Taxes, Taxes, we all love Taxes

I was discussing politics with a good friend the other day and he made a suggestion that sounded reasonable at the time, and has since grown on me quite a bit. He suggested that we, as a country, abolish income taxes and raise sales taxes appropriately to cover for the loss. My friend suggested this because it would prevent illegal immigrants and devious employees from avoiding taxes by being paid under the table. I believe that illegal immigration is wrong, and that the rights of citizenship are reserved for those who have gone through the legal processes to deserve them by becoming a nationalized citizen. Even more fundamentally, I believe in the law, and I beleive that those who willfully break the law exclude themselves from the protections it can provide. But I digress...

I like the idea of raising sales taxes (while getting rid of income taxes) because it would probably incite a lot of people to spend their money less frivolously and would promote a degree of self-dependence. Some people would become more industrious, e.g. planting gardens instead of buying all their vegetables at Albertson's.

I realize, however, that there are all kinds of economic issues that would have to be worked out, as well as regulation issues regarding the ability of the government to change taxes on a whim. I am not an economist, nor do I claim that this possibility would solve all of our country's economic woes. However, I think its an idea worth kicking around. I also realize that we're living in an era where sweeping changes such as this simply don't happen, especially in the "corporatocracy" that controls the government. But it can't hurt to think and to suggest, right?

AIDS Benefit

So this is an idea I've been kicking around for months, and never really had the guts to do anything about until recently. I told my idea to a friend, Stephanie, who, like me is a Microbiology student and, unlike me, is a natural-born organizer- she's got incredible organizational/planning skills. She was excited about the idea, and we want to try to make it happen.

We want to organize an AIDS-benefit art auction, where we'll auction off original pieces of art from BYU art students. Each piece of art should be a reaction to, or product of, the AIDS pandemic that has been sweeping the world for the last half century. We want to host the auction at a black-tie dinner event for BYU alumni. The proceeds from the art auction will go entirely to an AIDS charity foundation conducting research into finding effective treatments/cures for HIV/AIDS. The event is going to take a lot of work and a lot of time, but we both feel passionately about the topic. AIDS is a terrible disease afflicting millions of people worldwide, and as scientists/students of Microbiology, we've seen that charitable donations like the one this event could produce are essential for funding the research that is ultimately going to find an effective way of stopping the AIDS pandemic. The disease has killed an estimated 25 million people since being recognized as a disease in 1981; it's time to stop it.

"Confessions of an Economic Hitman"

I'm reading a book right now titled "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" which revolves around the strategy employed by the US government, whereby developing countries are swindled into racking up millions and billions of dollars of debt to American corporations. Because they are so indebted to what the author calls the "corporatocracy", they are unable to provide aide to their own people and are forced to bend to the "American" will. The author of this book spent many years convincing foreign governments to invest "in their country" by contracting development projects (energy production, etc.) to American corporations; the money for these projects was loaned to them by the World Bank and other international lending agencies. Using this strategy, the US has formed a world empire of smaller countries that are so irreconcilably in our debt they have no choice but to bend to "our" will.

The book has opened my eyes and is beginning to make me painfully aware of the blindness of the American public to the actions of our elected leaders, our business heroes, and our industry moguls. After a lot of political discussion with friends recently, my faith in the two-party system of government is seriously wavering. In the coming months I'll use this blog to publish some of my ideas, for the sake of getting them out there. Most of them are not original ideas- they're stolen from people of every walk of life. And I realize that no one reads my blog, so I'll be doing it entirely for my own sake, but so be it. I would love some discussion from those who happen to stumble onto this blog and the friends who happen to read it.

But if that med school thing doesn't work, I can always fall back on my summer job....................

Med School Interviews

Well, the months of working and forking out piles of cash are finally paying off. At the end of October, I'm going to be interviewing at 3 different medical schools in 8 days. First of all, I'll be heading off to Providence, Rhode Island for an interview at the Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University. From what I've heard, Providence and Brown are absolutely awesome, so I'm excited to go see the area and ask some more questions about the school. Jimmy, a friend of mine, really wants to go to Brown for Grad school, so he's been pretty jealous.

Just a couple days after returning from Rhode Island, I'll be flying out to Cleveland to interview at Case Western Reserve University. Luckily, I've got an old lab friend whose in med school there, so he's gonna let me crash on his couch for a couple nights while I'm there.

I come home from Cleveland just in time to turn around and fly back out to Galveston, Texas, where I'm interviewing for a spot in the MD-PhD program. Most people think I'm crazy for wanting to turn 4 years of professional school into 7, but I'd really like to research emerging infectious diseases in the BSL-4 lab being built down there.

My medical interests include neurosurgery, infectious disease, and otolaryngology. If I get accepted to the MD-PhD route, I'll be locking myself in on a microbiology/immunology PhD, so that would mean I'll end up working in the field of infectious disease. Be that the case, I'd like to work for the CDC as a physician on an epidemic response team, flying out to remote parts of Africa to respond to Ebola outbreaks, or helping the federal government respond to future bioterror events.