Par(is)adox

Paris Hilton presents me with a humongous conundrum: on one hand, she seems like literally the most useless person on earth, and yet on the other, her useless seems to provide a number of jobs to the economy.

For some time, I was advocating a special tax for the offspring of the super-wealthy who literally have no skills, talents, or abilities. I called it the Paris Hilton tax. The idea was that compared to the benefits that Paris provides to society, she uses up far more than her fair share of resources by merely breathing the air. Hence, Paris Hilton and her ilk owed large amounts of money to society to repay us for allowing them to breathe. Eventually, they will either develop some usefulness (and thus pay a reduced tax) or lose all their inheritance and become the skid row drunks they would have been all along had they not been born wealthy and privileged.

However, I soon began to see that Paris Hilton, in her uselessness, actually supported jobs for other people, some of them even very well-paying! For example, photographers and paparazzi. How many photographers would not have jobs if Paris weren’t showing up at all sorts of events in ridiculous outfits? Fortunately, Paris also enables tons of gossip columnists and tabloid magazines to publish the photos, thus creating all sorts of jobs for writers, editors, and subscription salespeople. These are all fairly well-paying jobs, too! Paris is really a mini economic engine, and this was just the start. She also financial supports the work of:

1. Clothing designers


2. Stylists


3. Publicists


4. Personal assistants


5. Chauffeurs


6. Maids (probably not very highly paid, though)


7. Wait staff at trendy restaurants, who she hopefully tips well


8. Bartenders at trendy places


9. Drug dealers (OK, so that’s sustaining an illegal job, but it still provides income to hard-working individuals)


10. Sales personnel at trendy boutiques


11. Pilots


12. Flight attendants


13. Hotel staff, most importantly the concierge

Etc., etc. I’m not saying that she solely sustains all of these jobs, but certainly more so than I do. Taking this useless-person-makes-other-productive train of thought, it doesn’t seem fair to make her pay extra taxes. However, life isn’t fair. It sure as hell isn’t fair that a bumbling idiot will never need to work a day in her life when people a jillion times smarter, thriftier, and more deserving struggle to make a decent living.

Therefore, I decided that Paris Hilton and other wastes of space like her, despite their important contributions to the economy of the service industry, should pay special taxes.