A Good Joke about Cops

Every so often, I’ll be critical of cops. Usually it’s because they’re tasked with the unenviable responsibility of enforcing bad laws, but sometimes they do things that are needlessly wrong.

• Busting two kids for throwing snowballs.
• Cops issuing summonses to people for lawfully sitting in a park.
• Arresting a woman for standing on her own porch.
• Fining two men for rescuing an injured deer.
• Arresting a homeowner for the crime of self-defense.

But these are rare examples of bone-headed behavior by individual cops. I’m much more concerned about bad laws issued by politicians, such as asset forfeiture laws that give cops incentives to harass people who aren’t a threat to society.

Having made a semi-serious point, now let’s enjoy a good joke about cops.

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HOW TO CALL THE POLICE WHEN YOU WANT RESULTS

George Phillips , an elderly man, from Meridian, Mississippi, was going up to bed, when his wife told him that he’d left the light on in the garden shed, which she could see from the bedroom window. George opened the back door to go turn off the light, but saw that there were people in the shed stealing things.

He phoned the police, who asked “Is someone in your house?”

He said “No,” but some people are breaking into my garden shed and stealing from me.

Then the police dispatcher said “All patrols are busy. You should lock your doors and an officer will be along when one is available.”

George said, “Okay.”

He hung up the phone and counted to 30.

Then he phoned the police again.

“Hello, I just called you a few seconds ago because there were people stealing things from my shed. Well, you don’t have to worry about them now because I just shot them.” and he hung up.

Within five minutes, six Police Cars, a SWAT Team, a Helicopter, two Fire Trucks, a Paramedic, and an Ambulance showed up at the Phillips’ residence, and caught the burglars red-handed.

One of the Policemen said to George, “I thought you said that you’d shot them!”

George said, “I thought you said there was nobody available!”

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For those of you who appreciate police humor, you’ll enjoy this Texas police exam and this example of compassionate state troopers.

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Just as Happened in Europe, the VAT Is Becoming a Money Machine for Big Government in Japan

For years, I’ve been warning that a value-added tax (VAT) would be a terrible idea. Simply stated, politicians would have no reason to control spending or reform entitlements if they had a new source of tax revenue.

In this video, I explain why this European-style national sales tax is a money machine for bigger government.

Japan’s politicians are confirming my argument. Here are some details from a new report in the Wall Street Journal.

Japan’s parliament passed a landmark tax bill Friday, finalizing the legal framework to double the nation’s sales tax by 2015 as a step toward fiscal reconstruction. The upper house enactment of the contentious bill marks the end of Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s tortuous 12-month road to raise the tax to 8% in April 2014 and 10% in October 2015. …The sales tax hike will be the first since 1997, when the rate was raised to the current 5% from 3%.

Wow, more than tripling the tax between 1997 and 2015. I wonder how long it will take Japan’s political class to boost the rate to 20 percent?

But that’s only part of the story.

Mr. Noda also had to promise to dissolve the lower house “in the near term” in exchange for…endorsement of the bill in the opposition-controlled upper house.

Wow, if I’m reading that passage correctly, it sounds like Prime Minister Noda is willing to lose power in order to impose this new tax. This shows an amazing amount of greed for new revenue.

I’m surprised, though, that his party didn’t kick him out and elect a new leader. They must be as politically incompetent as the supposedly right-wing party in Slovakia that surrendered power to the socialists in order to get support for the Greek bailout.

However, the WSJ article also suggests that the tax is not a done deal.

The bill includes a provision making an “economic upturn” a condition for implementing the rate hike. The government refused to specify in the bill exactly what an upturn entails, and lawmakers have different interpretations. DPJ tax policy chief Hirohisa Fujii told Dow Jones that only an economic shrinkage of 3% or more should prevent the tax increase from taking place.

Isn’t that remarkable. This onerous tax hike can only go into effect if there’s an “economic upturn,” and one of the sleazy politicians from the ruling party is defining an economic contraction of -2.99 percent as meeting that test.

Sound like Mr. Fujii should become friends with the Obama Administration officials who relied on Keynesian economic theory to concoct an infamous prediction that unemployment would never rise above 8 percent if Washington squandered more than $800 billion on a faux stimulus.

But if he’s smart, Mr. Fujii will grab as much loot as possible and emigrate. Japan’s long-term finances are a disaster, and the VAT increase is a pretty good sign that politicians have no intention of turning the ship of state before it rams the fiscal iceberg.

And now you’ll understand even more why I’m worried about the pro-VAT sympathies of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan.

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