This American Blog

neglect is the root cause of many a wayward thing, namely excess, sloth, greed, gluttony, hatred, prejudice, bigotry, stubborness, and many would argue a host of other things. within neglect we find ourselves i would imagine, at our worsts. it is only human, as the saying goes, and err is the same. neglect can lead to disease, death, destrtuction and so forth. if i were a buddhist, and mind you i may have thought about the concept at one time, it was never adopted as policy, i would have been relegated to the mentality of a child for all the use my brain and thinking is used. its a disgrace. but what can i do. my friend, J we'll call her, has grand ideas and thgoughts, but again, neve implements. in business terms, we have lost touch with our base and are reaching no goals. we should think about how this may compromise our goals... I cannot help but wonder what happens when you have no goals.

Breathing easier about tax cuts...
I found this on the LiveJournal blog run by college republicans and it makes me wonder, as many things do, why people are blinded by the darkness and the goings ons in the night:

Let's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every
day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If
they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something
like this:


The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh $7.
The eighth $12.
The ninth $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, that's what they decided to do.

The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite
happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a
curve.

"Since you are all such good customers," he said, "I'm going to reduce
the cost of your daily meal by $20."

So, now dinner for the ten only cost $80. The group still wanted to pay
their bill the way we pay our taxes.

So, the first four men were unaffected. They would still eat for free.
But what about the other six, the paying customers? How could they
divvy
up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share'?

The six men realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they
subtracted that from everybody's share, then the fifth man and the
sixth
man would each end up being 'PAID' to eat their meal.

So, the restaurant owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each
man's bill by roughly the same amount, and he proceeded to work out the
amounts each should pay.

And so:
The fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% savings).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% savings).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% savings).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% savings).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% savings).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% savings).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four
continued
to eat for free. But once outside the restaurant, the men began to
compare their savings.

"I only got a dollar out of the $20," declared the sixth man. He
pointed
to the tenth man "but he got $10!"

"Yeah, that's right," exclaimed the fifth man. "I only saved a dollar,
too. It's unfair that he got ten times more than me!"

"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back
when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!"

"Wait a minute," yelled the first four! ! men in unison. "We didn't get
anything at all. The system exploits the poor!"

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didn't show up for dinner, so the nine sat
down and ate without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they
discovered something important. They didn't have enough money between
all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college professors, is how
our
tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most
benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being
wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are
lots of good restaurants in Europe and the Caribbean.

David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor of Economics
536 Brooks Hall
University of Georgia

What happens when you get lost while transforming yourself?
I have often wondered what it would be like to do a complete transformation of mind, body, and soul - and then do it again, and again, and again. what happens to you, in the end? Mustering the resources to change oneself, i would Think, would be a revolution in all ways. Instead, I sit here and think about my life, my reality, the fact that I am to begin a new job tomorrow. 8am. I am anticiapting a difficult adjustment period because of my many months of inactivity, mental, social and physical. I watched a new film this weekedn, All I Want with Elijah Wood and Franka Potente. At first I was apprehensive, then I gave it a chance, and now I am in full liking of the film. It is a masterpeice of the small, of a story about a person and the people he meets and interacts with. Most importantly, it made me realize that I am really not being honest, which is not new, but that I am also failing in trying to cover it up. Tomorrow is my first day at a new job, primary day for New York, and I am having dinner with my aunt. This interaction in one day alone could send a normally adjusted person into a spin, but I will try. Then try try try again. Of anything, I wish the most to not be listless anymore. Forevermore.