So this is a silly example, but as your gracious hosts we have to start somewhere:
I received the following from one of the Christian Fundies that I grew up around. Seeing that it was a forwarded message having to do with taxes and our government, and considering the ideology of the individual who sent the message, I knew it would be nothing short of NeoCon nonsense:
Our Tax System Explained: Bar Stool Economics
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 beer 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% savings).
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 got.'
'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 important. They didn't have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!
And that, ladies and gentlemen, 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
Oh where do I even begin? This analogy is flawed on so many levels -- the fact that this is being shuffled about between lists of people on e-mail really should serve as an indicator. I mean, really, this sort of nonsense is being distributed by the same people who send me e-mail about Barack Obama being a muslim, George W. Bush having the lowest IQ of any president in the last fifty years, and Nasa discovering a lost day in time that corresponds to the biblical account of the sun standing still in the sky.
Now, this is where you have an opportunity to learn from my mistakes. Responses about economic disparity, the triviality with which this message tried to deal with the subject, and the fallacy that anything for the good of society should always be trumped by market forces all came to mind. Out of respect for our past friendship, the only response I could bring myself to send to everyone on the mail list was this:
So the suggestion is that we should be okay with a plutocracy because, if we're not, corporations will follow their opportunistic instincts and move outside of the U.S borders to create class systems in poorer countries?
That's it; that's the best I could bring myself to say.
Passive-aggressive behavior is no respecter of past relationships. Points should also be deducted from my response because of the inherent passive-aggressive utility of e-mail as a medium of expression.
There's a MySpace Blog worth catching if you're into watching the Christian Fundies get pushed back by the forces of reason and logic -- quite the tour being served up pipin' hot just like mom used to make:
