I argue that we progressively use more tangible and intangible resources from the government to acquire your income, and therefore, one ought to pay taxes at a higher and higher rate if they make more and more money. If you google “justification for progressive taxation”, you will see plenty of arguments in favour of and against
In which I describe how my idea of fairness is different from free market principles. In this post, I talk about the definition of fairness in the context of economic transaction. Many of you may have simple framework based on free market principles to judge a transaction as fair or unfair. I have a different
Where I relate wars, capital punishment, environmentalism and feminism. It was rather unpleasant to watch Gov. Rick Perry being applauded for overseeing capital punishments in Texas during the Republican presidential debate last year. Even a supporter of capital punishment usually agrees that it is not carried out with pride but with a disappointment that such
Paul Krugman wrote (link) about the “stubborn persistence of bad food in England.” Paraphrasing the article, the quality of food in London dropped significantly due to rapid urbanisation that preceded good transportation system that brought fresh food from the farms. This created a big demand for canned food-based diet, and soon the demand for quality
A month back, my friends and I were talking about funding for different departments and graduate research assistant stipend during summer. I learnt that some student get twice as much during summer than during regular semester. I hadn’t asked my prof about my pay-check then. I did concede that it was partly because I find
Update: This post has been edited for clarity and typos. What prompted me to write this is another post shared by my friend on Google Reader. It talks about Sarabjit Singh, a woman who did not want her husband released in exchange for terrorist. Kudos to her! I really admire her because she put her
Imagine a situation where there is a wealthy businessman, and he has an excellent B-Plan to make more money. He opens a mall in few villages, and offers low prices for an extended period of time enough to drive the mom-and-pop stores out of business. He makes loss over the period but, as he is
Being in India, you are never more than just couple of hundred meters away from a tradition that is followed simply because it has always been followed. Mythology is used to explain most of the weird superstition. A good work (shuba kaarya) is never started the day after a new moon day as the Mahabharata
I did want to post DC and NYC pics, but I will do that later. There are a lot more things I want to say about the place. Roads “There are some people out there in our nation who don’t have maps” (link)… that’s so not true. They may not have world map, but many
Update: I removed a few lines that I did not think were ok here. I thought I will wait for a month before I pen my first impressions on America rather than writing a post immediately. Here are a few things I noted down about the place. Friendliness: About a year ago, there was survey