the taxman cometh ... wreathed in smiles

Over the past 20 years, a revised approach to taxation in Great Britain seems to be taking hold:

In 2001, Labour finance minister Gordon Brown directed the tax collector to take a new approach which would come to be known in the financial world as an "enhanced relationship." The aim was to lighten the regulatory burden on business. The authority now says it aims to work closely with big businesses in an atmosphere of "mutual trust."

Movement of Landless Rural Workers in Brazil

It is hard not to wonder if that atmosphere of "mutual trust" is not the same "mutual trust" that laid out the welcome mat for stock derivatives and other toxic assets that brought the world to its economic knees.

It is hard not to imagine that this trend is just another step in the return to feudalism.

And another step towards the bloody revolution that shook Russia in 1918.

As the Somali security official once observed about the pirates off his shores: "If you do not share your wealth with us, we will share our poverty with you."