You Must Be From Away

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For the graphic designers and typesetters amongst you….

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Just back from a chat with Inland Revenue.

Routine sort of stuff and nice enough people, too

My 7 year old friend from up the road, Sophie, was lurking around when I got back and our encounters normally turn into a mild version of the Spanish Inquisition.

Today was no exception.

After determining in detail what I’d been up to, she asked “How much tax do you pay? €1000”

“Bit more than that, Sophie”

“€10,000?”

“More”

“€20,000?”

“More”

Pisses me off just to think about it

This is a VERY simple way to understand the tax laws.
Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. 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 $7;
the eighth $12;
the ninth $18.
the tenth man—the richest—would pay $59.
That’s what they decided to do.
The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant 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 meal by $20. “So dinner for the ten only cost $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 eat for free.
But what about the other six—the paying customers?
How could they divvy up the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his “fair share?”
The six men 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 end up being paid to eat their meal.
So the restaurant 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 paid nothing, the sixth pitched in $2, the seventh paid $5, the eighth paid $9, the ninth paid $12, leaving the tenth Man with a of $52 instead of his earlier $59.
Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to eat 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. “But he got $7!”
“Yeah, that’s right,” exclaimed the fifth man.
“I only saved a dollar, too. It’s unfair that he got seven times more than me!”
“That’s true!” shouted the seventh man. “Why should he get $7 back when I got only $2?
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 he didn’t show up for dinner, so the nine sat down and ate without him.
But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They’re $52 short!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and college instructors, is how the 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 at the table anymore.

Unfortunately, some politicians who decide on tax law changes cannot grasp this straightforward logic!

>Lucy Kellaway’s my kind of girl.

(I use the term somewhat loosely… her Fountain of Youth appears to have become somewhat drought-stricken recently and – from her publicity shots, at least – she’s morphed from waif – top left – to rather attractive early middle-age – bottom right – in a matter of months.)

But we’d be the ones in senior management meetings, rolling our eyes and exchanging knowing looks at the jargon and general mindlessness before being bollocked by the CEO for playing bullshit bingo too obviously.

Not that it’d never happen – she’s hugely talented and famous, I’m neither nor (well, perhaps moderately talented. And mildly notorious in some circles) and our paths won’t cross.

But it’s OK to dream

She writes a management column/podcast for the FT (and I suspect that she’s “Buttonwood” at “The Economist”) that kept me sane for big chunks of my executive management “thing”.

As did her book, “Sense and nonsense in the office”, based on her 9 rules of management, which she describes as ‘glaringly obvious, but then management ideas are obvious. Any that aren’t obvious tend to be wrong’

So it’s really all about heeding your bullshit detectors and calling a spade a bloody shovel.

Here’s yesterday’s podcast episode, here’s the column and here’s her book

And the 9 rules:

Rule 1 – Management is one of the most difficult jobs going and is harder now than ever because the challenges are greater.

Rule 2 – Most people are bad at managing, some are very bad. Hardly anyone can do it well.

Rule 3 – Good managers need to be both hard and soft, decent and ruthless, good at the big picture and at the small detail.

Rule 4 – In view of the above, the market for management consultants, trainers, gurus, business books is expanding, apparently without limit.

Rule 5 – While most of the management help industry is of dubious value, managers do need the experience and advice of wise outsiders. But to follow that advice blindly – as many companies do – is, of course, idiotic.

Rule 6 – Any new management technique that comes with a catchphrase is suspect. It almost certainly will not suit the company in question and even if it does, the management will probably fail to apply it properly.

Rule 7 – It is hard to teach a middle-aged dog new tricks. People who are rotten communicators do not become better by virtue of having been on a course or having read a book. Improving and changing is a long, painful slog.

Rule 8 – People like security. They like to be told what to do. Empowerment and flat structures are over-rated.

Rule 9 – All work is tedious for much of the time. If everyone accepts this, then so much the better.

Glaringly obvious, really.

But thanks anyway, Lucy.

>“Behind Saint-Lazare Station, Paris, France, 1932”

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Does photography get much better than this?

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From the Portsmouth Herald’s Police Log

3:57 a.m. A Court Street caller reported a screaming male in the portable toilet on her property. Officers were unable to locate the man.

4:23 p.m. A Lamarck Drive resident reported that a bat was sleeping in his basement. It was actually a black sock.