Our daughter Kelly and hubby Chris live in Bayfield. Colorado,
a small town about 15 miles east of Durango.
On Thursday of last week, their 16-year-old cat Capone was
lounging on the enclosed patio on the back of the house. Even though the area
is enclosed, three rattle snakes managed to slither through, and two of them
bit Capone.
Fortunately, Chris was home at the time, and quickly rushed
Capone to the local vet, where he got two shots of anti-venom medicine, and he
also got hooked up to some I.V. tubes.
The bite temporarily caused some partial paralysis, but he did
not get worse. The vet advised that further treatment would have to be done in
Denver if things did not improve. Since Denver is a 5-hour drive, it would not
be practical for a 16-year-old cat.
Because the vet is closed on weekends, they brought the cat
home and set up a mattress on the living room floor, and both of them slept
next to him on the floor.
On Saturday morning, they woke to find that Capone was
missing. He apparently decided that he was cured, and he managed to climb the
stairs to the second floor all by himself.
When Kelly’s mom heard the initial news about the bits, she quickly requested prayers
on the Next Door website, and she got over 200 responses.
So, here’s a question for you.
Do prayers work?
According to Psychology Today, they don’t, but the closing
paragraph of the article below provides a good summary:
“Despite
all of the evidence showing that prayers don’t work in the way they're
intended, prayer is still what most humans do when there’s nothing left for
them to do in dire, scary, or painful situations. And if it does provide them
with even a modicum of comfort and hope during such times, so be it.”
We’re all familiar with the story of the French peasant girl who was visited by the Virgin Mary in 1858. The town of Lourdes gets 3,000,000
visitors each year, and at least 70 medical miracles have been documented near
the grotto. One of the people who was cured is Sister Bernadette Moriau, whose
story is posted below:
Closely related to the topic of prayer is the power of positive
thinking.
Norman Vincent Peale released the book “The Power of Positive
Thinking” in 1952.
The Power of Positive Thinking: A Practical Guide to
Mastering the Problems of Everyday Living is a 1952 self-help book by
American minister Norman Vincent Peale. It provides
anecdotal "case histories" of positive thinking using a biblical approach, and
practical instructions which were designed to help the reader achieve a
permanent and optimistic attitude. These techniques usually involved affirmations and
visualizations. Peale claimed that such techniques would give the reader a
higher satisfaction and quality of life. The book was negatively reviewed by
scholars and health experts, but was popular among the general public and has
sold well.
Again,
though, the “experts” are wrong. Virtually every athlete you can think of, as
well as almost all the politicians you can think of achieved what they did
because they believe in the power of positive thinking.
This
morning’s Washington Post contained a story about an individual who accomplished
a lot from positive thinking. His name is Evelio
Menjivar-Ayala, and his story can
be found at the link below:
Three times in the space of a year, the
undocumented teen fleeing war-torn Central America tried and failed to make it
over the southern border of the United States.
On his first attempt, he was deported
from Mexico.
On the second, his guide turned back in
Guatemala.
On his third, he once again was
apprehended in Mexico and landed in jail.
Evelio
Menjivar-Ayala’s next option, maybe his only one, was to risk a more desperate
gambit.
After
two days in detention, Menjivar, his brother and two cousins paid a mordida — a bribe — to get released.
Then, by arrangement with a trafficker, they stuffed themselves into the trunk
of a car driven by an elderly American.
When they felt the car stop and heard
the man crank up the music on the radio, it would be their signal to remain
still and silent.
That
is how they got past the teeming port of entry at San Ysidro, Calif., between
Tijuana and San Diego. The four young men spent hours in that trunk before
reaching Los Angeles, where Menjivar’s sister and a new life were waiting.
In a mountainous village in El
Salvador, his mother, who had been lighting prayer candles for their safety,
offered up a Mass of thanksgiving.
Undocumented,
knowing no English and with only a spotty ninth-grade education, Menjivar grew
into adulthood doing pretty much any job he could get — construction,
janitorial work, painting — sometimes at the mercy of bosses who knew his dicey
legal status meant he would not dare to complain about dangerous working conditions
and wages that weren’t paid.
But he moved forward with a conviction
that God had a path in mind for him, though he had yet to discern what it was
to be.
As
Menjivar told me his story one day, I suggested that, surely, there must have
been times when he doubted Heaven’s hand. “No, I never put my faith in
question,” he insisted. “I mean, faith was what sustained me.”
Eventually, Menjivar learned to speak English, and he later
was ordained a priest.
On Dec. 19, Pope Francis named Menjivar one of two new auxiliary bishops for the Archdiocese of Washington,
which is home to nearly 700,000 Catholics and encompasses the District and parts of Maryland.
Menjivar’s mother, who, at 88, still cultivates
a little farm in El Salvador, traveled more than 3,000 miles to witness his
Feb. 21 ordination at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in downtown D.C.
“Since my son chose to be a priest, every day I
raised my prayers to ask the Lord to enlighten him, but I never dreamed that He
would choose him as his bishop,” Catalina Ayala told the Catholic Standard. “God heard the prayers of a humble mother.”
The battle for reproduction freedom in America
has been going on for more than 100 years.
Margaret Sanger used her
writings and speeches primarily to promote her way of thinking. She was
prosecuted for her book Family Limitation under the Comstock Act in
1914. She feared the consequences of her writings, so she fled to Britain until
public opinion had quieted. Sanger's efforts contributed to several
judicial cases that helped legalize contraception in the United States. Due
to her connection with Planned Parenthood, Sanger is frequently criticized
by opponents of abortion. Sanger
drew a sharp distinction between birth control and abortion, and was opposed to
abortions throughout the bulk of her professional career, declining to
participate in them as a nurse. Sanger remains an admired figure in the
American reproductive rights movement. She
has been criticized for supporting negative
eugenics; Sanger opposed eugenics along racial lines
and did not believe that poverty was hereditary. However, she would appeal to
both ideas as a rhetorical tool
(Texas judge Andrew Kaczmaryk cited the
Comstock Act for his decision to ban the use of mifepristone, marking the first
time a court tried to invalidate the approval of a drug over the FDA's
objection.)
In 1916, Margaret Sanger opened the first
birth control clinic in the U.S., which led to her arrest for distributing
information on contraception, after an
undercover policewoman bought a copy of her pamphlet on family planning. Her
subsequent trial and appeal generated controversy. Sanger felt that for women
to have a more equal footing in society and to lead healthier lives, they
needed to be able to determine when to bear children. She also wanted to
prevent so-called back-alley
abortions, which were common at the time because
abortions were illegal in the U.S. She believed that, while abortion may
be a viable option in life-threatening situations for the pregnant, it should
generally be avoided. She considered contraception the only practical way
to avoid them.[
Fortunately, common sense on birth control emerged
the other day.
U.S. officials have approved the first
over-the-counter birth control pill, which will let American women and girls
buy contraceptive medication from the same aisle as aspirin and eyedrops.
The Food and Drug Administration said Thursday it cleared
Perrigo’s once-a-day Opill to be sold without a prescription, making
it the first such medication to be moved out from behind the pharmacy counter.
The company won’t start shipping the pill until early next year, and there will
be no age restrictions on sales.
Hormone-based pills have long been the most
common form of birth control in the U.S., used by tens of millions of women
since the 1960s. Until now, all of them required a prescription.
Medical societies and women’s health groups
have pushed for wider access, noting that an estimated 45% of the 6
million annual pregnancies in the U.S. are unintended. Teens and girls, women
of color and those with low incomes report greater hurdles in getting
prescriptions and picking them up.
Some of the challenges can include paying for a doctor’s
visit, getting time off from work and finding child care.
“This is really a transformation in access to
contraceptive care,” said Kelly Blanchard, president of Ibis Reproductive
Health, a non-profit group that supported the approval. “Hopefully this will
help people overcome those barriers that exist now.”
The Food and Drug
Administration said Thursday it cleared Perrigo’s once-a-day Opill to
be sold without a prescription, making it the first such medication to be moved
out from behind the pharmacy counter. The company won’t start shipping the pill
until early next year, and there will be no age restrictions on sales.
Hormone-based based pills have long been the most common form of birth control
in the U.S., used by tens of millions of women since the 1960s. Until now, all
of them required a prescription.
Ireland-based
Perrigo did not announce a price. Over-the-counter medicines are generally much
cheaper than prescriptions, but they typically aren’t covered by insurance.
Forcing insurers
to cover over-the-counter birth control would require a regulatory change by
the federal government, which women’s advocates are urging the Biden
administration to implement.
Many common
medications have made the switch to non-prescription status in recent decades,
including drugs for pain, heartburn and allergies. Birth control pills are
available without a prescription across much of South America, Asia and Africa.
Perrigo submitted
years of research to FDA to show that women could understand and follow
instructions for using the pill. Thursday’s approval came despite
some concerns by FDA scientists about the company’s results,
including whether women with certain underlying medical conditions would
understand they shouldn’t take the drug.
FDA’s action only
applies to Opill. It’s in an older class of contraceptives, sometimes called
minipills, that contain a single synthetic hormone and generally carry fewer
side effects than more popular combination hormone pills.
But women’s health
advocates hope the decision will pave the way for more over-the-counter birth
control options and, eventually, for abortion pills to do the same.
That said, FDA’s decision has no relation to
the ongoing court battles over the abortion pill mifepristone. The studies
in Perrigo’s FDA application began years before the Supreme Court’s reversal
of Roe v. Wade, which has upended abortion access across the U.S.
With some states curtailing women’s reproductive
rights, the FDA has faced pressure from Democratic politicians, health
advocates and medical professionals to ease access to birth control. The
American Medical Association and the leading professional society for
obstetricians and gynecologists backed Opill’s application for over-the-counter
status.
An outside panel of FDA advisers unanimously voted in
favor of the switch at a hearing in May where dozens of public speakers called
for Opill’s approval.
Dyvia Huitron was among those who presented, explaining
how she has been unable to get prescription birth control more than three years
after becoming sexually active. The 19-year-old University of Alabama student
said she still isn’t comfortable getting a prescription because the school’s
health system reports medical exams and medications to parents.
“My parents did not let me go on the pill,” Huitron said
in a recent interview. “There was just a lot of cultural stigma around being
sexually active before you’re married.”
While she uses other forms of contraception,
“I would have much preferred to have birth control and use these additional
methods to ensure that I was being as safe as possible.”
Huitron spoke on behalf of Advocates for Youth, one of the
dozens of groups that have pushed to make prescription contraceptives more
accessible.
The groups helped fund some of the studies submitted for
Opill and they encouraged HRA Pharma, later acquired by Perrigo, to file its
application with the FDA.
Advocates were particularly interested in Opill because it
raised fewer safety concerns. The pill was first approved in the U.S. five
decades ago but hasn’t been marketed here since 2005.
“It’s been around a long time and we have a large amount
of data supporting that this pill is safe and effective for over-the-counter
use,” said Blanchard, of Ibsis Reproductive Health.
Newer birth control pills typically combine two hormones,
estrogen and progestin, which can help make periods lighter and more regular.
But their use carries a heightened risk of blood clots and they shouldn’t be
used by women at risk for heart problems, such as those who smoke and are over
35.
Opill has only progestin, which prevents
pregnancy by blocking sperm from reaching the cervix. It must be taken around
the same time daily to be most effective.
In its internal review published in May, the FDA noted
that some women in Perrigo’s study had trouble understanding the drug’s
labeling information. In particular, the instructions warn that women with a
history of breast cancer should not take the pill because it could spur tumor growth.
And women who have unusual vaginal bleeding are instructed to talk to a doctor
first, because it could indicate a medical problem.
Common side effects of the pill include bleeding,
headaches, dizziness, nausea and cramps, according to the FDA. The label also
cautions that certain drugs can interfere with Opill’s effectiveness, including
medications for seizures, HIV and hypertension.
Perrigo executives said the company will spend the rest of
the year manufacturing the pill and its packaging so it can be available in
stores early next year.
The Dobbs decision of June of 2022 overturned more than 50
years of precedent when it overturned Roe v. Wade. Almost immediately several
states implemented strict anti-abortion laws. In some cases, abortions were
prohibited after six weeks of pregnancy – before women know they are pregnant.
At the same time, other states LOOSENED their abortion laws,
which is a very smart political move, since 71% of the American public (in both
parties) say decisions about
terminating a pregnancy should be left to a woman and her doctor, rather than
regulated by the government. But that support is not absolute: 26% of
respondents polled said abortion should be legal in all cases while 10% said it
should be illegal in all cases
The mid-term elections of 2022 pointed out two important facts:
1)The vast majority of the American public disagrees
with the Dobbs decisions
2)The American public is not interested in supporting
extreme candidates for office. In Arizona, for example, ALL of the extreme
candidates lost the election, even if Kari Lake still won’t admit it.
Regardless of our political party, we would all like to see
fewer abortions, but there are only two ways to do that:
1)Make birth control more widely available
2)Mandate comprehensive sexual education inschools
in every state.
The FDA’s decision to make “the bill” available over the counter will likely face
resistance from the more conservative members of our society – but it’s the
only thing that makes sense, and reproductive freedom will be THE most important topic in the 2024 elections - even in conservative states like Oklahoma.
Bison
once ranged across much of North America, from the eastern seaboard states to
southeast Washington, eastern Oregon and northeastern California. They also
roamed the high parks of the Colorado Rockies and were known from higher
elevations of the Northern Rockies in Glacier National Park, and the mountains
surrounding Yellowstone. However, the greatest numbers were found on the
shortgrass plains east of the Rocky Mountains that stretched from Alberta to
Texas – sometimes referred to as the “bison belt”. Some authorities estimated
that 75 million bison roamed North America in the pre-Columbian era, while a
more conservative estimate suggested the maximum number should be pegged at 30 million.
Due to hide hunting, sport hunting and perhaps also as a consequence of the
introduction of the horse which increased Native American hunting efficiency,
bison numbers plummeted nearly to the point of extinction by the late 1800’s.
The enormous herds of buffalo in the “bison belt” served two
purposes.
1)Up until the California gold rush and the establishment
of the Oregon trail in the 1840’s, native Americans flourished in the Great
Plains states. Although it’s difficult to determine accurate numbers, it is
believed that the native American population was in the millions. Although some
of the natives established villages and farms, buffalo meat was an important
part of their died.
2)Even using a conservative number of 30 million,
Great Plains buffaloes produced a lot of “manure”, which further enriched the
soil.
Before European settlers moved in, the Great Plains were
covered by tall grasses, which provided nutrients for the soil and prevention
against soil erosion.
After the Homestead Act was signed in 1862, farming in the Great
Plains exploded, since the act opened up millions of acres of rich farm land.
Increased demand for good during WWI expanded the number or
acres under cultivation, but little regard was paid to soil conservation, which
led to the dust storms of the 1930’s.
Buffalo in the Great Plains have been almost entirely replaced
by cattle – to the detriment of our environment.
About a third of human-caused
methane emissions come from livestock,
mostly from beef and dairy cattle, produced in the digestive process that allows
ruminants (hoofed animals including cows, sheep and goats with four-part
stomachs) to absorb plants.
Cows and other
farm animals produce about 14% of
human-induced climate emissions, and it is methane from their burps and manure
that is seen as both the biggest concern and best opportunity for tackling
global heating.
Although methane breaks down relatively quickly in the atmosphere, it is a more
potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Reducing these emissions has been
touted as one of the most immediate opportunities to
slow global heating ahead of the Cop26 UN climate talks in Glasgow.
“Cutting
methane is the biggest opportunity to slow warming between now and 2040,”
Durwood Zaelke, a lead reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change, said in August 0f 2021.
Options for reducing methane include alternative feeds for
cattle, reducing food loss and waste, and cutting meat and dairy production.
Majestic grasslands once
blanketed a quarter of North America, before homesteaders began plowing up the
earth to plant those amber waves of grain. Now just a third of the native
prairies survive, said Joe Fargione, science director, North America, at The
Nature Conservancy.
Yet grasslands play a vital
role in storing carbon — which in the form of carbon dioxide is the main
greenhouse gas linked to climate change — and thus they serve as a crucial
bulwark against rising temperatures and seas. Researchers estimate that
grasslands could contain as much as 30 percent of the carbon stored in the
Earth’s soil. Plowing them in order to plant crops releases large amounts of
that carbon into the atmosphere.
By adopting regenerative
grazing practices — in particular, by frequently rotating concentrated herds
and by resting paddocks for long intervals — they and a growing number of North
American ranchers are using the cattle themselves to improve grassland health.
Settlers
and colonists, biased toward the forests that fueled the European economy,
often regarded the grasslands of the New World as wastelands begging to be
planted or passed over. Experts believe this misconception persists.
“We are still a long way from actually convincing
policymakers that soil carbon is important,” said Ibrahim Thiaw, executive
secretary of the U.N. Convention to Combat Desertification.
Yet grassland roots are remarkably resilient and are
better equipped than forests to withstand harsh droughts. And unlike forests,
grasslands tend to retain the majority of their carbon in the soil following
wildfires. Grasslands are also largely superior at springing back to life after
the massive conflagrations that
climate change — and bad fire-suppression policy —
have wrought worldwide.
In the
United States, the proposed North American Grasslands
Conservation Act would, its supporters argue, establish a
cohesive national strategy to protect and restore these biomes.
Most people think about energy and forests when
referring to the climate crisis, said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and
a top backer of the legislation. “But if we’re going to overcome this code-red
emergency, we also need to look across all sectors and industries. And
grasslands have just as critical a role to play.”
One possible solution: Send in the cows.
The
key, experts said, is to strike a delicate balance between grazing and resting
the land.
“We’re trying to make the livestock mimic what the
bison did not so long ago,” said Mr. Coulter. “There are regenerative systems
that absolutely need large ruminants to cycle nutrients into the land.”
In
regenerative grazing, ranchers typically concentrate their herds into small
paddocks. This pressures the cows to consume a wide variety of grasses, so no
single plant species become predominant.
The ranchers move the cows frequently — near daily in
the case of a Montana rancher, Bill Milton, 72, who uses portable electric
fencing to shift his herd, as do the Obrechts and Mr. Coulter. The animals
leave behind strewn and trampled grass particles, plus lots of cow pies for
good measure. This all fortifies soil health and provides ground cover that
helps keep the earth cooler and improves precipitation absorption.
Crucially, the ranchers give each paddock ample time,
sometimes more than a year, to recover and produce new growth — a process that sequesters carbon.
“The big question is what kind of impact these
practices will have on climate change,” said Mr. Milton.
Buffalo no longer roam the Great Plains in large numbers, but
by mimicking their grazing methods, cattle ranchers in those areas can reduce
global warming. According to NASA, global temperatures have been rising on a
fairly steady basis since 1880. 2020 is tied with 2016 as the warmest year on record
since records were first kept in 1880.
As we travel through life, the times when we get together with
the largest number of our relatives are weddings and funerals.
We got to most weddings when we are in our 20’s and 30’s, and we
are generally in our 70’s when we got to the most funerals.
Since only 6% of all marriages make it to 50 years, the golden
anniversary celebrations are rare, but I’ve been to some. At this point, the total
is 2, and one of those was ours, although we do know a few other folks who made
it that far.
As my parents got older, they started paying more attention to
funeral notices. During 2020, I did the same, simply because there were so many
of them. We had a handful of friends and relatives that did not make it to 70,
but we’re approaching the time when we know more people who will wind up in
obituary notices, since the average life expectancy is 73.5 for men, and 79.3
for women.
I had 3 relatives (on both sides) who lived to be 95. Since
yesterday’s doctor visit showed good results, I may live that long too.
It’s been said that they only things you can’t avoid in life
are death and taxes – and taxes have been in the news again lately because of
the negotiations over our debt limit. (Our current debt is 129% of our GDP,
largely due to COVID. In 2019, the ratio was 100.9%)
Without wading into the minefield of politics too much, all I’ll
add at this point is to say that our deficit problems are not caused
by excessive spending, but by insufficient revenue.
The editorial board of the Washington Post had a few ideas this
morning, but before I list them for you, you need to consider how we got to
where we are now.
Grover Norquist has never held public office, but he has had a
profound effect on our country’s finances.
Grover Glenn Norquist (born October 19, 1956) is an American
political activist and tax reduction advocate who is founder and president of Americans for Tax Reform, an organization that opposes all tax increases. A Republican, he is the primary promoter of the Taxpayer Protection Pledge, a pledge signed by lawmakers who agree to oppose increases
in marginal income tax rates for individuals and businesses, as well as net
reductions or eliminations of deductions and credits without a matching reduced
tax rate. Prior to the November 2012 election, the pledge was
signed by 95% of all Republican members of Congress and all but one of the candidates running for the 2012
Republican presidential nomination
Not all members of the Republican Party are as insane as the
House Freedom Caucus, but even the one who aren’t crazy are reluctant to raise
taxes. I’ve done extensive research on tax cuts, and have concluded that tax
cuts do NOT grow the economy.
The best “bang for your buck” is food stamps, but there aren’t
many Republicans who will admit that. Here’s more details on that:
Unless Americans are willing to live
with a substantially smaller military,
reduced Social Security payments, more crowded classrooms and other
diminishments in what their government provides, lawmakers need to find about $2 trillion in
additional tax revenue over the coming decade, on top of the money-saving
budget reforms that we have detailed elsewhere.
Congress’s task is to raise the money
without dulling efficiency and warping incentives to grow, innovate and work.
As
we noted in our recommendations for shoring up entitlement programs, one potential reform is raising the cap
on wage earnings subject to Social Security taxes. Another is closing a loophole exempting pass-through
businesses — such as sole proprietorships, partnerships and S corporations,
which are not subject to corporate income taxes — from paying Medicare taxes on
their investment profits. Here are some other ideas:
The most effective tax systems have
limited exemptions. An abundance of exemptions can distort investment decisions
and give a leg up to those who can afford expensive tax advice. Take the estate
tax. Currently, individuals may pass up to about $13 million of stock, real
estate or other assets to heirs tax-free, an amount that would have been
inconceivablein the 1990s. Moving
the line back to $5 million, where it was in 2010, would raise
more than $100 billion in revenue in the next
decade, while still exempting all but less than one-half of 1 percent of
estates.
Similarly,
lawmakers could end the “stepped-up basis loophole.” This allows a person
inheriting an asset — say, a share of stock — to pay tax only on the asset’s
gains in value since the death of the person who passed it on. A family,
therefore, could hold on to that share for decades, even as it rose in value,
but then pay tax on only a fraction of the accumulated gains at selling. Ending
this loophole would generate more than $100 billion in the next
decade.
Congress could eliminate the “carried interest
loophole,” too. This allows private equity and hedge fund managers to treat
their incomes as investment profits, so they get to pay the far-lower capital
gains tax on their incomes rather than the income tax that ordinary wage-earnersdo. Taxing gains as income would raise about $14 billion over the next decade and promote fairness in
the tax system.
President Biden has already announced
his support for allowing some of Mr. Trump’s 2017 tax cuts to expire on time in
2025, letting the marginal income tax rate on the top earners return to 39.6
percent. This is the same rate that was in place for much of the 1990s. Reversing tax cuts for some
of those a little lower on the income scale could raise more revenue. Boosting
rates for those in the top three tax brackets would call on
married couples making more than about $364,000 a year to contribute more. For
context: Lawmakers set the income cutoff to receive the
first round of covid relief payments at $150,000 for a married couple.
Mr.
Trump also gave companies the largest cut to the corporate income tax rate in
U.S. history. Even many business leaders were surprised when Republicans reduced
it from 35 percent to 21 percent. A rate in the 25 to 28 percent
range would keep the United States competitive with global rivals. Going to 25
percent would bring in roughly $500 billion over the next
decade.
A carbon tax would raise revenue and
help shift society away from carbon-intensive
products by making them more expensive, spurring businesses and consumers to
find the cheapest and easiest way to avoid polluting. Some kind of mass rebate
system would have to accompany a carbon tax to ensure that it does not fall
hardest on low-income earners. But many plausible carbon tax proposals include
such a rebate and would still generate large amounts of money for
deficit-cutting. Discouraging pollution and raising money, a carbon tax would
be economically efficient and fair, asking those responsible for emissions to
bear some of the social costs of pollution.
No
one likes to pay higher taxes. But wise and targeted increases are essential to
fiscal stability. Changes are clear and within reach. The longer Congress
waits, the harder it will be to repair the compounding damage.
The Washington Post has won more than 70 Pulitzer Prizes,
second only to the New York Times, which has won nearly 100. The two pares are
two of the six that I read on a daily basis.
Today’s column is the first of a series that the Post plans to
publish about the debt problem.
If you still need more information about taxes, you may remember
that I wrote about the same topic roughly 3 years ago:
No matter where you live, there are always going to people who
feel that taxes are too high. Compared to the rest of the world, though, our
taxes are actually quite low.
The most expensive corporate tax rate can be found in Brazil, which
has a rate of 40%. In comparison, the corporate tax rate in America is only
21%. Despite that low rate, 19 of America’s largest companies paid little or no
taxes last year.
The highest individual tax rate is found in Belgium, which has
a marginal rate of 79.5%. Second highest if Finland, which has a marginal rate
of 66%. Oddly enough, Finland has been ranked the happiest country in the world
for six years in a row.
All of our national problems would be easier to solve if we
were all better educated. The masthead of the Washington Post reads “Democracy
Dies in Darkness”. In view of the fact that 9 of the top 10 news shows are on
FOX ( which actually is not registered as a news channel) things will be slow
to improve.
