Take on more debt or raise taxes? It isn’t a catch-22

Tax (Photo credit: 401(K) 2013)

http://mg.co.za/article/2013-02-24-budget-targets-fresh-revenue-streams

It took some time to get my head around this.

The short answer is nobody cares. But that’s obviously glossing way over the issue.

The real answer is a little more complicated. Not as complicated as the economic theories and analytical hoops these guys jump to try and choose, but I guess it must be complicated if they don’t get it.

I say nobody cares. We obviously all care if more money leaves our pockets, right? If all you hear about is money spent on things you can’t understand but must value if you want to call yourself a good South African. That guilt money that goes to fund projects nobody asked for and to line pockets nobody knows who has a hand in. New World Cup stadia, the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (which is a double-tax if the rumours are true), tender contractors that pull public funds then turn to vapour. Crumbling housing developments. Undelivered text-books. The list goes on.

But nobody would mind if that money was spent in a way that added value to our day to day lives. If we had better social security, improved (even free) public healthcare and transportation, a functional education system. Look up [tax rates in Scandanavia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tax_rates]. Swedes pay 25% VAT! Most of the free world has it easy by comparison. Personal tax rates can hit 60% and yet the Swedes couldn’t really be bothered.

Thing is all that money isn’t simply vanishing. It doesn’t feel like plunder the way tax often feels here. Enough of it makes it through to projects that make a difference to the lives of the ordinary citizen. Unemployment benefits, schooling, healthcare, pensions. See, if that’s what a tax hike bought, I’d be first in line like a hipster queuing for his iPhone on launch day, begging PLEASE just take my damn money. I don’t think I’m alone.

One day I’ll rob you

“I’ll give you a day, maybe not today or tomorrow but I’ll give you a day where I’m gonna rob you. See, I’m going to take all my money back! You’ll see, you…”

The dealer-gang just laughed. I suppose they’re used to seeing sales turn sour.

Bring back the patriots

Kill a word and you’ll have killed an idea. Subvert it, however, and you do much worse.

Welcome, South Africa, to Twentythirteen

The Inner Party irks me when they wield destructive words as if it isn’t a thing. Destructive words like treachery and treason. They throw them at little girls, at ordinary citizens

Peace and Passion

I’d just like to take a moment to welcome you to 2013, and to my first post of the year.

The festive season is traditionally a difficult one as ordinary people everywhere – people like you and I – unite to help vineyards and brewers clear their stock. If you didn’t know, we aren’t raucous for fun, but only so these pillars of society can start the new year free and clear. I hope you joined the social initiative. If not, there’s still time. Get involved!

So you don’t think this work wasn’t selfless, I’ve decided not to post any personal images. After rifling through the library, all I’m left with is the following poignant image of a hard-won war at Vrede en Lust Wine Farm & Estate.

 

 

We don’t do it for the fame.

PS: I know this is a bit late but after much hard work in the trenches, as it were, I needed a moment (or ten) to recover.

PPS: The contents of the empty glass? They were great.

 

PPPS: Posting on a fixed day is quite restrictive. I’m thinking about changing the Law of the Thursday posts. Subscribe and get notified when a new one is up. Next up: Professional Crushes: What are they and how do I make them go away?

 

 

PPPPS: Made you look!

Connecticut Shooting: “F You CNN” , says Ryan Lanza

Reblogged from usmanhashmi:

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As a result of the terrible mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut – the immediate question was who had gunned down nearly thirty people, most of them children, before taking his own life.

Early media reports suggested that the shooter was around twenty-year-old from Newtown named Ryan Lanza. A Facebook profile fitting the description was easily accessible and social media users to professional reporters at once assumed that they had found the gunman who committed the mass shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School.

Read more… 205 more words

This reminded me why it's always good to fact-check before making sweeping statements. It's so easy to ruin a life, where if the journalists had spent just a few minutes verifying their facts, they'd quickly have found out Ryan Lanza is actually very alive. I guess it's the age old problem of trying to break a story, but that role is largely out of journalists' hands now. I know... I'm a journalist.

The thing about power is

With great power comes great responsibility. I read on the internets a while back that one day Malcolm X dispersed a group of Afmericans assembled outside a New York police station with little more a wave of his hand. One witness, a police officer, later told journalists that “No one man should have that much power”. Of course, it was the internets that told me so it may well have been a little grey man waving off assembled sparkling vampires. But it is recorded in Spike Lee’s Malcolm X as well.

Grand lead in done, let’s move onto the thoroughly vapid topic at hand. I heard Twitter (finally) started rolling out the option to download an archive of everything you’ve tweeted since before @ handles became a thing. Everything.

Follow the breadcrumbs

Can you imagine seeing your twitter trail since 2008, or whenever? More importantly, can you imagine the stop press instructions at the tabloids when @lookatmeimfamous “accidentally” tweets a link to his or her collection, the arguments when twifeys are exposed, when this archive becomes admissible in court. I can, and I think twars will be the least of the world’s problems when it happens. I can’t hardly wait.

But FB got it right, right?

That said, Facebook launched their own archive downloading tool in October 6, 2010, and that seems to have gone off without a hitch. We were excited for all of two minutes before we realized how much of the record is inane brain fluff and the idea of seeing our digital navel lint faded into obscurity. And people tweet much more than they post on Facebook. Maybe we’ll heft the ledger once and realize it’s not worth the trouble.

Maybe this is just another storm in a tweecup.

Related articles

• A Few Reasons Why You’d Want To Download All Of Your Tweets (techcrunch.com)
• ‘Malcolm X’: Spike Lee’s masterpiece turns 20 (thegrio.com)
• Twitter begins rollout of archive feature, as promised (sociable.co)

What’s in a name? II

After I wrote What’s in a name?, I happened on a song by Swedish artist, JJ

The beautiful words belong to Miriam Makeba, and the clip, from JJ’s High Summer album, is a reading of her letter to the editor of Time…

Sir:

I want to tell you how happy I was with the article in the Feb. 1 issue [SHOW BUSINESS]. It was very gratifying.

I did notice that there was a slight error, which I do not think you will mind my calling attention to. It concerns my African name, and if I may, I would like to spell it correctly for you.

Zenzile Makeba Qgwashu Nguvama Yiketheli Nxgowa Bantana Balomzi Xa Ufun Ubajabulisa Ubaphekcli Mbiza Yotshwala Sithi Xa Saku Qgiba Ukutja Sithathe Izitsha Sizi Kkabe Singama Lawu Singama Qgwashu Singama Nqamla Nqgithi.

The reason for its length is that every child takes the first name of all his male ancestors. Often following the first name is a descriptive word or two, telling; about the character of the person, making a true African name somewhat like a story. This may sound most unusual to Americans, but it is the custom of my people.

Miriam Makeba, NEW YORK CITY

So maybe names are important after all…