Time to stop being a hypocrite

I have a new resolution and that is to be a vegetarian. I want to condemn the above instances of animal torture but to do that I got to stop being a hypocritical omnivore who exercises double standard. The modern industrial Fordist production of food has got to be the most grotesque development of mankind. And it’s shocking how one can benefit so nonchalantly from another’s pain. Absolutely disgusting.

Tax stories can be funny too!

Tax policymakers have thus far concluded for good reasons that taxes that everyone pays are fiscally superior to narrow or focused taxes on certain defined goods or social groups. Broad based taxes can generate huge revenues at low rates. The more focused a tax, that is, the narrower is base, the higher the rates have to be to generate sufficient revenues to justify the administrative expensive and political controversy associated with it. In addition, if tax rates are very high, there are strong incentives for taxpayers to limit the kind of activity or behaviour that evokes the tax. In eighteenth century England, for example, a tax on windows was seen as a reasonable and efficient way to generate revenues: people with many windows in their homes had more money to tax than those with few or no windows. It was also easy for the taxman to count windows and assess the tax due. But as the rates of this tax grew, so did the propensity of homeowners to fill the window openings with bricks. Even today in England, one can see many large, dark manor houses with bricks where there once were windows. – Steinmo