March 1, 2001<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Old Challenge.<\/b>\u00a0What kind of tax is best for the economy?<\/p>\n
Answer.\u00a0<\/b>In a certain theoretical ideal, the best tax for the economy would be a fixed dollar amount per adult, since there would be no disincentive to initiative or consumption; but such a\u00a0per capita<\/i>\u00a0tax would be impractical as well as unfair. Fairer would be a flat tax (fixed percentage) on consumption. Still fairer would be a flat tax on income.<\/p>\n
Riddle<\/b>\u00a0(Alex Glasser). Is there something amiss in the opening of O. Henry’s famous Christmas story, “The Gift of the Magi”:<\/p>\n
“One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it was in pennies…Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the next day would be Christmas.”<\/p>\n
New Challenge<\/b>\u00a0(Al Zimmermann). In Russian Roulette, five of the six chambers of a water gun are empty, and the sixth is loaded with whipped cream. Two players take turns spinning the chambers of a gun and firing at themselves, hoping to stay clean. The second player has a decided advantage. How can the game be modified so that each player has an equal chance of winning?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Send answers, comments, and new questions by email to\u00a0Frank.Morgan@williams.edu,<\/a>\u00a0to be eligible for\u00a0Flatland\u00a0<\/i>and other book awards. Winning answers will appear in the next Math Chat. Math Chat appears on the first and third Thursdays of each month. Prof. Morgan’s homepage is at\u00a0www.williams.edu\/Mathematics\/fmorgan.<\/a><\/p>\n THE MATH CHAT BOOK,<\/a>\u00a0including a $1000 Math Chat Book\u00a0QUEST,\u00a0<\/a>questions and answers, and a list of past challenge winners, is now available from the MAA (800-331-1622).<\/p>\n Copyright 2001, Frank Morgan.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" March 1, 2001 Old Challenge.\u00a0What kind of tax is best for the economy? Answer.\u00a0In a certain theoretical ideal, the best tax for the economy would be a fixed dollar amount per adult, since there would be no disincentive to initiative or consumption; but such a\u00a0per capita\u00a0tax would be impractical as well as unfair. Fairer […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2965,"featured_media":0,"parent":3459,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3602","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3602","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2965"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3602"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3602\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3603,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3602\/revisions\/3603"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.williams.edu\/Morgan\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3602"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}