There are 40 to 42 million prostitutes in the world, according to a report from Fondation Scelles (via Le Figaro). Three quarters of them are between the ages of 13 and 25, and 80% of them are female.

An estimated 1 million prostitutes live in the U.S., even though it’s legal only in Nevada.

In the U.S. and elsewhere most prostitution is unregulated and many workers are forced into prostitution.

The report isn’t available online, but here’s a map published by the foundation in 2010, which shows the estimated number of prostitutes in various countries as well as number per 1,000 people (data was not available then for countries in green).

www.fondationscelles.org

Also here’s a map from Fondation Scelles of centers of sex tourism:

www.fondationscelles.org

Originally at http://www.businessinsider.com/there-are-42-million-prostitutes-in-the-world-and-heres-where-they-live-2012-1

General Motors’ CEO Dan Akerson

GM website

Akerson told the AP he will “rarely sleep past 4:30 or 5,” waking up so he can talk to GM Asia before it gets too late. He calls it the best job he’s ever had: “It’s complex and interesting and exciting.” Sadly, he also describes having “a lot of sleepless nights.” At least they aren’t long sleepless nights.

Virgin America CEO David Cush

Getty Images

Cush described his morning routine to the AP: Wakes up at 4:15 a.m., sends emails, calls business associates on the East Coast, and that’s before listening to Dallas sports radio, reading the paper and hitting the bike at the gym.

Apple CEO Tim Cook

AP Images

Cook is known for getting up and sending out company emails at 4:30 in the morning, according to Gawker’s Ryan Tate. By 5 AM he can be found in the gym. And he works late too, priding himself on being the first in the office and the last out.

Disney CEO Robert Iger

Business Insider

Iger told the New York Times he gets up at “4:30 every morning.” He takes the quiet time to do a number of things, claiming to read the papers, exercise, listen to music, look at email and watch TV all at once. Even though it’s quiet time, he’s “already multitasking.”

Hain Celestial Group CEO Irwin Simon

AP Images

Simon accomplishes more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day. He wakes up 5 a.m., going through emails and calling operations in Europe and Asia. He also prays, walks the dog and exercises before his kids wake up. He arrives at his office in Long Island usually after squeezing in a breakfast meeting in Manhattan as well.

Former Peugeot GM Jean-Martin Folz

AP Images

Now headed to the board of Eutelsat Communications, the former head of Peugeot was said to catch the 4 a.m. train from Dijon to Paris, and would finish up a briefing paper within minutes of arriving to his office at 7 a.m. According to The Observer, Folz also had his Renault Espace converted into an office so he could work while commuting.

Former Oxygen Channel CEO Gerry Laybourne

Getty Images

The founder of Oxygen is awake by 6 a.m. and out of the house a half hour later. If you get up early enough she might even take you under her wing, she tells Yahoo! Finance: “Once or twice a week, I go for a walk in Central Park with a young person seeking my advice. This is my way of helping bring along the next generation. And if someone is up early in the morning then they are serious about life. I can’t take time at the office to do this, but doing it in the morning allows me to get exercise and stay connected with young people at the same time.”

Aurora Fashions CEO Mike Shearwood

just-style

As head of one of the UK’s trendiest fashion companies, Shearwood’s day starts early. Shearwood wakes up at 5 a.m. in order to travel from Nottingham to London in time for a 7:45 arrival. He loves the long commute both ways: “I catch up on emails and work, as well as speaking to teams on the phone.”

Christie’s CEO Steve Murphy

AP Images

The former head of publishing company Rodale turns to poet William Blake for inspiration on how to start his day: “‘Think in the morning, act in the noon, read in the evening, and sleep at night.’ This has made a huge difference in my life.” Thinking and planning in the morning makes Murphy — in his words — strategic and proactive, rather than reactive.

New Jersey Nets CEO Brett Yormark

Crains

The youngest CEO in the NBA told SellingPower that he gets up at 3:30 in the morning in order to get to the office by 4:30. From there, he works out and sends motivational emails to his team. He takes it easy on the weekends, arriving at the office by 7 a.m. instead.

Brooklyn Industries CEO Lexy Funk

Brooklyn Industries

The artistic co-founder of the Brooklyn-based clothing and bag shop told the Huffington Post that her routine starts early: “I usually wake up around 4 a.m.” From there, the dilemma of whether to read and bore herself back to sleep or get on her BlackBerry begins. Once online, she’s answering emails and talking to people from Brooklyn Industries.

Cedar Fair Entertainment CEO Matt Ouimet

Getty Images

The former president of Starwood Hotels and CFO of Disney just became the CEO of a company that runs amusement parks. Referring to work as “game time,” according to Yahoo Finance, Ouimet likes to get to the office early, waking up at 5:30 in order to get out of the house by 6 a.m.

Saban Capital CEO Haim Saban

Getty Images

As head of the Saban Capital Group, this Egyptian-born Israeli-American billionaire has his first cup of coffee at 6:02 a.m. and begins work from there. He works for an hour before exercising for 75 minutes to really start his day, according to Yahoo Finance.

Unilever CEO Paul Polman

Getty Images

In order to stay competitive mentally and physically, the Dutch-born Polman gets up at 6 a.m. so he can run on the treadmill in his office. This also gives him time to “reflect on the work day ahead,” which is probably pretty hectic at a multinational food and detergent company.

Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior

Getty Images

Although she doesn’t run right to the office upon waking up at 4:30 a.m., Warrior spends an hour on email, reads the news, works out and gets her son ready for school. And she is still in the office by 8:30 at the latest, according to Yahoo Finance. She was formerly the CTO of Motorola, and has been one of the most highly acclaimed women in business over the course of her career.

Former PepsiCo CEO Steve Reinemund

AP Images

Now the dean of Schools of Business at Wake Forest University, the long-time head of Pepsi told Yahoo Finance that he would be out of bed at 5:30, already reading the papers. He would go through The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Financial Times and The Dallas Morning News before heading to work.

Avon Products CEO Andrea Jung

Getty Images

Jung wakes up at 5 in the morning and goes to the gym before getting to her desk at 8, says Forbes.

Former Goldman Sachs and MF Global CEO Jon Corzine

Wikipedia

Colleagues recalled to The New York Times that he would be in the office by 6 a.m., even after taking a five mile run in the morning. Yet he was still the last person to leave in the evenings.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz

Robert Holmgren

Schultz starts his day with a workout, which is usually a bike ride with his wife, but still gets to the office by 6 a.m., according to Portfolio.com. There must be something about Starbucks that makes people want to do this, as president Michelle Gass wakes up at 4:30 every morning to go running, and has done so for 15 years.
Must be all the coffee.

Former PayPal and OpenTable head Jeff Jordan

AP Images

The recently-resigned CEO of OpenTable, Jordan told The New York Times that he is in the office by 5 a.m., and doesn’t leave until after 7 p.m. However, as Jordan admits, these long hours played a role in his departure from PayPal.

Former presidents George HW Bush and George W Bush

AP

The first Bush would get up at 4 a.m., go running, be in the office by 6 a.m. and stay up until 2 a.m. “He was a horror,” said a former White House nurse who had to try to keep up with him. The second Bush kept a similar schedule, going to the office by 6:45 a.m. and often holding meetings at this ripe hour, according to The NYT.
So did W. Bush’s cabinet. Colin Powell put in “perfectly appalling” hours, arriving to the office at 6 a.m., and not leaving until after 7 p.m., according to his former students. Condoleeza Rice woke up every day at 4:30 in the morning in order to get to the gym before work.

Benjamin Franklin

Wikimedia

A major figure of the American Enlightenment and a Founding Father of the United States, Franklin is credited with the saying that perhaps started this whole trend in the first place: “Early to bed and early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” He planned his routine around waking up at 5 a.m. and asking himself “What good shall I do this day?”

Originally at http://www.businessinsider.com/successful-early-risers-2012-1?op=1#ixzz1jgv1INOm

But just as the taxi arrives and they step out of the house, the dog darts back inside and won’t come out. They don’t want to leave the dog inside, so the husband goes upstairs to find it, while the wife goes to wait in the taxi.

Not wanting it known that the house will be empty, she explains to the driver that her husband had just gone “to say good-bye to my mother”.

A few minutes later, the husband gets into the cab.
“Sorry I took so long,” he says. “Stupid bitch was hiding under the bed and I had to poke her with a coat-hanger to get her to come out! Then I had to wrap her in a blanket to keep her from scratching and biting me as I hauled her ass downstairs and tossed her in the backyard! She’d better not shit in the vegetable garden again!”

The silence in the cab was deafening throughout the journey.

It did not help that earlier in that decade, Ugandan dictator, Idi Amin, had thrown Asians out of his country forcing many of them to seek refuge in Britain. Though the Ugandan Asians were highly qualified and hardworking, their detractors used them to prop up the caricature of Indians as a burden on the societies of the West.

In that era, people were still astonished that Indians could speak English well. At school, I was forever being complimented on the quality of my writing and debating skills. But beneath the compliments lay a tone of amazement: How come you Johnn ies learn to speak our language so well?

Then, there was the Hindu-Muslim question. Many people said to me, in all seriousness, that Hindus and Muslims were always ready to tear each others throats out and were entirely incapable of living in peace. Some went so far as to suggest that it was only the stabilising influence of the British Raj that had kept us from massacring each other.

I thought back to those days a couple of weeks ago when David Cameron arrived in India with a delegation of businessmen all eager to sell us their wares. Cameron said all the right things he even painted Pakistan as an exporter of terrorism and flattered India so much that it was hard not to like him. But beneath the bonhomie lay a hard, commercial reality: Britain needs India.

Talking to people in London, I am constantly astonished by how completely the perception of India has changed from the negative image that held sway during my school days.* In that era, if you mentioned India, people thought of hunger and famine. Now, they talk about a high rate of growth, a booming economy and the software industry. Such great British icons of my school days as British Steel and British Leyland are now owned by Indians. Nobody regards this as at all odd or noteworthy. Nor does anybody find it strange that Britains richest man is an Indian, L.N. Mittal, raised in Calcutta and still the proud owner of an Indian passport. It is almost as though the Indian ascendency has been a fait accompli.

When I was in school and university, London was in thrall to the Arabs, who were flinging their oil money around. You hardly ever saw Indians in smart restaurants or in the top shops. At such department stores as Selfridges, an Indian walking the floor was likely to be stopped by other shoppers who thought he was a sales assistant. Even in the 1980s, when West End shops hired Indian salespeople, they were gently encouraging if such salespeople dyed their hair brown and spoke in Arab accents.

Now, Indians are Londons biggest spenders. Such expensive restaurants as Hakkasan, Nobu and Kai would probably have to shut down if they lost their Indian customers. At the Armani shop on New Bond Street, they brag about the rich Indians who go there. And at nearly every expensive shop in London, salespeople will serve Indians first because they believe we may spend more money than the Brits. (To be fair, the Russians still have the edge over Indians but the Brits hardly get a look in.)

“We never thought that Indians would make such global fortunes that the wealth of Britain would pale in comparison to their assets.” Whats made the difference?

I think two separate developments have taken place. The first does not really concern us but is worth noting. The East African Asians who were the subject of so much scorn in the 1970s have now established themselves as equal partners in British society. Brits have realised that these were highly intelligent and well-qualified people who had suffered a temporary setback only because of the racism and xenophobia of African politicians. The period of adversity made them work even harder and their rise through the ranks of British society and the meritocracy has been so swift as to be almost unprecedented.

The second development is the rise of India since the 1990s. It is significant that the richest Indians in Britain (the Mittals, the Hindujas, Naresh Goyal, etc.) are not British Asians. They are not people who have made their money in England and many of them (with the possible exception of the Hindujas) have no interest in becoming British citizens.

Their success has turned the conventional wisdom on its head. In the old days, the Brits accepted that there would be some Indians immigrants who would make money in England and rise to the top of the social structure. In fact, that has not really happened. Most British Asian milliona ires are strictly second-division. The real money has been made by Indian citizens who have used their business acumen to build up international empires and use London as no more than a professional base. Someone like Sunil Mittal is far richer than any British Asian millionaire and runs a global empire. When he spends time in London (he has a flat here), he does it because he likes the city not because he has any desire to make money out of England.

The other negative perceptions have been tempered by experience. Nobody lectures us on Hindu-Muslim relations any longer given that the UK faces so much difficulty in integrating young Muslims who have been born and brought up in the UK (the tube bombers, for example). Nor is our ability to speak English the subject of much wonder. In fact, it is the cause of considerable annoyance as British jobs get exported to Indian call centres.

When I was at school, we could never have imagined that such a day would come to p ass. We never thought that Indians would make such global fortunes that the wealth of Britain would pale in comparison to their assets. Nor did we think it possible that the Made in India label which was regarded with so much derision in those days would become a mark of quality in such areas as computer software. In retrospect, the most amazing thing is how quickly it has all happened. Most changes that are as fundamental as this one take a generation or more. But the effortless rise of India has taken less than two decades.

So, as we take stock of what we have achieved in the decades since Independence, lets recognise that India is still a country with many problems. But lets also acknowledge that what we have achieved is just short of miraculous. We have gone from being a country the West wrote off to becoming the country they all want to suck up to.

- Vir Sanghvi, Express News Service

Mulla Nasruddin was once coming from a faraway journey in a small ship, and suddenly there was a thunder storm, lightening and rains. It appeared that there was no chance of surviving. But, now that his life was in danger he prayed to the God and said, O God! I will sell my palace and donate the money to the poor, but please save my life!

And it so happened that the moment he prayed, the storm started subsiding. Now, Nasruddin started having second thoughts, Maybe the storm was going to subside anyway. I have unnecessarily risked my palace.

But then again he was in for a big surprise. The storm started rising again and Nasruddin was quite scared . He prayed again, O God! Please don’t be bothered about my thoughts &. I was only joking, but whatsoever I have promised you I will do. I will sell the palace and donate the money to the poor and the storm subsided again. Although Nasruddin had second thoughts, he was afraid. So, anyhow he reached the shore and the next day he announced in the whole town that he was going to auction his palace. All the rich people, even the king, the prime minister, other ministers, everybody gathered, because all were interested in his palace. They were all surprised at his announcement.

People saw that, just in front of the palace Nasruddin had chained a cat, and he announced to the people, Listen carefully! The price of the cat is fifty lakh rupees, and the price of my palace is only one rupee, but whoever buys the palace has to buy the cat. Both are for sale together.

People were surprised at this announcement, but the king purchased them both. Fifty lakh rupees were p aid for the cat, one rupee for the palace.

Immediately, Nasruddin donated that one rupee to some beggars and prayed, O God! Look, I have fulfilled my promise!

Moral of the Story:
We see people putting up their demands to the God or bargaining with the God about their health and wealth and welfare. The bottom line of their prayer is, You fulfill my desires and I will do something for you. As if God is a trader!

When things are done out of greed, out of fear, we are unable to do them with our heart. We are cunning and keep finding ways. However, a true prayer is neither a bargain nor a business. It is an expression of gratefulness for all that is already given to us by the existence. Just as a flower blooms and spreads its fragrance, a content heart overflows with gratitude towards the existence. Prayer is the fragrance of the fulfilled heart.

One should never be God-fearing, but should be God-loving!

Be Prayerful at Each Moment of Life!

In movies and TV shows, bulletproof glass is often depicted to be indestructible. No matter what weapon is used, no matter how many bullets are fired, bulletproof glass remains intact and unchanged. The only problem is, in real life, bulletproof glass isn’t really bulletproof and it isn’t really glass.

The correct term for “bulletproof” glass is bullet resistant. Why? Because with enough time and concentrated effort or just a big enough caliber bullet, a person can become victorious over the supposed indestructibility of “bulletproof” glass. The strength and durability of bullet-resistant glass depends on how it is made and the thickness of the final product.

Fire a bullet at a normal sheet of glass and the glass will shatter, right? So, how exactly does glass become bullet resistant? There are three main kinds of bullet-resistant glass:

1) Acrylic: Acrylic is a har d, clear plastic that resembles glass. A single piece of acrylic with a thickness over one inch is considered bullet resistant. The advantage of acrylic is that it is stronger than glass, more impact resistant, and weighs 50 percent less than glass. Although acrylic can be used to create bullet-resistant glass, there is no actual glass in the final product.

2) Polycarbonate: Polycarbonate is also a type of plastic, but it differs from acrylic in many ways. Polycarbonate is a versatile, soft plastic with unbeatable strength. It is a third of the weight of acrylic and a sixth of the weight of glass, making it easier to work with, especially when dealing with thickness. Polycarbonate is combined in layers to create a bullet resistant product. Whereas, acrylic repels bullets, polycarbonate catches the bullet and absorbs its energy, preventing it from exiting out the other side. Polycarbonate is more expensive than other types of materials, including glass and acrylic, so it is often used in combination with other materials for bullet-resistant glass.

3) Glass-Clad Polycarbonate Bullet-Resistant Glass: This type of bullet-resistant glass uses a combination of materials to create the desired result. We are all familiar with the process of lamination. It is what teachers do to paper to protect it from the unidentifiable substances of kids’ fingers so it will last longer. Manufacturers of glass-clad polycarbonate bullet-resistant glass use the same process. A piece of polycarbonate material is laminated, or sandwiched, between ordinary sheets of glass and then it undergoes a heating and cooling process to mold the materials together into one piece. The end result is a product that resembles glass but is thicker and more durable.

Thickness plays a huge part in a product’s ability to resist bullets. Bullet-resistant glass is designed to remain intact for one bullet or one round of bullets. Depending on the force of the bullet being f ired and what type of weapon is used, a thicker piece of bullet-resistant glass is needed to stop a bullet with more force. For instance, a shot fired from a 9mm pistol is less powerful than one fired from a rifle. Therefore, the required thickness of bullet-resistant glass for a 9mm pistol is less than is needed for a rifle. The final thickness of bullet-resistant glass usually ranges from about .25 inches to 3 inches.

The latest and greatest design for bullet-resistant glass is one-way bullet-resistant glass. Yes, it is exactly what is sounds like. One-way bullet-resistant glass consists of two layers-brittle glass and a flexible material such as the polycarbonate plastic material described above. When a bullet hits the brittle glass layer first, the glass breaks inward toward the plastic, which absorbs some of the bullet’s energy and spreads it over a larger area so the polycarbonate material is able to stop the bullet from exiting. When a fired bullet hits the pol ycarbonate material first, the bulk of the force is concentrated on a small area that prevents much energy from being absorbed. Then, since the glass material breaks outward away from the polycarbonate, the bullet maintains enough energy to break through the glass and travel toward its destination. One-way bullet-resistant glass is most ideal for armored vehicles.

The moral of the story is don’t believe everything you see. Although movies do a good job to entertain us and teach us a thing or two, the truth about bullet-resistant glass is not one of them.

Bonus Factoids:

a.. Depending on the size and type of bullet-resistant glass, it can cost between $25 and $100 per square foot.
b.. Although polycarbonate plastic can bond with glass to resist bullets, paper towels can scratch its surface and ammonia-based window cleaning liquids will damage the material.
c.. Obtaining bullet-resistant glass is completely legal in the United States. You don’t even need a permit.
d.. The most popular bullet-resistant product in demand is bulletproof transaction windows like those used in banks.
e.. Ever thought about making your beloved iPad bulletproof? A company in California created an iPad cover made of polycarbonate material to better protect the device. Although the new transparent cover will protect the screen from scratches, dents, and shattered glass, there is no guarantee that the bullet-resistant material will actually stop a bullet.

They say, “You’re crazy. It’s too hard. Why don’t you do this instead? You should play it safe.” They act as if dreams were meant for others but not people like us. They surround us with negative energy and try to instill their own fears and insecurities in us. We not only begin to know the word “fear,” we start to understand what it’s like to be fearful. With so many people telling us we can’t do something and so few telling us we can, it’s hard not to let fear into our lives. Unfortunately this is how many of us go through life.

Whether you are 20 or 50, many of us become so scared of losing what we have that we don’t go after what we truly want. We play it safe and hold on so tight to the status quo that we never experience what could be. We believe the doubters and don’t take chances that will move us one step towards our dreams. I call this “playing to lose.” We see this in sports all the time when a team has the lead. They start to think about how not to lose instead of how to win. They hold on so tight to their lead that they start playing safe and scared. You can see it in their energy and body language. As a result the other team takes chances, plays with no fear and eventually gains the momentum and wins.

To live a life filled with positive energy we must learn to repel the energy of fear. Whether it comes fro m within or from another person, we must overcome fear and adopt a “Play to Win” mindset. Playing to win requires a commitment to yourself that even if you fail, you will never give up and never let your goals and dreams die. Those who play to win know that success is not given to us. It is pursued with all the energy and sweat we can muster. Obstacles and struggles are part of life and only serve to make us appreciate our success. If everything came easy we wouldn’t know what it felt like to truly succeed. Obstacles are meant to be overcome. Fear is meant to be conquered. Success is meant to be achieved. They are all part of the game of life and the people who succeed play to win and never give up until the game is over.

- Jon
Originally at http://www.jongordon.com/blog/2011/11/28/play-to-win-3/

નિબંધનો વિષય છે — ” જો ભગવાન તમને કાંઇ માંગવાનું કહે તો..
ઇશ્વરની પાસે તમે શું માંગશો ??? ”
… …
બાળકોએ તો ઉત્સાહમાં આવી નિબંધ લખી આપ્યો.
ત્યારબાદ શિક્ષિકા તે નિબંધો ઘેર તપાસવા લઇ ગયા.
સાંજે જ્યારે તે નિબંધો તપાસી રહ્યા હતા.
ત્યાં તેમના પતિ રૂમમાં આવ્યા ને જોયું તો તે શિક્ષિકા રડી રહ્યા હતા.
તેમણે પૂછ્યું, ” કેમ શું થયું??? કેમ રડો છો??? ”
શિક્ષિકાએ કહ્યું, ” હું મારા વિદ્યાર્થીઓનાં નિબંધો તપાસું છું “

તેમના પતિને એક કાગળ આપતા તે બોલ્યાં’ “ જુઓ, તમે પણ આ નિબંધ વાંચી જુઓ “
તેમના પતિએ નિબં ધ વાંચ્યો. તેમાં તે બાળકે લખ્યું હતું —

” હે ઇશ્વર જો તારે મને કાંઈ આપવું જ હોય તો તું મને … ટેલીવીઝન (ટી.વી.) બનાવી દે.

હું તેનું સ્થાન ગ્રહણ કરવા માંગું છુ

હું ટી.વીની જેમ ઘરમાં રહેવા માંગું છું.
જેને માટે ઘરમાં ખાસ જગ્યા હોય.
મારી આસપાસ મારાં કુટુંબનાં તમામ સભ્યો હોય.
અને સાચ્ચે જ હું ગંભીર રીતે આ કહું છું જેથી મારા કુટુંબનાં તમામ સભ્યોનું હું મારા તરફ જ ધ્યાન ખેંચી શકું.

તેઓ કોઇ પણ ખલેલ પાડ્યા વગર મને એકચિત્તે સાંભળે અને કોઇ સવાલો ન પૂછે.

જ્યારે ટીવી બંધ હોય ત્યારે પણ લોકો જેમ તેની ખાસ સંભાળ રાખે છે તેમ મારી પણ સંભાળ રાખે.

જ્યારે પપ્પા કામ પરથી ઘેર આવે ત્યારે તેઓ સખત થાકેલા હોવા છતાં હું ટીવી બની ગયો હોવાથી મને તેમની કંપની મળી રહે.

અને હું મારી મમ્મી જ્યારે દુઃખી હોય કે ટેન્શનમાં હોય ત્યારે મને અવગણવાને બદલે મને જ જોવા ઝંખે.

અને…… મારી સાથે રહેવા માટે મારા ભાઇબહેનો લડાલડી કરે.

હું તેવું અનુભવવા માંગું છું કે બધી જ વસ્તુઓ એક બાજુએ મૂકીને કુટુંબનાં સભ્યો મારા માટે સમય ફાળવે અને છેલ્લે મને ટી.વી બનાવી દો જેથી હું મારા કુટુંબને સુખ, આનંદ આપી શકું અને તેમનું
મનોરંજન કરી શકું.”

હે ભગવાન હું બીજું કાંઇ નથી માંગતો પણ ઇચ્છું છું કે તમે મને ટી.વી બનાવી દો…

શિક્ષિકાની આંખોમાંથી ચોધાર આંસુ વહી રહ્યાં હતાં.

તેમના પતિ બોલ્યા, ” હે ભગવાન !!! બિચારું બાળક !!!! કેવા ભયાનક માતા-પિતા છે !! ”

શિક્ષિકા ચોધાર આંસુ સારતાં પોતાના પતિની સામે જોયું અને દયામણા અવાજે બોલ્યા,
” આ નિબંધ આપણા દીકરાએ લખેલો છે.”

The Sheikh said: Can you shake hands with Queen Elizabeth?

British man said: Of course not, there are only certain people who can shake hands with Queen Elizabeth.

Sheikh replied: our women are queens and queens do not shake hands with strange men.

Then the British man asked the Sheikh: Why do your girls cover up their body and hair?

The Sheikh smiled and got two sweets, he opened the first one and kept the other one closed. He threw them both on the dusty floor and asked the British: If I asked you to take one of the sweets which one will you choose?

The British replied: The covered one.

The Sheikh said: that’s how we treat and see our women.

If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this

The first four men (the poorest) would pay nothing.
The fifth would pay $1.
The sixth would pay $3.
The seventh would pay $7.
The eighth would pay $12.
The ninth would pay $18.
The tenth man (the richest) would pay $59.

So, thats what they decided to do..

The ten men drank in the bar every day and seemed quite happy with the arrangement, until one day, the owner threw them a curve ball.
Since you are all such good customers, he said, Im going to reduce the cost of your daily beer by $20?” Drinks for the ten men would now cost just $80.

The group still wanted to pay their bill the way we pay our taxes so the first four men were unaffected. They would still drink for free.
But what about the other six men? How could t hey divide the $20 windfall so that everyone would get his fair share?

They realized that $20 divided by six is $3.33. But if they subtracted that from everybodys share, then the fifth man and the sixth man would each end up being paid to drink his beer.

So, the bar owner suggested that it would be fair to reduce each mans bill by a higher percentage the poorer he was, to follow the principle of the tax system they had been using, and he proceeded to work out the amounts he suggested that each should now pay.

And so the fifth man, like the first four, now paid nothing (100% saving).
The sixth now paid $2 instead of $3 (33% saving).
The seventh now paid $5 instead of $7 (28% saving).
The eighth now paid $9 instead of $12 (25% saving).
The ninth now paid $14 instead of $18 (22% saving).
The tenth now paid $49 instead of $59 (16% saving).

Each of the six was better off than before. And the first four continued to drink for free. But, once outside the bar, the men began to compare their savings.

I only got a dollar out of the $20 saving, declared the sixth man. He pointed to the tenth man,but he got $10!

Yeah, thats right, exclaimed the fifth man. I only saved a dollar too. Its unfair that he got ten times more benefit than me!

Thats true! shouted the seventh man Why should he get $10 back, when I got only $2? The wealthy get all the breaks!

Wait a minute, yelled the first four men in unison, we didnt get anything at all. This new tax system exploits the poor!

The nine men surrounded the tenth and beat him up.

The next night the tenth man didnt show up for drinks, so the nine sat down and had their beers without him. But when it came time to pay the bill, they discovered something important. They didnt have enough money between all of them for even half of the bill!

And that, boys and girls, journalists and government ministers, is ho w our tax system works.

The people who already pay the highest taxes will naturally get the most benefit from a tax reduction. Tax them too much, attack them for being wealthy, and they just may not show up anymore.

In fact, they might start drinking overseas, where the atmosphere is somewhat friendlier.

- David R. Kamerschen, Ph.D., Professor of Economics.