There comes a point in your life when things get weirder than normal, but it takes you some time to recognize it. When you do, you suddenly understand that your life is warped and reality has become fucked up beyond all recognition.
For me, this point arrived today. It took three hours to see it, even though the FUBAR began 24 hours ago. As my boss arrived at 12:30 from a conference he spent the morning, I quickly got back to work.
Wait. Back to work? The hell was I doing?
Oh. That's right. I spent nearly the first four hours of work this morning collecting, printing, reading, and annotating 2 of the 14 scholarly journal articles totaling 205 pages I downloaded last night with such titillating titles as "Rational Conjectures Equilibria in the Private Provision of Public Goods" and "Excludability and the Effects of Free Riders: Right-to-Work Laws and Local Public Sector Unionization" for a paper due Monday for my Public Finance class I have at St. Edward's University.
I came to work not to work, but to study.
All this, while desperately trying to ignore threats to regulate 'political speech' on the Internet, the not-so-modest proposal by some dimwitted liberal fucks to bring back the draft as a way to shape society to their liking, and the self-refuting idiocy of Alan Greenspan calling for a tax to help the economy grow.
Trying times, my friends.
I'm ready for Happy Hour right now.
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I'll drink to that.
Posted by: jomama on March 5, 2005 08:34 PMGreenspan wasn't calling for an additional tax, he was calling for replacing the federal income tax with a consumption tax.
That doesn't seem idiotic or self-refuting to me.
It wouldn't be utopia, but it would be better than the status quo. It would eliminate the need for reporting individual income to the government and massively misallocating resources to reduce tax burdens. Aren't these good things?
Posted by: Gil on March 6, 2005 01:19 AMGil, I didn't say Mr. Greenspan was calling for an "additional tax," merely that he was calling for a tax to help economic growth. While it may be the case that a nationwide consumption tax would impose less of a deadweight burden when compared to the current income tax system, it remains a tax nontheless and therefore, once the dust settles after its adoption, it remains a net negative and induces warped incentives for people to follow.
I'd happily shake the hand of every politician that voted to end the federal income tax. I'd be furious with anyone who switched it with another tax that was designed to replace all or most of the revenue taken in by the income tax...and that would be the ultimate Congressional requirement for any such radical overhaul.
Posted by: Drizz on March 7, 2005 12:26 AM