[mindslight]

I don't see that taxing financial transactions would cause a phase change. Each financial transaction already has an associated cost of the people employed to create it, and yet complexity still grows. The real problem is that the financial industry has access to extreme amounts of cheap leverage, which forces everyone to play (aka the "everything bubble"). Witness all of the crying about interest rates having gone up a modest amount. Interest rates need to be held at least where they are long term, which is still lower than they were before they were dropped to distract from the needless and destructive conquering of Iraq.

I would say that eliminating tax deduction for advertising expenses is the wrong way to go about things as well. Adverting is a bona fide business expense, so it makes sense as a deduction. Rather, a direct tax should be levied on advertising, to account for the externalities of us all having to suffer the cacophony. This could even be done state-by-state rather than federally (a la sales tax).

Wholeheartedly agree on the certification. It blows my mind how cavalier people are about plugging Amazon's gensym branded products into mains power - especially given how shoddy even NRTL-tested products seem to be built!