...

[snorlax]

You had both probably better read a couple chapters of "Atlas Shrugged", as penance.

Greetings from the Gulch!! (see location==>)

[snorlax]

Professor Snorlax's required reading: THE ROAD TO SERFDOM, F. A. Hayek.

Read it & ask yourself:
1. Are we heading there?
2. Are we there already?
3. Is there any hope for getting off it?

Snor "not your typical kolij perfesser" lax.

[thezman]

If memory serves correct I believe Norm explained taxes using beer on Cheers years ago (although his explanation was far less inflammatory)

[bloke]

If you aren't much into reading, here's a very abridged version of the book online:

(Warning: The messages found within may be against your "religion", and may not hold the attention of those who lack curiosity regarding the truth.)

http://www.cblpi.org/ftp/Econ/RoadtoSerfdom_ReadersDigest_and_Cartoon_Versions.pdf

[Donn]

Or you can just cut to the chase and read the wikipedia article on it, something like a super-abridged version with annotations.

For those who are interested enough in the US tax system to wade through a real analysis by legitimate scholars who signed their own real names to it, you can check this out (a PDF), How Progressive is the U.S. Federal Tax System? A Historical and International Perspective, Piketty and Saez. It's a lot to read, but readable for a scholarly work. I honestly didn't read all the way through, so if you read it and get to the part where the entitled poor mug the beleaguered rich people, take all their money and leave them bleeding in the street, let us know. In the most plausible version of that story I'm acquainted with, it's a serious bloodbath. Factoid - she's supposed to have said `qu'ils mangent brioche', which was still not a very smart thing to say, but makes more sense - brioche is translated as cake, but it's really more like a soft bread.

[bloke]

' gotta love "legitimate" scholars.

[iiipopes]

I'm with bloke. I have the required terminal degree in my field, and I have to explain complex issues to clients. If the author is that scholarly, then he should be able to write with clarity and precision so it can be understood by any person reading it. Yes, Strunk & White are my heros for English composition.

[iiipopes]

Factoid - she's supposed to have said `qu'ils mangent brioche', which was still not a very smart thing to say, but makes more sense - brioche is translated as cake, but it's really more like a soft bread.

...made with eggs & butter, so it was considered provençal, in this connotation, farm food: not fancy, but it will feed you.

This is compounded by the fact that provençal had its own dialect, and other socioeconomic differences, so the entire area was looked down on by the Parisians as lower class.

In other words, keeping in mind the contrast between the social strata, it was more a statement of maintaining the status quo of the respective lifestyles: let the royalty have their fancy foods including fine cuts of meat, and the concerns of royalty; and let the peasants eat peasant food, fending for themselves in the field, or on the farm, or in the alley markets, or simply go to the country and away from Paris, as, from her perspective, they were used to doing anyway.

[Donn]

In other words, keeping in mind the contrast between the social strata, it was more a statement of maintaining the status quo of the respective lifestyles

Not that we actually know anyone really ever said `Qu'ils mangent de la brioche' (sorry, my French gets better when I look it up), but the quote is apparently from Rousseau who attributed it vaguely to some `princess', and apparently he took it in more or less the same spirit as we take it today, evidence of the clueless disdain of the royal upper crust for the life and death struggles of the peasants.

Very unlikely that was Marie Antoinette, as there's enough evidence that she did know what was going on and was at least able to affect some concern over it. Went to the guillotine anyway, paying the price for generations of upper crust parasites.

[bloke]

endless wheelbarrow-loads of class-envy and class-definition weighing down the minds of the collectivists

[TubaRay]

Of all the discussions I have seen on TubeNet, I can't remember ONE that was any simpler than this one. For that reason, I am going to exercise some restraint, and leave it at that.

[iiipopes]

Of all the discussions I have seen on TubeNet, I can't remember ONE that was any simpler than this one. For that reason, I am going to exercise some restraint, and leave it at that.

Nah, while I'm partially laid off, I need the entertainment. Please -- tell us how you really feel! I need an excuse to make up some more as I go along.