Suppose that every day, ten men go out for beer and 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 would pay $7.
- The eighth would pay $12.
- The ninth would pay $18.
- The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.
So, that's what they decided to do.
The ten men drank in the bar 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 beers by $20. Drinks for the ten now cost just $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 drink for free. But what about the other six men - the paying customers? How could they divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his 'fair share?' They 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 drink his beer.
So, the bar 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 pay $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% saving s).
Each of the six was better off than before and the first four continued to drink 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 I!"
"That's true!!" shouted the seventh man. "Why should he get $10 back when I got only two? 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 drinks, so the nine sat down and had beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something very 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 anymore. In fact, they might start drinking overseas where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.
David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Georgia
Posted in the section Humor on Fri, Jan 25, 2008 at
7:36 AM
Today I had a wonderful flight. It was my first 25NM solo flight, that means it was the first time that I took off by myself, flew to a destination by myself and then returned by myself.
There isn't a lot to say about it. It was fun, I was safe, I landed well, I took off well, I used my checklists and I talked to myself as though my instructors were in the plane.
This it the one fun thing... and perhaps I wish it had been explained better to me in the beginning... but the fact is that the goal of flight training is to drill procedures into your head and this is done by constant repetition.
Of course with my luck even though I was flying solo, my instructor "Greg" happened to be in the air also and jumped in and helped me out with a confused tower/approach controller.
Thanks "Greg"!
Posted in the section Flying on Thu, Jan 24, 2008 at
11:19 PM
Ok, i'll join the hundreds and thousands of people who have blogged about what a rip off Spirit airlines is.. so here is my story:
In January 2007, I purchased four round trip first class tickets for my family on Spirit airlines to the Grand Cayman's for a vacation from February 9th thru February 17th. I purchased the scam trip insurance from Travel Guard (accidentally).
Due to weather we were unable to get to the airport for our departure. We tried to call, along with many other unfortunate Spirit customers. After several hours and many attempts to call and receiving the usual "we're sorry, all customer service reps are busy with other customers". At this point I decided that getting my family there was more important than getting them there on Spirit so I chartered a private jet.
Great vacation, good times.
The morning of our return home I go online to do online checkin with Spirit, but spirit says our tickets have been cancelled. Drats, ok well they must have cancelled them because we maissed the first leg. Lesson learned. Their web site indicates however that we have a credit with them that we can use (because we paid 6k for tickets that we didnt use).
Their web site keeps having server errors while i'm trying to redeem these vouchers... no luck. Eventually I try calling Spirit customer service and *suprise* I get an hour of "we're sorry, all customer service reps are too busy to help you"... so once again I get to choose between taking Spirit airlines to get home or getting home.
I bought tickets on American to get us home and we survived the trip.
I begin my weekly ritual of trying to call Spirit customer service to get a refund or at least get functioning credits with them for a future flight... and for about 3 months we continue to be unable to get in touch with a human being.
At my wits end I decide to call American Express, after all I am one of those lucky people with the card that everybody talks about (weee lucky me)... I figure that I am an important person so they will help me... and they try.
Spirit tells them they will call me... so Amex closes the dispute. Spirit never calls.
I re-initiate the dispute... Spirit says they will take care of the issue.... so Amex closes the dispute.
I re-initiate the dispute... Spirit says they tried calling me and will try again... so Amex closes the dispute.
I re-initiate the dispute... Spirit asks for me to send them a formal letter explaining the issue, I do... Amex closes the dispute.
Spirit claims they never got the letter.
This goes on a few more times. Frustrated but kind Amex reps continually spend hours trying to reach human beings in the customer service department at Spirit... they realize how hard it is.
During this entire time I have continued my weekly ritual of trying to reach a human at Spirit.. never once since the day I placed my order online did I reach a human being from Spirit... until today.
Spirit customer service rep Niurka Paulino (who can be reached at 954-447-7965 x 1711) she goes by the name "Nikki" (and seems ready to "rumble" from her loving demeanor) finds my account, puts me on hold to "talk to her manager" and advises me that these non-refundable tickets cant be refunded and that spirit wont issue me a voucher for use on a future Spirit flight...
SCRREEEECCCH... wait, did you just tell me that you are going to take my $6000 and you're not going to even let me reschedule the flights for a different time? Yep, sure did. I guess this is how they stay profitable, taking the money and not providing any services in exchange for the money.
She was however kind enough to remind me that I had been suckered into paying $20 dollars (or something like that) for "Travel Insurance" through Travel Guard and gave me their number. Travel gaurd of course advised me that there was nothing they could do because it was my fault that I had missed the flight. The fact that Spirit couldnt actually be contacted seems to be beyond everybody's care.
Perhaps Google in all their infinite wisdom will pick up this blog entry and link to it.
But don't worry my dear readers, I'm not done, now I'm just going to find another way to get my money back from them.. many people have won claims against spirit for this type of practice.
I pretty much plan on doing the following:
1) Filing a complaint with the BBB
2) Filing a complaint with the Connecticut consumer affairs department (they are actually really helpful).
2) Making friends and family aware that they should avoid Spirit Airlines.
3) Blogging about it (here) so that the occassional stranger will know to avoid them.
4) Keeping a really really close eye on the skies with my binoculars in the tri-state area and making sure to report any altitude violations I see to the FAA.
5) I may file a series of small claims against them which will force them to spend some time and money defending this rip-off practice, I'm not sure.
6) I may just waste 50k suing them for fraud. I have lots of good lawyers who are always happy to to get new work.
If anything happens I will update you!
As always,
-Arlo Gilbert
Posted in the section Flying on Thu, Jan 24, 2008 at
2:34 PM
Mitzvot dot com is my new project... no it's not live, in fact it's not even in development yet, I bought the domain for a few thousand dollars recently (what a steal), but after having a few conversations with my wife about problems that day schools and other small/non-technically savvy organizations have, I decided that me owning mitzvot dot com must be more than a chance... it's an opportunity to perform a mitzvah!
Not only does the name define exactly what we will do, but it's a really
cool way to help! I'm not 60 with 10 billion dollars (yet) but I am pretty sharp and I do know more about billing credit cards online than pretty much anybody else on the planet... not patting myself on the back, it's just something I'm exceptionally good at.
So since it's not exactly a top secret business plan, I envision mitzvot dot com as being a one stop shop for jewish fundraising activities online. We will provide organizations with a single link that they can send to potential donors to collect from $5 to $5000 at a time... we'll help them manage their silent auctions and charity fund raisers for almost nothing... and the fact is that what we do charge will surely be meaningless when they increase their fundraise significantly.
Apparently I'm not the only one who thinks this is a cool idea, one of the richest and most successful guys on the planet today told me that he thought it was interesting as well. Who could it be? Eh... name dropping is so 2007... but it was definitely my biggest brush with fame.
I'll try to keep blogging more regularly, when life gets busy sometimes things like blogging fall by the wayside.
-Arlo Gilbert
Posted in the section Judaism & Family on Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at
11:28 PM
2 days ago was my birthday and I had a flight scheduled which was supposed to be my first solo flight. If you are reading this and you aren't familiar with flying lingo, a "first solo" means the first time that a student pilot flies without an instructor in the plane.
Most student pilots from my understanding prize the first solo so much that it fits in well with life events such as:
* Birth
* First tooth
* Graduated college
* Marriage
* Had first child
* Death
The point is that soloing is a big deal... one that i've been looking forward to for quite some time now but wasn't quite ready for it. Soloing really represents not just a personal milestone but also the fact that your instructors now feel confident that your odds of dying from a botched landing are lower than they were when you walked through the door (how much lower i'm not sure, but i like to credit my instructors so i'll guesstimate that they were giving me at least 50/50 odds).
So back to my birthday, it was literally the worst flying weather i've seen ever. 0 miles visibility, below freezing, fog, clouds, rain... pretty much the scariest and worst flying conditions possible. Even instrument rated pilots would be unlikely to fly in these conditions, so my birthday solo was canceled.. Oh well. Then as g-d might enjoy planning, every one of my next scheduled flights was also supposed to be absolutely terrible weather.
Here comes Sunday morning, kids are watching cartoons, wife is making something that only she would like to eat and I'm fiddling around on the computer bored... check the METAR's and sure enough it's a spectacular flying day.. I call and as luck would have it, one of the instructors.. lets call him "Greg" had a no-show appointment which meant I could practice some landings.
I honestly had no clue that this would be the day that I would solo, but after a few good landings, some power off stall practice, and some engine failures landings "Greg" decided we needed to do a full stop (i thought he just needed to go to the bathroom)... but no my loyal readers, pee he did not, instead he asked if I wanted to fly by myself (solo).. affirmative, Captain Arlo ready to solo!
In any case I could build this up but it was a lot of fun, I did pretty well on the landings, takeoffs and radio comm. Did 3 landings with full stops and it really was exhilarating. A few interesting things about flying solo that I found was that 1) the plane weighed less so i took off faster, came in faster, and generally had to reevaluate my pattern power settings to have a good pattern... and 2) I was talking to myself the entire time because I am so used to saying "flaps 50%, power 20%" and generally advising my instructor of what I'm doing and what I"m thinking.
Really I don't think I am able to wipe the smile off of my face... my wife and kids gave me a great big "Mazeltov Daddy!" when I walked in the door and now I get to go out for a post-birthday/post-solo chicken wing extravaganza celebration.
Here's to you "Greg" and everybody at
performance flight... that was fantastic and I can't wait to do some solo missions!
- Arlo Gilbert
Posted in the section Flying on Mon, Jan 14, 2008 at
12:55 AM
