At the end of the day, the tanning tax probably collects more in revenue than the costs to the government and business of putting the tax into place and collecting it. But surely, the IRS resources could be better allocated (more audits on potentially large targets?). Indeed, given how little revenue the tanning tax corrects, it’s probably misguided to think of it primarily as “tax” policy. It’s some anonymous Congressman or staffer who doesn’t like tanning booths sticking a tiny provision that almost no one hears about into an enormous bill. It’s the sort of piddly annoying oddball regulation that gives the rest of government regulation a bad name.

So beyond what I write above, I haven’t spending a lot of time pondering the whiches and wherefores of the plan: it’s not ready for primetime, and it’s not going to become the law of the land. That’s all you really need to know.

Central bankers the world over make sure their friends get cheap money, while the small business owner risks life and limb for money at any rate. Meanwhile, with rates pressed by central banks to the ground, savers must take high-flying risks to keep up with inflation.

Thundering against trade deficits is a shoddy and easy means of rousing the economically illiterate to support destructive protectionist policies. But such histrionics remain very bad economics.

As we now get daily news reports from Occupy Wall Street, where the object of ire is not just banks but also those that are in the 1% wealth/earnings category, I felt the need for factual purposes just to list some of the publicly traded companies that were founded by billionaires and the amount of employees working at companies that were founded by them. Microsoft, Oracle, Walmart, Las Vegas Sands, Amazon, Google, Dell, Nike, News Corp, Apple, Echo Star, Estee Lauder, EBAY, Ralph Lauren, Franklin Resources, Carnival Cruise, Viacom, Limited Brands, Intel, Charles Schwab, MGM Resorts, Wynn Resorts, Cablevision, Dolby, Waste Management, Republic Services, Autonation, Best Buy, Salesforce.com, Direct TV, Home Depot, FedEx, Paychex, Marriott, AOL, Starbucks, Chesapeake Energy, Qualcom, Yahoo, Progressive and Vornado. The above 42 companies employ a combined 4,000,000 people globally. I fully understand the frustration of many as our country goes through a difficult time and I don’t want to get political in this note on who’s to blame. I just wanted to put some faces behind these billionaires and corporations they built and I can’t imagine our world without them.