how the rich can avoid social responsibility

I'm doing a cartooning job for a book due to be published soon. It is a pretty amazing book and I heartily recommend it (I won't get paid any differently whether millions buy it or none do... I hope I get paid). The writer explains how to protect your assets now that Australia has followed the USA into becoming a highly litigious culture, with people suing each other over absurd things at the drop of a hat. She also explains something I've been curious about for a long time. I've often heard it said that rich people are able to get away with paying no tax or absolutely minimal tax. This has always angered me because tax is supposed to be a way to help maintain our society by funding public amenities like roads, and paying for public schooling and public health to enable some degree of an open society. Without those things we rapidly degenerate into a feudal society where the rich have everything, the poor have nothing, unrest, sickness and violence are common and the rich spend their lives having to look over their shoulders.

Anyway, this book outlines clear examples of how to avoid paying full tax. An example is given of how someone earning enough money to put them into paying a third of their income as tax is able to easily reduce their tax to below the rate of someone living on poverty wages. The author speaks of this escape from social duty as a good thing! I find this bewildering. It shows the need to tighten up tax laws and educate people to the obligations of getting vast benefits from society. We all need to give something back. It helps the rich in the long run, and their children, by making a more peaceful and just society, where if someone loses everything they can still have a good shot at life. Likewise, if a brilliant genius is born into deep poverty in such a society they can still go on to do great things.

the funniest movie ever made

I had a wonderful time yesterday watching What's Up Doc directed by Peter Bogdanovich, starring Barbra Streisand, Ryan O'Neal, and Madeline Kahn, Buck Henry shared writing credits.

I laughed and laughed and laughed till I had tears in my eyes.

I've seen it a few times before on TV, but now I own it on DVD. Yay!!! Also on the DVD are bits of a commentary by Barbra Streisand and a full, wonderful commentary by Peter Bogdanovich. A movie like this is unlikely to be made today... the lack of red tape, the dangerous stunts, the carefree abandon... It supports a suspicion I've long had that the greatness of a project is proportional to the enjoyment had by those creating it.