MONEY!  

(Waiting for Elaine to come home.)

Thanks to the Trump changes to the tax code, I now owe an average of $3,000 each year to Uncle, instead of getting a refund every year as before. (Help me toss those tea bags, John!)

Here are some thoughts on taxes and money:

Mark Twain: 

"What is the difference between a taxidermist and a tax collector?  

The taxidermist takes only your skin."

Ambrose Bierce

"Money (n.) A blessing that is no advantage to us excepting when we part with it..." 

New Bedford Money Story

Concerned Father (CF): "I hear that you want to marry my daughter.  What is your financial status?"

Suiter (S) "It is great and you can check that out with my friends at the exclusive Wamsutta Club, where I am a member."

CF:  "I hear that there are many male members (sorry) there who have vast fortunes and engage in wild activity."

S: "Sir, if I marry your daughter I will no longer hang out with those money-spreading guys."

CF: "No, don't do that.  Bring them here to marry my other three daughters!"

Biblical Money Quote

"Wine maketh merry; but money answereth all things."    ( Ecclesiastes X.19.)

(Which would you rather have, wine or money? With money you can buy a lot of wine... which now sells for ridiculous prices.)

Robert Frost

"Never ask of money spent

Where the spender thinks it went.

Nobody was ever meant 

To remember or invent

What he did with every cent."

Making Money

The housewife was proud of her ability to redeem coupons that came with "Sunlight Soap" to get free prizes, including massive amounts of furniture which she used to outfit one of the two "living rooms" in her house. 

A neighbor asked her why she didn't use some of the furniture to outfit the other "living room."

She replied that she could not do that because that's where she kept her many cartons of "Sunlight Soap."

 

That reminded me of when one usually astute neighbor couple got caught up with the "money-making" opportunities in selling hand soap (it may have been called S---- or something similar.)

Soap selling was a form of Ponzi scheme.  The first people who began to sell in a "virgin" territory sold a lot of soap and they then recruited friends or relatives to join in by buying lots of soap to sell.  The recruiters got a "cut" of the new folks' sales.  

Our neighbors earned a lot of money... until the virgin territory was "deflowered."  The money dried up and they and the others were left with cases of unsold soap.  In fact, our neighbors' garage no longer had room for their car.  Instead, it held case after case of soap that was now unsellable.

Sometimes the redempyion of product coupons tyurned out well.  My late wife, Elaine Eva would redeem coupons for money under friends' and relatives' names and addresses.  They would then receive checks of $1 to $20 in the mail and wouldn't know who it came from.

(For a few years one of the diaper companies  included a redeemable coupon for $20 in their "jumbo" package.  Every Thursday night when people in Westminster, Maryland put out their garbage for morning pickup, Elaine would have me go around town looking for emptied packages that still had an intact coupon.  Then, of course, a little while later, a friend or relative would get a nice crisp $20 bill in the mail and wonder why they received it.)

When I gave the eulogy at Elaine's funeral I "spilled the beans," and I heard a lot of people in the audience gasp.  

Elaine was a very generous person.

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