yeah, why the heck do we have to pay taxes?" Gallus asked crossing his forelegs.
"I am glad you asked. Taxes are collected by the government so they can afford for public works that improve the community, on top of funding government spending, as well as paying politicians and leaders for their work" Twilight turned back to the board and sketched out her explanation.
"Paying politicians? You mean lining their own pockets with your hard-earned cash." Gallus growled.
Twilight stopped her drawing, blinked twice, turned around and stared at the Gryphon.
"What?"
"Most, if not all taxes anyone pays just gets stolen right out of your claws and given to corrupt politicians!" Gallus said standing up.
Smolder suddenly hissed. "No one takes my stuff." She growled, pulling her writing utensils and books closer to her.
"What? Politicians are not corrupt." Twilight said fluttering her wings in shock. She was genuinely shaken at what Gallus was saying.
"I will admit there are strong leaders like Ember and King Grover, and there are leaders that genuinely care about the well being of their subjects like Thorax and Celestia, but for every Grover or Celestia, there are ten, no a hundred Neighsays and Bluebloods, both of which are obviously too powerful despite being completely incompetent and useless in running the country," Gallus said standing up. "And furthermore, the corruption rife in every government on the planet can be seen especially well in the Equestrian Government!"
"What? The Equestrian Government is the most stable government on the planet!" Twilight said, taking a stand and walking towards Gallus.
"Is it? Well, why is it that, despite being a multi-ethnic nation made up primarily of ponies, but including thestrals, buffalos, breezies, minotaurs, sheep and cows, the only politicians, from mayors to prime nobles, are ponies? And on top of that, why is it that those ponies are basically 90% unicorns?" Gallus hissed.
Sandbar looked from Gallus to Twilight. "Umm... that is a bit suspicious." He agreed.
"That's because non-ponies never run in the Equestrian elections!" Twilight replied.
"No, it's because only the rich and powerful have the ability to run for offices of any kind, and it just so happens that all the richest creatures in Equestria are the upper class who live Canterlot, a city which is almost entirely populated by unicorns," Gallus said leaning back and dropping back into his seat. "That feeds more into my point, why the heck do we even need to pay politicians if only the rich and powerful can run for office in the first place?"
Twilight pursed her lips and looked to the side. "Ok you are right about that... me, Celestia and Luna will probably have to look into that... but taxes are still very important for public works, like roads-" Twilight said.
Gallus cut her off. "So if I live in Ponyvile," He said gesturing with a thumb towards the exit of the room. "A town with dirt roads which literally require next to no upkeep, and were created simply by ponies walking through grass for days on end with no government oversight, I am required to pay for roads?"
Twilight ignored him and continued. "-Streetlights, railroads, public parks, and waterlines."
"AHA!" Gallus shouted standing up. "And why do I need to both pay taxes to pay for the government to do waterlines, when every waterline and piece of plumbing around contributes to a water bill, which is paid directly to a privately owned water treatment facilities! On top of that, railroads are all created by private rail tycoons such as Hornelius Vanderbit, who need I mention, was a unicorn!"
Silverstream suddenly leaned over and whispered into Ocellus's ear. "Is it me, or is Gallus starting to scare you? When has he ever known this much about a subject..."
Ocellus shrugged. "I think it's cause he's a gryphon and loves money... or something."
"Yona confused." The yak mumbled next to them.
Twilight suddenly slammed her hooves on her desk. "Ok, but you cannot deny that Taxes are extremely important for government spending!"
Gallus waved a claw. "Ha! As if the cash going into government spending is actually useful! No money goes into education, at all. If it did, the people in Equestrian Education Association wouldn't have a corrupt stranglehold on the education business, which leads to all non-equines being barred from proper education, especially those from outside of the country. Need I remind you of how they shut down the school just because you were teaching non-ponies?" He said rising into the air and crossing his forelegs over his chest.
Twilight stared at him with an open jaw but he continued.
"The funding that goes into the military is probably all being embezzled, aside from the cash that they spend on the fancy golden armor the Equestrian Royal Guard uses. No joke your countries military is next to worthless, name one time they did anything useful. Go on I'll wait. I mean, they just straight-up lost to Chrysalis during her invasion, like they didn't even fight back. Same with Tirek and he almost destroyed the entirety of Equestria. They didn't even try to fight back when the Storm King attacked too-" The mere words Storm King sent a shiver up Silverstream's back- "and I am 100% sure that they will be about as useful as a cardboard box in a hurricane against the next threat to show up."
"Ok, fine you made your point!" Twilight said. "Now can we please get on with the lesson..."
"I am not done yet," Gallus said flying higher. "The only bit of government spending in Equestria being halfway useful at this point is probably the money you sink into the weather systems, but guess what? Equestria is the only country on the planet that controls its own weather! If you cut funding to the weather factory today, sure things would get a bit more unpredictable but nothing else would change!"
Gallus smiled as he sunk back into his chair, staring at Twilight as she sighed and headbutt the table.
"Fine... Let's change the subject for today." Twilight said with a sigh.
"Hmph." Gallus smirked as he raised an eyebrow. "Pony Libtard destroyed."
(Created by editing an image originally created by Horsesplease
This fic was in no way true to my political beliefs or conspiracy theory ideas, any parralels to real-life individuals is pure coincidence.
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Beautiful.
Pay your taxes, if you dont you're a kolechian spy
We know what happens to kolechian spies
10165388
Hippity Hoppity.
10165396
geb off properti
Oh no Gallus has been redpilled!
Too Long: Didn't Read ahead, you have been warned.
Short and never fleshed out: This story has a lot of good points about Equestria economics being messed up, but that's generally what most governments, nobles or rich people end up doing... consolidating power so the rich get richer.
Long and relatively in depth: With the logic given by Gallus, Equestria should be as close to tax free as possible unless the government can actually provide a worthwhile service in a given area where applicable. The best thing the taxes can go to is disaster relief funds because of how often disasters hit Equestria, like Rainbow destroying a weather factor and never getting more than a slap on the hooves for it as Celestia or maybe even Twilight probably performed a media blackout as to the culprit of the instant winter problem. What caused the instant winter issues and thousands or possibly millions of bits in damages? A tortoise, owned by a weather controller and Wonder Bolt aspirant who has friends in high places to cover for her.
Monopolies sadly run most societies. Said monopolies fix prices of what they sell and can sell inferior products. If a monopoly can't buy out a small business, then they tend to smother them until nothing is left even if said business has stuff of better quality.
Take EA (Electronic Arts) for example of a monopoly, they buy out and ruin video game publishers so they can have a monopoly on video-electric entertainment. They will sell you an inferior product like an incomplete video game if they can get away with it, and they have done so numerous times, then you have to pay a excessive amount of money to even make those games even halfway playable and then there's the excessive DLC that costs as much as the game does.
So 60$ initial cost for a AAA + 30-40$ to make the game actually playable + DLC milking practices where cost can be as much as 100-200$ for a red dot + obvious gambling features that they fought hard to redefine as 'not gambling' in courts of law with a 1,000$ minimum spent to get an unfair advantage in a game= Why is EA still a company?
Unscrupulous business tactics of course, along with people known as 'whales' that keep them in business.
That's just one example of excessive corruption, heck some people of EA might even admit to stealing money from people and enjoying it.
I would also like to point out how college's tend to bleed people dry and put them into debt with student loans, all while never assuring you that you will ever get a job after college or a way to pay off any excessive debt put upon you after completing your college courses. So you have a fancy degree, what's the point of all that hard if you never actually get a chance to use it if you are immediately barred from ever getting a job related to said degree? Some people can and will actually go out of their way to make sure you're barred from getting a dream job just to keep you in debt.
The government and loan holders send out debt collectors related to student loans, the government uses money to get more money out of college students. One of the reasons the US is in debt is because people can't pay off the exorbitant student loans. So really, higher education wouldn't be that great a use of Equestria taxes either and it would basically lead to the same scam Flim and Flam were running. Only it'll be more effective because it'll be politicians doing it.
Flim and Flam are thankfully not politicians, but they somehow managed to open a school and were even promoted by a unicorn of a unicorn approved education association that runs all educational facilities in Equestria. Flim and Flam were practically hoofed all the necessary licenses by Neighsay out of spite and racism to run a pony only school.
So Neighsay actually promoted an illegal school that scammed people, the very same lessons Twilight teaches to everyone cheaply, with lessons ripped from a book she's already sold to the masses. Now I want you to add this up, if student loans were a thing in Equestria and it involved Flim and Flam's school... exactly how much money was Neighsay actually making from the scam he took part in?
Which of the characters wanted to see said scam school again?
At least Twilight's school doesn't nickel and dime you, even if their itinerary is primarily friendship lessons.
Unicorns need more friendship lessons, because they have more chances to be evil, go power mad or at the very least be insensitively racist to other races, even pony ones. Unicorns in mythology are supposedly symbols of purity, but nobody ever said that purity was 'purely good'. (Likely purely self-absorbed for the most part. Since most unicorns come off as that at first.) You could even say their location is them looking down on everyone living below them, which would mostly be earth ponies.
College keeps getting more and more costly and sets the bar exactly high enough that those with low income might become indebted to rich people for the rest of their lives. Rich people tend to get the financial aid from colleges, when they probably don't need it. It's like how people can set up dummy companies to launder money and pay themselves bigger paychecks than they are supposed to be getting with legal loopholes.
So, really, unicorns are probably stunting Equestria's economic growth to keep the status quo where they have the power.
upvoting just for the title
Wait a minute.
Is Gallus /our guy/?
10165504
I completely agree with you. And to the author of this, don't use the phrase "conspiracy theory", its a buzz term.
ahhahahahahahahaha oh god you did what i wanted to do with him a long time ago
but i was also going to add about how having a mind set like this at times can backfire aka his nation
if anything Klugetown is the perfact prime explen what happen when there is no tax system and now under stable rule over a gang warlord
10165504
Klugetown is a perfect explen of a nation on its own
btw fun fact in the USA many states are being fed up with not having tax money to keep on fixing roads all the time, so what happening is that a lot of states are doing without no more just dirt roads and gravel roads
Thought the title was "Gallus Debates the Futility of Texas."
10165559
I guess, but in the context of this story, another example from the show should have come to mind immediately.
Twilight: "We ponies pay taxes voluntarily, because nopony wants Equestria to end up like Griffonstone."
This could have been a good story. Instead is was a diatribe. There was no attempt to make any kind of balanced discussion, just a rant over a strawman. No mention of healthcare, which is clearly tax funded, as no-one seems to pay for it. Also there were enough genuine points that you didn't need to start making stuff up.
Also, anyone who uses the word 'libtard' is automatically discounted as having anything worthwhile to say on anything ever.
It should be of note that the Crown, IE Twilesituna are more or less funded like the Queen of England
Also I always figured gryphons more ferengii then klingon.
10165696
That like sjw has become a meaningless buzzword. The only one I'm concerned about though is nazi
What rock have you been living under, Twi?
10165696
I sort of have to agree. The narrative, even if it's more in jest than anything (and I suspect it is), does feel rather bias and stilted. I mean, Gallus raises some good points, absolutely, but it also assumes several things about Equestria that has not been clearly established in canon and is open to reader interpretation...meaning there could be other explanations for it as well (for example, I've long assumed Equestria operated on a city-state sort of system, with each city being fairly self-contained and in charge of their own affairs, which could mess up some of these arguments if true). So to make these points and make them stick would require a bit more effort to demonstrate than just some sweeping generalizations like done here, just so to make a point.
I'm not against the fic per se, especially as it's fairly clear it's meant to be more for the lols than anything...but it would've been much more interesting if it instead had pursued a more serious discussion on the subject rather than just "ha-ha, know-it-all teacher got owned by smart-aleck student" which sort of spurs a "meh, whatever," reaction from me--not good if you're wanting to draw in readers and hold their interest.
And yes, any use of the term "libtard" in a sentence automatically robs any and all credibility points, as few things screams more clearly "bias beyond all reason!" than that, and the same goes for whatever the right-side equivalent might be.
Equestria does seem to have a lot of problems for what was initially presented as a Utopian land. Gotta love the slow slide into quasi-realism the show gave us, and the insistence of fanfiction writers in fleshing out its shortcomings.
Also, Gallus is best birb-kitty. That is all.
I feel like this is a else universe story where equestrian falls apart when taxes aren't paid.
Is that an anarcho-capitalist flag?
10165919
Yes.
Hello? Based department?
10165717
10165696
Oh my XD, wasn't expecting this lol.
Um, Incase it wasn't obvious, the use of the word 'libtard' was not serious and a joke XD
As I stated I by no means agree with the points Gallus presented, and this is strawmaned the hell because 1. It's a comedy, and 2. Gallus as a gryphon would honestly refuse to pay taxes even if they did go to s good source and do good for the community.
It is not a stretch to say that Gryphons are Ancap literally just by watching their episode, in fact the episode flat out tells you they are Ancap XD
Oh my, look at all these cans of worms you’ve opened up
10174074
Coulda been worse XD
Could have been that one picture with Applejack
The biggest flaw here, is that the Griffon thinks that weather actually works by itself in EQuestria. Without the weather ponies, weather simply does not happen. Hell the seasons don’t change. So yes Gallus, weather teams do need money
I love how bad a teacher Twilight is in this. It's totally in character for her to be put on the back hoof and feel obligated to rehash the entire national socio-economic order to the satisfaction of the class troll.
Twilight wouldn't be Twilight if she answered Gallus's "Taxation is theft!" with "That's great; you still have to pay them."
10165713
Those didn't become meaningless buzzwords, they started out as meaningless buzzwords.
10166176
No it doesn't. Anarcho-capitalists don't recognize national currencies, let alone foreign currencies; ie. the Equestrian Bit. Anarcho-capitalists only recognize scrip and barter.
The episode tells you that Griffonstone's government has collapsed so hard currency is rare and its citizens are more concerned about personal needs like food, water and shelter than international relationships/friendship.
You should sign up for an online macroeconomics class. You're obviously getting your information from places like 4chan and reddit.
10174926
Weather seems to work fine in the Everfree and in places where Pegasi don't live.
please make a sequel to this glorious roast of the equestrian government budgetary system.
10222685
Yeah, the reason why they need to control their weather is usually deep in headcanons involving Discord or something. but it really unclear. it nice world-building at least. ponies are just controlled freaks.
POWER BREEDS PARASITES
LONG LIVE GALLUS THOUGHT
I was too busy thinking about whether any of his points were applicable to the real world to find this funny