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Henry George Day
Sep. 2nd, 2024 09:43 pmToday is Henry George Day, the great economist and reformer’s one hundred and eighty-fifth birthday, so I wore my Henry George Sesquicentennial tie, and, when outside my apartment to get some exercise or run an errand, I wished people a Happy Henry George Day, and if they were receptive, talked with them further. One man said that as a free trader, he was familiar with Henry George, although he hadn’t known the man’s birthday. Several other people showed some level of interest, or at least politeness, and let me tell them that they could read George’s books, or at least look up his name, and “land value taxation.” One man whom I approached announced, sua sponte, that he would Google Henry George.
This is a vacation day, but I did spend some time working, considering prior art references listed in an Information Disclosure Statement for the patent application I’m currently working on. As I once said to an attorney who telephoned my office, and was surprised to find me actually at work rather late (I think it was either on a Friday or the day before a federal holiday), “You know how famously dedicated and hardworking we federal bureaucrats are.”
I bought a couple of scratch-off lottery tickets the other day (I had intended to buy one, but failed to pay attention to the notice, “This machine does not make change”). I would scratch off a number when I finished considering a prior art patent or other document. So far, I haven’t found any prizes, so I’ll make an appeal: If you think that we should spare people from paying income and payroll taxes on the work they put in, if you think we should not make rental housing more expensive with a property tax on buildings, if you think that we should charge people according to the value of the land they occupy, the pollution they release into the atmosphere, and other uses of resources not created by human effort (the electromagnetic spectrum, for example, if you favor a tax reform to charge the poor less and the rich more, without punishing the productive rich for their accomplishments, then please consider donating to the Center for the Study of Economics, urbantoolsconsult.org.
There is a donation button on the website, if you want to pay by card, PayPal, Venmo, or Google Pay; you can also mail a check to Center for the Study of Economics, P.O. Box 400, Collingswood, NJ 08108. This does not apply to you if you have business before the Patent Office, if you are a fellow federal employee, or if it would otherwise be improper for me solicit you to make a donation.
This is a vacation day, but I did spend some time working, considering prior art references listed in an Information Disclosure Statement for the patent application I’m currently working on. As I once said to an attorney who telephoned my office, and was surprised to find me actually at work rather late (I think it was either on a Friday or the day before a federal holiday), “You know how famously dedicated and hardworking we federal bureaucrats are.”
I bought a couple of scratch-off lottery tickets the other day (I had intended to buy one, but failed to pay attention to the notice, “This machine does not make change”). I would scratch off a number when I finished considering a prior art patent or other document. So far, I haven’t found any prizes, so I’ll make an appeal: If you think that we should spare people from paying income and payroll taxes on the work they put in, if you think we should not make rental housing more expensive with a property tax on buildings, if you think that we should charge people according to the value of the land they occupy, the pollution they release into the atmosphere, and other uses of resources not created by human effort (the electromagnetic spectrum, for example, if you favor a tax reform to charge the poor less and the rich more, without punishing the productive rich for their accomplishments, then please consider donating to the Center for the Study of Economics, urbantoolsconsult.org.
There is a donation button on the website, if you want to pay by card, PayPal, Venmo, or Google Pay; you can also mail a check to Center for the Study of Economics, P.O. Box 400, Collingswood, NJ 08108. This does not apply to you if you have business before the Patent Office, if you are a fellow federal employee, or if it would otherwise be improper for me solicit you to make a donation.
