FYI: There was some pushback on yesterday’s rather tame suggestion that the U.S. properly finance the fund that pays to maintain and repair our roads. Much of the correspondence was surprising. Then again, I am continually flabbergasted by the cognitive errors that the human brain can make. It’s a marvelously designed piece of wetware that does a great job at its intended purpose: keeping you alive on the savannah. Its flaws are easily revealed when applied to off-label tasks.
Let’s go over some of the criticisms from yesterday in declining order based on their lack of credibility.
Death Taxes: I suggested renaming the gasoline tax as a “usage fees on America’s transportation network," observing that it wasn't as catchy or misleading as the use of the phrase "death tax" to describe the levy on the estates of deceased multimillionaires.
Several of you wrote to complain that my characterization of the phrase “death tax” was an act of linguistic subterfuge. So let’s look at the data to see what it suggests.
Regards,
Ted
http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2015-04-28/death-tax-deception-and-other-cognitive-errors
