LOCUS DEMENTIA

As a business owner, I am privy to knowing tax law and loopholes. In my best understanding of taxation, though, I’ve found that its sole purpose is to encourage spending. Governments can’t continuously distribute cash to the masses, so it relies upon taxation to encourage its citizens to spend their cash and thereby reduce their tax burden. That’s a clever use of taxes by the government, for sure, but something else is going on with taxation in the modern world. The Romans levied taxes on their citizenry as a “tribute” to being Roman, and to pay for their protection by the Roman Guard. During the time of Romans, and the medieval era, there were no nifty accounting systems that allowed us to track where money was exchanged. Sure, the Incans and Chinese were tying knots on ropes as their financial records, but there was no historical archive or traceability. That meant levying taxes on the individual at a fixed rate, based upon their assets. Good thing we don’t do that anymore otherwise ...

Many of my friends are asking me how to become a consultant. The conversation always starts out as “so how much do I charge?” To that, of course, I always answer “whatever you think that you are worth.” That answer usually gets me a troubled look and a little giggle. It wasn’t until recently that I finally got smart and decided to come up with a formula to determine a consultant’s hourly rate. First you start with your current salary. If you divide that by 2000, which is the number of hours you work in a typical year, sans the 80 hours of vacation that you take each year. Also, 2000 is easier to use in division than 2080, so learn to deal with approximations and get on with consulting. Now that you have a starting hourly rate, let’s talk about costs. First there are taxes for everyone. No matter what country you call home, you have to pay taxes. Remember that the figure you already computed is a pre-tax dollar amount, so don’t start adding in taxes to that rate. What you do need to inc...

The buzz in the business world today is this avian flu. Countless experts have parlayed their opinions on how this is going to be some great pandemic. Really? When was the last time you played footsie with a chicken, or ate undercooked duck? How many people are regularly exposed to chicken excrement and do not cleanse their soiled hands afterwards? Then there are the numbers. Something like 160 people have contracted symptoms as a result of avian influenza (H5N1 to be exact) over the last two years. But where were these people? Yup, China, the worlds most heavily populated country. Claiming over 1.3 BILLION people in their country, China is definitely a contendor as ground zero for a pandemic. Yet, 160 people out of 1,300,000,000 have been affected. What does that come out to? 0.0000123% of the population. OOH, that sounds like a pandemic to me. Oh, and of those 160, or so, infected souls, only about 60 have died. 60 people dying is unfortunate and nothing to make light of...

Why do we blog? Why should I blog? Very little of what I say has any value to anyone but myself. My friends laugh at my quips and chastize me for being cynical and judgemental. I live, I question, and I form strong opinions. This blog won't be for the faint of heart, nor the needy of mindless dribble and clever euphamisms. I tell it how I see it, which is likely not the way it is. I am my own filter, my own critic, and my own inspiration. This is the trickling madness of a cynical solipsist.