The BBC has posted an entertaining look at marketing in America called The United States of Advertising:

America is, I think, the only country in the world which permits advertising of drugs which are available only through your doctor.

The insidious message is simple; if your doctor is not offering you this drug, maybe you should be asking for it.

Americans do accept advertising in areas where it does not tend to appear elsewhere.

The really good part comes at the start, when the author tries to explain beef jerky:

…an American food whose classiness you can judge from the fact that it is mainly found in petrol stations.

You could make it yourself at home by cutting a tough, thin steak into tiny strips and leaving them on a sunny window ledge to dry when you went away for your summer holiday.

Little does he realize that good beef jerky is hard to find, but it does exist, just like real food in America.

The point of the article seems to be that watching for legal disclaimers/compliance in marketing is practically a form of entertainment of its own.

The governor of California is getting heat after he declared he wanted to cut millions from the state education budget.

He has recommended a $4.8 billion cut for K-14 education, on top of a $400 million reduction for education in the current year. The net effect is about $750 less per student than K-12 education would normally receive or about $18,750 per classroom.

He is laying off teachers (while other states hire them away), increasing their workloads and closing libraries. In the meantime, he has not acted to close tax loopholes that allow for exotic luxury goods. Good governance? Here’s an ad that tries to put the situation in perspective:

Just one bottle of champagne to celebrate? That seems unusually stingy to me. An accountant at a boat show explained the loopholes and why they matter:

“I would imagine that most of the people with boats over 50 or 60 feet are probably working some kind of tax dodge,” agreed Jimmy James, a semiretired certified public accountant from Kingston who has advised many boat owners. “People with enough money to buy those boats got there by having tax dodges.” […] IRS officials said they don’t keep track of how much money the government could collect if these deductions were eliminated. Conservatively, the annual total could approach $1 billion.

That is a lot of education.