Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2023 October 28

= October 28 =

Taxing the millionaires
I read this Gallup article about taxing the rich... or millionaires, which mentions various media polls, especially by Fox News. But I have trouble finding the exact article about either income gap or taxing the rich. I even don't know which article the source is suited for. Maybe... progressive tax or regressive tax? George Ho (talk) 02:45, 28 October 2023 (UTC)


 * Eat the rich? :) --Lambiam 07:48, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * More seriously, perhaps the section, or, since this may be US-specific, Progressivity in United States income tax. --Lambiam 07:51, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I don't see the Notes section anywhere here. –George Ho (talk) 21:06, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Lambiam meant to link to Redistribution of income and wealth. DuncanHill (talk) 21:51, 29 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Sorry, that was an error, now fixed. --Lambiam 06:59, 30 October 2023 (UTC)

US federal jury service
gives information about service on a jury in US federal courts. Among other things, jurors are randomly drawn from a court's "jury wheel" for possible qualification, and a jury wheel is the database containing a specified number of names of district residents, with each county in the district represented in the jury wheel in proportion to its number of registered voters. How is an average person's name included in, or excluded from, the jury wheel? If a county's population entitles it to 100 wheel members, does a court officer just pick 100 names randomly from all adult residents of the county (aside from the classes of individuals mentioned in the "Exemptions" section), leaving matters such as citizenship and felon status to be handled later, or is the wheel filtered by some means? Growing up in Ohio, I remember that the state courts filter somewhat, e.g. you have to be a registered voter, but of course the federal system might work differently. Nyttend (talk) 04:27, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * As I understand it, the individual district courts decide how the residents are included. For example, in the Southern District of Florida, only registered voters are included, but in the Northern District of Illinois, jurors are selected not only from among registered voters, but also people holding state driver's licenses or state ID cards and people who have applied for unemployment benefits in the last two years. In both districts, jurors are selected for the wheel by a randomized computerized method. As far as I can tell, in all districts, after people are selected for the jury wheel, they are sent juror notification letters, and at that point they are filtered as needed, both based on their responses and other information available to the court, to exclude non-citizens, felons, etc. --Metropolitan90 (talk) 05:19, 29 October 2023 (UTC)

What was the Pepper Crisis of 1935?
There is a Punch cartoon by Bernard Partridge depicting David Lloyd George as a pepper pot and suggesting that he may be asked to join the government. It is dated 20 February 1935. You can see it here. What was the Pepper Crisis? Thanks, DuncanHill (talk) 22:32, 28 October 2023 (UTC)


 * A quick search turns up this article which describes an attempt to corner the Pepper market, which may be it? Eddie891 Talk Work 22:37, 28 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Thank you, that is it. I found a mention in of it, as the "Pepper Scandal", in . Owen tells us:

McKenna succeeded in building himself up a great reputation both for financial acumen and for political probity. Asquith, in forming his War Coalition Government in 1915, was happy to appoint him Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Stanley Baldwin, in forming his first Tory Government in 1923, was equally anxious to induce Reggie McKenna to accept that office again. Yet while he seemed so shrewd in money matters, McKenna got himself subsequently mixed up in what can only be described as a flight of folly. This was what became known as the “Pepper Scandal” in 1935 when, being at the time chairman of the Midland Bank, he took up several thousand shares in a company based on a prospectus which subsequently landed three of its promoters in the dock at the Old Bailey. He had done no wrong, but he had behaved without due discretion and, indeed, with folly.
 * Which must have pleased LlG no end! I haven't found it in any of my other LlG biographies (unfortunately both Grigg and Gilbert died before getting that far). More digging needed! DuncanHill (talk) 01:39, 29 October 2023 (UTC)


 * We have an article by on Hermann Marx, one of the stockbrokers involved, which appeared on the front page in October last year. DuncanHill (talk) 02:32, 29 October 2023 (UTC)