A fable for our times

Donnerstag, 02.02.06 18:01 by Oliver M.H. - 1 Kommentar

Von meinem lieben Kollegen M. B. erhielt ich gerade eine Email mit diesem modernen Märchen in zwei Versionen. Und da der Text zu schön ist, will ich ihn den A’team-Lesern nicht vorenthalten.

Kleine Frage am Rande: Hat schon jemand eine deutsche Version dieses Märchens gesehen? Wenn nicht: Einfach Ken Livingstone durch Oskar Lafontaine, BBC durch WDR und Panorama durch Monitor ersetzen – funktioniert garantiert.

The Ant & the Grasshopper

CLASSIC VERSION

The ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The grasshopper thinks he’s a fool, and laughs and dances and plays the summer away. Come winter, the ant is warm and well fed. The shivering grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. THE END

THE BRITISH VERSION

The shivering grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be allowed to be warm and well fed while others less fortunate, like him, are cold and starving. The BBC shows up to provide live coverage of the shivering grasshopper, with cuts to a video of the ant in his comfortable warm home in Hampstead with a table laden with food.

The British are stunned that in a country of such wealth, this poor grasshopper is allowed to suffer so while others have plenty. The Liberal Party, the Respect Party, the Transvestites With Starving Babies Party and the Coalition Against Poverty demonstrate in front of the ant’s house. The BBC, interrupting a Rastafarian cultural festival special from Grimsby, with breaking news, broadcasts them singing “We Shall Overcome.”

Ken Livingstone laments in an interview with Panorama that the ant has got rich off the backs of grasshoppers, and calls for an immediate tax hike on the ant to make him pay his “fair share”. In response, the Labour Government drafts the Economic Equity and Grasshopper Anti-Discrimination Act, retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The ant’s taxes are reassessed, and he is also fined for failing to hire grasshoppers as helpers. Without enough money to pay the fine and his newly imposed retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by Camden Council.

The ant moves to France, and starts a successful agribiz company [funded by the EU].

The BBC later shows the now fat grasshopper finishing up the last of the ant’s food, though Spring is still months away, while the government house he is in, which just happens to be the ant’s old house, crumbles around him because he hasn’t bothered to maintain it. Inadequate government funding is blamed, Diane Abbot is appointed to head a commission of enquiry that will cost �10,000,000.

The grasshopper is soon dead of a drug overdose, the Guardian blames it on the obvious failure of government to address the root causes of despair arising from social inequity. The abandoned house is taken over by a gang of immigrant spiders, praised by the government for enriching Britain’s multicultural diversity, who promptly set up a marijuana growing operations and terrorize the community. THE REAL END

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“Let’s put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that everyday, 10 men go to dinner. The bill for all 10 comes to $100. If it was paid the way we pay our taxes, the first four men 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.
The ten men ate dinner in the restaurant every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement until 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. Now dinner for the 10 costs $80.
The first four are unaffected. They still eat for free. Can you figure out how to divvy up the $20 savings among the remaining six so that everyone gets his fair share? The men realize that $20 divided by six is $3.33, but if they subtract that from everybody’s share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would end up being paid to eat their meal.
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 $12, leaving the tenth man with a bill of $52 instead of $59. Outside the restaurant, the men began to compare their savings. “I only got a dollar out of the $20,” declared the sixth man pointing to the tenth, “and 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 were $52 short!
And that, boys and girls and college instructors, is how the tax system works. The people who pay the highest taxes get the most benefit from tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up at the table anymore. There are lots of good restaurants in Switzerland and the Caribbean.”

First four (poorest) 0 0 -0
Fifth 1 0 -1
Sixth 3 2 -1
Seventh 7 5 -2
Eigth 12 9 -3
Ninth 18 12 -6
Tenth (richest) 59 52 -7
Sum 100 80 -20

Kommentar von spruance — 03.02.06 10:04 #

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