I agree overall, but VAT is not all that difficult to evade, at least in the service industry. Paying handymen in cash is common in many countries, and that’s a means to evade VAT. Hell, even using them to buy the building or landscaping materials for you (being a registered business they purchase for prices without VAT) saves you on most of the tax. Then there’s service barter. I did it only once, a long time ago, but it can serve as an example: I did family portraits (photography) for my physio, in exchange for a number of physio sessions. If we charged each other, it would have cost each of us, say, 250 Euros, but we’d only see 200 each, and the state would get 100. So, savings of 50 for each of us.

I’ve read the books, and I had no intention of going through the pain again, watching the show.

Got me good. Thanks for the laugh.

Grandma probably did the same in her youth, and now that she’s in heaven, she’s reliving whatever she wants, whenever she wants it. At worst, she’d wish she could offer some advice.

I’d finance a historical movie about the Soviet invasion of Central Europe in 1944-1945. Similar to The Promise with Oscar Isaac, which introduced loads of people to the Armenian Genocide, my movie would show the reality of the Soviet invasion towards the end of WW2. Too many people, especially in the affected region, still think of the Soviets as liberators, when in fact they were even more ruthless than the Nazis.

You mean the rapist Brock Allen Turner?