How Much Will Your Taxes Jump (into the Hudson River)?

Actual graphic from the Wall Street Journal (January 4, 2013)...

I wonder if the artist was given strict guidance on emotional conveyance for these renderings. Was the WSJ Editor-In-Chief hovering over his shoulder with a bullwhip? Or did this not-so-starving artist have his own beef with the projected tax hikes in Obama's second term? The artist did a knockout job. Their sad faces impale my soul. I’d like to pencil in some thought bubbles, and here’s what they’d say.

 
“As a single mother bringing in over a quarter-mil, I just don’t know how I’m going to feed my two kids, pay their tuition at Léman Manhattan, AND make payments on my Jaguar this year.”
 

“It totally SUCKS to be a beautiful Asian professional in my late 20’s awash in a salary fat enough to fund a social services program in Mississippi for ten years and be raped by the Gov’ment for another 3K off the top. …I have no choice but to cancel that 14^th weekend in the Hamptons this year.”

“Well, honey, we don’t have to pay Uncle Sam any more than we did last year, but I’m still just plain un-fucking-happy about my $180,000 income for doing nothing.”
 

“Jesus Christ… How could you do this to us, God? We were born white and you burdened us with four children? Seriously? We’re left with no choice but to jump off the George Washington. I can’t see how Chauncey, Blake, Daphney, and Chance can survive without a cut of our life-insurance.”

 

PORK: It's What's For Tooth Decay

In my experience, most people are shocked and appalled when they discover that Jell-O is made from pigs' hooves. I guess they thought—as I did when I was a child—that it’s made of fruit and plastic.

So I have to tip my hat to the Frankford Candy Company in Philadelphia for their candor on the ingredients list of this Spiderman-themed confection. Jell-O = gelatin; gelatin = pork feet.

But why such full disclosure? Maybe the Frankford Co. is sensitive to vegetarians and the peoples of Islam and Judaism.

I doubt parents will read it, but I hope one or two kids do, and find themselves as amused (and disgusted) as I am.

Top 3 Things I Did To Reduce My Carbon Footprint

3) Drank more draft beer than bottled. Even recycling glass has its cost.
2) Stopped eating meat: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_meat_production
1) Castrated self. Elective vasectomy. I cannot reproduce a creature that breathes and emits.

This is to save the earth? Or the meek?

Not certain.