Veronika Wild

Dolly Parton  -Image  RCA Records , Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons There have been so many good people leaving lately, I am hoping this doesn’t have to become a regular feature. Dolly Parton   I have long been a fan of Dolly Parton who passed away on August 25, not just because of her music which brought joy to millions, but through the legacy she leaves behind. In 1995 she began her Imagination Library  in honour of her father who had been unable to read. By the time she died, it had given away 332 million books, including some in Braille, to children from birth to age five in five countries around the world.  She also created Dollywood, a theme park near her hometown in the Smoky Mountains, Tennessee, so that people would have jobs. In addition, she funded tuition for all her employees as well as many scholarships to encourage students to finish school. In 2016, after wildfires tore through the region, she supported 900 fa...

Not there yet - Consider it aspirational   -Image by Ylanite Koppens  via  Pixabay   The Great Clearout stalled when I got to the books, because I thought I should have a quick look at them before I passed them on. In the meantime my leg has gotten a bit better, so the urgency of getting rid of everything and selling the house has run out of steam as well. As I am starting to emerge from winter hibernation, I thought I would write about it instead. Strangely, the more things I've sold the more there seem to be and the messier the place looks. I did pull everything out of the cupboards. One friend surveying the scene asked me if I was doing Swedish Death Cleaning. I was a bit taken aback. "Hey," I replied, "It's not that bad, I was just having a bit of trouble getting up and down the stairs" and she proceeded to explain what it was all about. It turns out that Swedish Death Cleaning - döstädning in Svensk, isn't as grim as it sounds. It’s something peo...

-Image by Copilot   Welcome Back, Class! This will be our last class for the time being because I have to do my own taxes -yes, really, so let’s dive straight into Wealth Taxes. Why Do we need Wealth Taxes? Anyone? Yes, Larry that’s half right, because wages are taxed, while wealth is barely touched at all and a lot of people are being paid with shares and stock options to reduce the amount of income tax they have to pay. In addition, if you look at the table below, you can see that’s where the wealth has been accumulating and compounding, while the tax base of governments has been progressively shrinking. There's very little fat left to trim without causing more suffering or costing more not only in social harm, but economically in say, damaged roads and poorly functioning services, extra law enforcement and so on.  A lot of investment has also gone into other assets such as property and luxury goods such as yachts and private planes which have only attracted taxes when...