Pun Salad

[Update: Also see Virginia Postrel, also cheerful.]

[Another update: Tom Smith has a pretty funny joke told by Professor Williamson, used to illustrate agency costs.]

The president has worked tirelessly since even before his inauguration to wrest control of the U.S. economy from failed free markets, and the evil CEOs who profit from them, and to turn it over to wise, fair and benevolent bureaucrats.

1. You got the money.
2. We want the money.
3. So gimme the money.

The latest example, taxing financial transactions, is analyzed by Kenneth Anderson at the Volokh Conspiracy. It's pretty much ideal, if by "ideal" you mean "a way to pick people's pockets without them realizing it." Anderson's conclusion:

Does a complex welfare state need taxes? Sure. Transparent, widely shared, everybody pays something and everyone can see what they pay, so that everyone has a stake in the extent of taxing and spending, as visible and little distortionary as possible. Thus almost the opposite direction to where the US tax code has drifted since the 1986 reform and even more so to where current proposals aim to go. They tend to increase the rent-seeking possibilities of the political class and its ability to ‘get the juice’ from economic actors who must navigate the artificial shoals of regulations that aim to benefit particular constituencies and particular politicians. VAT taxes flunk the transparency requirement, as do turnover taxes of this kind. That is, of course, one reason why politicians love them.

The parade started in 1977 as a three-man tribute to the famous Viking explorer. Noble K. Peterson, a former University of New Hampshire professor, and two friends of Scandinavian descent were washing clothes at the Durham Laundercenter one morning when they decided to march next door to Young's Restaurant to celebrate the famous explorer.

Since then, many have gathered at the laundromat, located on Main Street, at 6 a.m. on the Sunday before Columbus Day to take the 25-foot march to Young's Restaurant while chanting "For noble deeds and daring done, we all salute Leif Erickson. Hoorah! Hoorah! Hoorah!"