People often lament the lack of practical training for things like personal finance and media literacy in schools. We should add consumer awareness to that list. We are raising kids to become obedient little consumers.

And weirdly it's the same right-wing guys in each country including the tax in Chile and breaking it out in US. In USA of course they want the citizens to hate taxes because taxes in USA support democracy, and they figure by making it a painful hidden cost they will get me, for instance, to hate taxes instead of putting them first. And I did in fact hate them when I visited, the trick worked on me, despite being an excellent math student.

In Chile, it's because the state needs money from somewhere for concrete, courts and cops (the three things right-wing guys actually think taxes are good for) and also for incredibly shitty orphanages and "albergues" whose purpose is be able to construct arguments around that there are in fact already orphanages and "albergues" to deny real assistance...So they have regressive taxes, mostly paid for by VAT. So poor people and to a lesser extent the middle class don't protest that they're the tax base, they hide the tax. And in fact if you look at fancy magazines like Ed, an interior design magazine in Chile, they do break out the tax to communicate that you can get out of paying it, tee hee, or split it with the seller, on a $4000 USD Ottoman.