[Sca-cooks] noncooking topic

[Terry Decker]

Ah.

Actually, it's god Ramses II wants a couple temples to the glory of him and 
his consort and says "Build me some temples."  Since, there is no money, the 
architect says, "Yes, my Pharaoh, but I need the wherewithal."  "Other than 
your plans (that I may revel in my Greatness while you get this done), don't 
bother me, bother whoever is the Lord of MY Granaries."  Whereupon, the 
Royal Architect goes to the Royal Exchequer and they haggle out how may khar 
of grain, hekat of onions, hinu of beer and warm bodies doing their tax 
service are going to be needed for the project.  Then they pad the bill, 
skim the grain and split the take.  The architect gets the bribes to work or 
not work on the project and the treasurer gets the bribes to actually supply 
the project.  The artisans inflate their expenses and the tax labor gets 
overworked to cover the cost overruns.  And whether they get away with it 
depends on whether the Royal Accountants can be greased or if the blame can 
be appropriately delegated away from the principals.

The Pharaoh gets what he wants (a couple temples with a façade higher and 
wider than the faces on Mt. Rushmore), the contractors and government 
appointees (but not the government employees) get rich and the taxpayers get 
screwed.  Some where around 700 years later, the process gets easier when 
they start producing coinage.  The descendants of the original taxpayers get 
a little of their own back when the temples become tourist traps, the 
government takes their cut by running the tourist traps and TV execs pay for 
the footage to create conspiracy theory television shows for the ignorant to 
get their cut of the advertising budget which pays for the advertising 
industry and can't be quantified as to their actual effectiveness, other 
than people buy stuff.  Think of it as the eternal cycle of greed and graft.

Bear

-----Original Message----- 
From: Aruvqan

So connect the dots, dudes. King wants temple. King tells his architect
Temple, now. Architect builds temple or architect dies. Not really a
problem, only problem is really how long it is going to take to chip
stuff out of stone and haul it around. Why they keep claiming "We don't
know how they <whatever>" with a country as well dug through as Egypt is
beyond me ... TV version of clickbait.