Atlas Shrugged, Episode II
After finally crossing the billion $ threshold, Mitt decides to go all John Galt and moves to his estate on his own island. Fed up with politics as usual, he decides to establish his own government and he decides to call his new land, Kolob.
Well, it turns out Kolob is not the utopia Mitt envisioned. Complaints started rolling in immediately. Who will mow the grass and trim the hedges? Who will make the beds and who will cook breakfast in the morning? Who will repair the car elevator when it breaks? Clearly Mitt hadn't though all this through. He needed a plan. Clearly all his experience outsourcing, downsizing, and creating wealth through vulture capitalization was not going to help here. He needed to do something he'd never done before. He needed to create jobs, and it wasn't just enough to create jobs, he needed serfs to fill those jobs, and with the nearest day laborer pickup point over 1,000 miles away, Mitt had a serious problem.
Mitt briefly considered taking out a help wanted ad in various 3rd world countries. The thought of people desperate to feed their families drowning while trying to cross the Kolob sea seemed amusing. But no, this would never work. Even with tug boats deployed in the harbor spraying hapless serfs with water canons, he would soon have more serfs than he would know what to do with. After a few minutes of intense concentration, Mitt comes up with a foolproof immigration plan. Each time he would need another serf, he would simply order a pizza. When the delivery person showed up, he would immediately revoke their passport and issue them immediate Kolobian citizenship. I know what you're thinking. How the hell are you going to get a pizza delivered to Kolob? The reason this problem befuddles you is because you can't possibly think like a "job creator". When you have a Gulfstream G650, problems like these are small. Mitt's airline refuses to admit anyone back onto the G650 with no valid passport from their country of origin in accordance with Kolobian law. With nowhere else to go, the serf would have no choice but to work for him as he was the only employer on the island.
Soon Mitt has all the pizza he needs and a crew of 100 serfs. Things are getting done. Complaints go down. Each serf makes $10 per year. As they are doing an excellent job rounding up crabs on the beach for food, there was really no need to pay them more and frankly the beach crabs were starting to become something of a nuisance anyway. Yes life is good, but something is clearly missing. Even though coconut sales were up and generating a million $ in yearly revenue, Mitt is depressed. Not only that, he sees a television aerial on one of the serf shanties and realizes he's paying them far too much. In this moment, the light bulb finally starts to glow again. Mitt realizes what's missing. You can't avoid taxes if taxes do not exist. Fortunately one has to show their G650 registration certificate in order to vote in Kolob, so Mitt knows he's in no re-election danger. He implements a flat 20% tax with a $990,999 deduction for all "job creators". With all tax revenue flowing back to him through government contracts anyway, it's hard to go wrong here. If any of the serfs start to complain about their tax burden, he simply produces his tax records that prove he pays 400 times more than the median taxpayer and is shouldering 80% of all the tax burden on Kolob. Furthermore unemployment is low, and the beach crab problem is down.
Finally life is good on Kolob, for everyone. Complaints all but disappear and the people are happy. Mitt lives happily ever after.
The end.
= new reply since forum marked as read
and it's not as bad as they say. And the crabs are delicious.
The money is worthless. There's nothing to buy. Paying a tax with money that has no value is no biggie.
