So What Has Bernard Giraudeau Been Up To?

I am watching a movie about a week ago and the French actor who was quite popular as from the late 1970s is in it – I had also grown up reading stories about him in Paris Match. So I google him up. I immediately find out that he died eight years ago. How could I have missed that? I keep reading and discover that he died from cancer and that the latter had made him understand life and himself better. This reminded me of Steve Jobs qualifying death as very likely life's single best invention. Which he probably got from his Zen-Buddhism explorations. This is another way of saying that we have only the present moment.

Guess we can't keep tabs on everyone who's dying. Like Vinod Khanna – a prominent and magnetic actor in Bollywood – about whose passing I found out a few months after. He died of bladder cancer. Smoking doubles the risk of getting this type of cancer. A bladder isn't designed to handle toxins present in a cigarette. Smoking will also expose you to at least 10 other cancers.

Let's return to Giraudeau and listen how he managed the last stage of his life.

Travay Finn Mari Tombe Kot Marsan Bulet

A koz lafiev aftez ek salmonel. Enn pake plas usi biznes finn degringole. Bon bizin get enn kut kuma finn ariv sa me kote pozitif ladan seki si dimunn manz mwins lavian ruz ek plis legim kanser va diminye. Sa lepidemi la pe osi montre nu kuma nu land use pa bon. Ek pu bizin rekumans plant legim lakaz.

David Bowie Loses Battle With Cancer

Kind of sad to hear he died yesterday. Grew up while listening to his songs. He was married to Somali-born Iman. Here's one of my favourite Bowie songs: his first hit and apparently not written while sober.

15% Flat Tax is Enemy of Good Growth

Bean-counters' answer to their own manufactured lie was a promise of robust growth rates if we reduced taxes by 50%. That -- as expected -- didn't happen. They said well it's because of the financial crisis. Not really, the mess we're in was hatched in Mauritius: our economy didn't rebound in 2010 when the rest of the world did. Besides 57 countries had better growth rates than us in the first three years of the reforms -- which include, by the way, the years of 'early harvest' and 'bumper crop'.

But government has collected more revenue they say. Its revenue can increase if you have higher growth rates, better collections or if you are ripping us off with unreal prices. There has been better collections -- this can happen irrespective of tax rates -- but they did not make up for the shortfall caused by the string of ridiculously low growth rates of the reform vintage. Which is in any case what the PBB circulars have been telling us year after year. One is mostly a one-off thing, the other a cancer that spreads rapidly. You can find that out by recomputing the revenue government collected minus the stupid things (hedging billions, abusive energy prices, making SMS more expensive, high internet prices, wider-than-necessary interest rate spreads, etc). And have a look at the servicing of our debt and its structure for some additional clues that we need to add a couple of higher tax brackets on budget day. Having a good look at recent shutdowns of the US government is also not a bad idea.

And if unemployment has stayed stuck above 10% since the reforms began is it because our people don't have any good skills or is it because there are too many poverty-pay jobs on offer? And because the floodgates of stupidity have been opened? And no, we cannot increase productivity forever in one activity. We need to do other stuff. And use a range of tax rates to make intelligent bets.

Finally if our trade relationship with the rest of the world is unbalanced is it because we're not exporting enough or because we are importing things that we don't really need?

Pancreatic Cancer Gets First Woman in Space

Sally Ride died yesterday in La Jolla, California at age 61. The killer was pancreatic cancer -- the same that ruined Steve Jobs's life. Among cancer-killers it's the fourth most important. 

How you can get it? Easy. Eat a lot of red meat, smoke, lead an inactive life so that you become obese, drink a lot of soft drinks and boycott vegetables and fruits. And make sure to stress yourself as often as you can. If you do all of these with sufficient dedication we could be attending your funeral pretty soon.

Cancer Claims New Victim: Robin Gibb