“Good morning, Gentle Readers. I am Amanda, the quiet one they complain about here. The Writer’s Circle is reluctant to go outside this morning, since at first light under a sliver moon and the brilliant light of Venus it is sixteen degrees by the Fire Ring at Refuge Farm. The Person in Red on the flatscreen says we are in the grip of an arctic air mass here in the Piedmont region of Virginia. I am a little unfamiliar with that, since March is supposed to come in this way and exit like a lamb. So far- and I have examined this carefully- everything about this Spring has been a little backwards.”

“My job is riding herd on the Writers Section. They are an odd bunch. They are mostly veterans, mostly male, so they have some crusty old views on things. and that is why I was assigned to keep an eye on what they yammer about. We were warned that Article 88 violations could result in a lot of work for the Legal Department here at Socotra House. I am a safeguard of liberty by keeping them quiet.”

“In fact, that emerging requirement is why I got hired. It is a first job for me, and exciting in a way if you consider the county quiet a benefit. I am in this position since I have not actually passed the Virginia State Bar, and none of the millions of available jobs offer the sort of upward mobility I desire. This was a chance to get a little experience for the resume and enhance my chances to do something real. As it is, this job is pretty simple. If the old folks wander off into criticism of the elected government, I am supposed to issue warnings and cut that potentially illegal thought out of what they claim is “production.”

“Me? I am a graduate of the Appalachian School of Law, Class of 2020, though we had to do graduation on ZOOM due to the pandemic. It is not Virginia’s finest school, they say, but we are proud to demonstrate that without skilled lawyers, the Rule of Law would just be a vain dream. There is almost always a lawyer out there, advocating for our clients, seeking justice for them and calling on others to recognize the inherent rights of fair play and equal treatment. We Appalachian State grads strive to protect the inherent rights of our clients by providing well-rounded counsel who rigorously care about them.”

“You can imagine that is a challenge with this particular community, since they apparently think the law is some unchanging thing specified in what they claim are something called the Founding Documents. My job is to ensure that their antiquated ideas about things like Free Speech are unchanged, and thus our boss has assigned me the responsibility to protect us all from it.”

“It has been fairly easy lately, since they have been wrapped up in that war in Europe. They all have ideas about that, and have been occupied in applying obsolete concepts to a situation occurring far away. With the outbreak of peace talks though, things have veered around to issues that could threaten Article 88 violations. So I have to get engaged today and ensure they stay on the reservation, an observation considered in the context of cultural appropriation.”
“I managed to squash some early remarks today from that fellow they call “Splash.” He was going on about the issues that another guy who calls himself ‘Arrias’ brought up about the meaning of what the President was saying overseas. I managed to get that squashed and they lurched onto something else. This one fell into one of senior symposiums at school, which was changing the way the government funds itself without actually mentioning it.”

“Yeah, it was about ‘taxes.’ Within our profession, we are excited that it is going to open up all sorts of litigation while also providing dramatic new sources from other people’s income for public good. It is a modern approach to an old political practice, which is to create a problem that requires dramatic solutions, which when imposed creates other problems which require more solutions. All of it good for the Government folks, good for lawyers and not so good for the people down at the Fire ring. They don’t even know it is happening.”

“For example, we have several problems related to the inability of the government to protect supply chains for goods or energy. That is perfectly acceptable for me to say, since I am not under the provisions of the Unified Code of Military Justice. That is not acceptable for the vets, who apparently surrendered their rights to free speech for life as a provision of military service. In that position, I can point out that the new tax scheme is really cool. And huge in impact. They are calling it the Billionaire’s tax, but of course that is not what it is or who it is going to smack.”

“Let me get another cup of coffee and do the shorthand version, since most of you are not skilled practitioners of this. Rich people are sitting on large pools of resources. Let us take one, like that old White Guy on the flatscreen who tells us that buying gold coins is a great idea. Buying them takes money out of circulation, and the gold gains value through the supply and demand process. Why should your potential profit sit there not working for the public good?”

“So, it seems reasonable that the increase in value through savings should be taxed like the interest on traditional savings accounts at the bank. There is even more potential for new jobs when you think about what that means to someone with a couple dozen coins who then could be asked to report the gains on their investment and taxed accordingly.”

“Same thing with stocks, or even better, the homes people own. You know how it works, if you have shopped to buy a house. These days, a commercial entity like Zillow will display a commercial satellite picture of the house and an estimated price. The new scheme is to take something the exists in digital format, and apply the just taxes on the increase in value without having the trouble of actually selling it. Should you ever dispose on the property, there will be a documented actual monetary value, but the government will be able to harvest what you will owe anyway someday, probably, and figure it out then. You can see why lawyers love this stuff, since the claim will be that it makes things simpler while making it more complex.”

“It is like the kid that mows your lawn in the cutting season- the one to whom you slide a $20 spot in cash for doing it. Under the new system, if the total amount you pay the kid exceeds $600 a year, you would be obligated to issue an IRS Form 1099-MISC to the kid to keep track of things at the end of the year for his/her filings. That is a little more work for you, and for the kid, particularly if s/he shovels snow under a different contractual relationship due to the nature of work. And naturally, you would have to keep track of all the expenditures throughout the course of the year to make sure both of you are compliant with IRS reporting regulations. There are all sorts of people like that. The Pest people that spray your house? Are they independent contractors or corporate employees? It would be wise to keep track of everything.”

“Did I mention the fact that the solutions to the problems the government is creating will require new jobs? It is like the Green energy jobs everyone talks about. They are mostly in China. But imagine creating a need for every homeowner to have a staff of accountants to file all the new reporting requirements under penalty of law. Or regulation or something.”

“Do we have a great system, or what?”

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