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Elon Musk – Locomotive, or Train Wreck?
What do you think of Elon Musk? I see him as a compelling figure in today’s world, but, like many of his billionaire caste, he appears to be both brilliant and deeply flawed. His fortune goes up and down depending on the latest quoted value of various stocks that he owns. In November of 2021, he was…
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The Bar Stool Economics Parable
Recently the following little parable came to me in email that was distributed to our golf group. It was described as “humorous and worth the read.” Another member of the golf group suggested that I take a crack at looking at the meaning and accuracy of the parable entitled Bar Stool Economics. So I did.…
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Taxing What You Have Saved
This article was published in the fall of 2021. Eventually I had to take it down because it had begun to attract a half-dozen spam responses per day. I’m re-posting it here with a new title just restore the blog record. This articles belongs in the early tax series. The third form of taxation is…
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Plant Yer Corn Early
Those of you who watched TV in the 1960’s will likely remember the scene in which some flunky held out his hand to Granny Clampett and said “what about a tip?” Granny wrinkled her very wrinkly brow and said “Plant yer corn early”. Poor Granny – she had no idea what a tip was. In…
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Unrestricted Gambling is a Bad Bet
I recently watched a baseball game and kept a count of the number of sports betting ads that I saw. It was fourteen such ads by the 7th inning. In short, if you watch sports these days, you are inundated with messages urging you to be cool and bet on sports. I’m a curmudgeonly old fart,…
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Yes – Tax the Billionaires!
Heather Cox Richardson is a professor of history at Boston College and is also the author of a very popular “Letters From An American” nightly newsletter. I have found her discourses informative. She is profoundly concerned about the direction of the Republican party in the US, and might be considered a biased source by some,…
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Expanding the Social Safety Net
(Image courtesy of John Fewings Cartoons) The Minister of Finance tabled the budget for Canada on April 7th, and it included some $300M to start a dental care program. CTV News reports that “The new program will be restricted to families with an income of less than $90,000, with no co-pays for those who make…
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Voluntary Taxes and Summary
Voluntary Taxation and Summary The fourth mechanism for governments to raise money is voluntary taxation, by which I mean gambling. I have a short little diatribe on the use of gambling as a government fund-raiser, and then I’ll try to summarize these four sermons. I buy lottery tickets. I maintain that if I don’t buy…
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Consumption Taxes
The second source of money for the government is taxation tied to our spending habits. GST, HST, PST – every time we buy an article, we get to send money to the government for the privilege. Some articles have direct taxes associated with them – gasoline, “sin taxes” on alcohol, and tobacco and now cannabis. …
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Taxing Income Streams
Taxing Income Streams How many ways are there for the government to separate us from our money? Fundamentally, there are only four. They can take money as it’s coming in, they can take money as it’s being spent, they can grab what we’re trying to hold onto, or we can give it to them voluntarily.…
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In Search of Fair Taxation
Taxation Systems Some time ago, I watched a news story which said that people working in the tax system believe that it is unfairly biased in favour of the rich. It went on to discuss what the survey information meant and how tax loopholes are being used to enable tax avoidance. More recently we went…