Inside This Issue You Will Discover…

*** Forms and Fees
*** The Labyrinth of Bureaucracy
*** Eager to Pay More Taxes
*** And More

Forms and Fees

We receive different forms from different agencies all the time.  Often we can’t comprehend why they exist.  What’s their purpose for being?  But then we see that a fee’s required and it all comes together for us.

Just last week the City of Long Beach shook us down for $191.71.  Plus they gave us a form to apply for a City business license.  We promptly filled it out and sent it in…with a check, of course.  We hope they’ll now leave us alone.

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We’ll admit we did blow off the City when we set up shop a short while back.  After going to the Feds to get an Employer Identification Number, to the State of California twice – once to register as a LLC and once to get a sellers permit – then to the County of Los Angeles to register our fictitious business name…we were a little weary of forms and a little low on cash.  This, too, was all before we’d ever made our first sale.

So now that we’ve righted our wrongs with the City, we can only wonder what notice will show up in the mail next.  That it will come, we are certain.

The Labyrinth of Bureaucracy

It’s our firm objective to operate our modest publishing business above board…even if doing so is a splendid aggravation.  If we think about it too much we begin to wonder why we are in business to begin with.  And we conclude that we must be a bit crazy.

For the rational man would never subject himself to this labyrinth of bureaucracy and fees.  Why bother when you could just pull the 9 to 5ver in an HVAC regulated cubicle at a well manicured office park.

But we’re hopeless dreamers.  And we like to dream that there’s more to life than the daily grind.  So when we boil it all down, we’re in business because it brings us hope…and hopefully profits too.

What does this have to do with markets?

We see oil’s pushing above $100 per barrel, gold’s dancing around the $1,000 per ounce mark, and that the Federal Reserve’s spent the week blowing sulfurous smelling gas into the stock market.

To answer our question, we don’t know what this little blather about forms and fees has to do with markets.  Sure we could make something up about government meddling in private enterprise…but in this instance it would be disingenuous.

We just bring it up because it’s on our mind…probably because we’re meeting with our accountant tomorrow to get our taxes sorted out.

Eager to Pay More Taxes

We’ve discovered that we should be excited, eager, and enthusiastic about paying taxes.  In fact, we should desire to pay more of them.

Not long ago a successful entrepreneur and business owner told us that his goal this year is to pay $150,000 in taxes.  He explained that when he changed his thinking from how much he wanted to make, to how much he wanted to pay in taxes, he became much more successful.

It’s an interesting idea.  And we can see his logic.  But we haven’t come to share his enthusiasm.  Maybe when we do, we’ll be more successful.  And maybe when we’re more successful, we’ll share his enthusiasm.

We’ll keep you apprised of the validity of this feedback loop.

Sincerely,

M.N. Gordon
Great Depression Online

P.S.  Paying taxes is a royal drag.  But we’ve come to accept it as a fact of life.  Henry David Thoreau thought different.  In fact, he was willing to go to jail for refusing to pay taxes to what he thought was an unjust government.  Thoreau recounts his experience in his masterwork Civil Disobedience.  Obtain a copy of this and many other master works of dissent at: Masters of Dissent.