"Some of your politicians are very silly but I think this is an inevitable feature of all forms of government."

"Ooh, regale me with silly politician stories."

This city state's king just can't figure out how to budget for the golems, because he hardly gets any revenue despite having taxes very high! Taxes are in fact so high - and on such specific, narrow industries, like 'green dye' or 'mahogany' or 'salts' or 'standard-sized parchment' - that those industries just pretty much don't exist and people work with (untaxed) dyes in other colors and other woods and so forth.

"...huh. Has he not, like, noticed -"

"Adds new taxes sometimes but not very often because the existing ones aren't doing much for revenue."

"And did you explain to him 'only a moron would sell mahogany to your citizens and I bet all your food is really bland even though someone must sell salt so you don't die'?"

"I did explain that."

"You probably said it more politely."

"It would probably have already been solved if straightforward saying was sufficient to solve it."

"What did you say?"

"Oh, that he must have to waste so much of his time finding accountants who'll do what he says, and to waste all that time and still not see any difference in revenues would be maddening, and where I'm from the way we got around all that would be setting aside a street where there were no taxes at all, and instead charging the vendors rent. So he's doing that."

"A street, that's fun - will they still have to pay tariffs to get in and out of the city with their stuff?"

"The tariffs are more reasonable but I think still in place, yes. I wanted to suggest he call the market on that street the 'free market' because it would amuse someone I knew back home but it would also confuse everyone - the goods are still for sale - so I did not make the suggestion."

"Why would it be amusing?"

"Back home 'free markets' are a word for ones that are not taxed or regulated."

"Who would it amuse?"

"My - crechemate."

"I could learn loanwords."

"Brother."

"Brother. Okay."

"If he were here he'd be on a tear against all tariffs."

"All of them?"

"I think there might be agreed to be narrow tariff-justifying circumstances? But definitely most of them."

"Is it just - all of them do the mahogany thing a little bit even if it's only a little?"

"Yeah. The cases where economists approve of taxes are cases where an interaction imposes costs on people other than the buyer or the seller, or if you aren't a credit auction country to fund national defense and law enforcement and healthcare and so on."