CommonSenz

Death and taxes are inevitabilities which man cannot avoid. Great men and people of the intelligentsia have often stated this. Daniel Defoe first said it 1726 in The Political History of the Devil . Later, Benjamin Franklin echoed the same sentiment in his letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy in 1789. However history has been witness to innumerable cases, where taxes have been the reason of death. Protests against oppressive and regressive taxes levied by tyrannical rulers have led to deaths and starvation. Since the time of the Egyptian Pharaohs, taxes have been imposed. The tax history chronology points to the fact that the Greeks, the Romans, the British and Americans were among the first to have taxed people on some account. Over the ages, many a kinds of taxes have been imposed on people. Some such taxes are pragmatic and have been aimed to reduce disparities between the rich and the poor but there are others that have been imposed for oppressing the socially and economical...

Have you or someone close to you ever been abused as a child? If so, then you have experienced the pain of Child Sex Abuse (CSA). Parents to young boys and girls worry for their safety when they come across instances of Child Sex Abuse (CSA). Every day incidents are reported in the newspapers, over television news and social media with unfailing regularity. Those who carry the scar of abuse as a child are often haunted by their memories long after the event actually occurred. Thoughts about the event and the circumstances leading to the act may make people seethe in rage or drown you in melancholy and shame. The dimensions of CSA are complicated and it is something that can have an impact on a lot of people in this world, directly or indirectly. This is a crime that is unlike others like murder, robbery or financial fraud. The actual extent of CSA can rarely be gauged correctly since a majority of the cases go undetected and unreported. What is reported is a fraction of...

The ‘Sparkle’ of a Bargain The term ‘bargain’ has the word ‘gain’ embedded in it. This itself can enthuse people to seek a bargain. But then, how do we find a bargain? Is it by chance? Or does it involve meticulous study? All investors would be keen to have answers to these questions so that they the scale the pinnacle of success through their investments. Well, bargain per se, is the process of understanding the difference between the price and the value of a product. Let us look at an example for understanding what a bargain is all about. A roadside shop sells old and not so new books. Customers seeking to purchase books which are otherwise priced high at normal bookshops find these hop useful. The buyer he has a fair idea about the price. The value of the book as perceived by the customer may far exceed this price and this where the bargain lies. It is obvious that in order to find a bargain one has to acquire knowledge regarding the price and the intrinsic val...

A small rectangular piece of plastic, the size of your business card, nesting inside that wallet has the potential of acting as a double edged sword. Known as the credit card, this piece of plastic can be wonderful when one is short of cash and needs to make an urgent purchase; on the flip side it can be near lethal and can drive you to neurotic heights when used indiscreetly. How this sword will behave is entirely up to its owner. It can help to eliminate the risk of carrying cash during good times and can drown the card holder in debt. It is ‘you’, the owner who can choose to either reap the benefits or get scalded by the credit card. It is always better to be safe than smug. Here are a few commonsense tips that will help transform a credit card holder to become a smart card user. I.                    Lesser the better ‘Too much of anything is bad’. The same dictum applies ...