My interesting pilgrimage in America has brought me to Michigan. This weekend, I am at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor attending the inaugural conference of a budding association called the International Network of Tax Researchers, a think-tank birthed by the OECD. Right now, it is already past lunch time and a number of interesting things have taken place.
But how could I miss telling you about my near miss - I was 3 seconds from missing my flight (literally)! [Didn't that sentence have a lot of "miss"es in it?!] The conference was scheduled to start at 9.00 am and since I didn't want to forgo Tax Procedure on Thursday night, I booked a Friday flight for 6.08 am. It was the first flight out of NYC going to Michigan. I should have known that such an early trip would "en-doom" me. Indeed, it almost did. [And my alliterations go on!] The foreboding of a troubled morning was the fact that I didn't sleep until 2.30am. Of course, if you want to make it through the security checks at a U.S. airport, it is crucial that you give yourself 45mins (if you're not checking in luggage) prior to your flight. Otherwise, you may have contributed your flight funds to the airline ex gratia. Anyways, sleeping at 2.30 meant that I had to be awake just 2hours later - to take a bath -to dress up-to finish packing and, then, hit the road.
Well, my alarm went off as it should but, for some inexplicable reason, it was 30mins later that my eyes opened - at the phonecall of the cab driver! Of course, those 30mins chopped out the time I'd scheduled for a bath, packing, etc. Nevertheless, I went off on a prayer and asked the driver for 15mins. I hit the bathroom and was dressed in 11mins. I threw everything into the cab and the driver sped off into the morning. I finished packing by stretching my small frame across the back seat of the cab driver's vehicle. He got me to the airport, and I ran through all the lines by not checking my luggage (it was rather light anyways) and telling everyone "my flight leaves in 10mins" (which was true). Stupidly, I had my bottle of perfume with me and the airport security didn't waste time in confiscating it (grrr...how come no one said there were restrictions on liquids in hand luggage and that you cannot take more than 3 ounces on board??? - I don't even know what an ounce means! When will these Americans go metric?!!!) Anyways, I was too much in a rush and didn't mind foregoing my prefume. Finally, I got to the door [you know, the door that leads to the airplane walkway...) just as it was being shut!
Having gone through the drama of catching my flight, it was nice to find that the plane was sooo comfortable! If you ever have the chance to fly Spirit Airlines, please do. The comfort was sublime. To crown my trip, when we touched down in Detroit, it was snowing! Naturally, that excites me cos I hadn't seen snow until this morning!!! The weather in Michigan was 23 degrees...brrrr...cold. My cab driver from the airport to Ann Arbor was a sick Sikh who tried to get on my last nerve and charged me an arm and a leg [yes, right now, I'm a cripple....] but I was just so glad to be here.
About the conference: There are quite a number of scholars here...over 50. I'm just making up the diversity percentage here even though I think I'm the only one really from a developing country. This is significant because the conference is about Tax Policy and Developing Countries. We've had the morning session and it was rather high level. The subjects spoke largely about european concepts of policy and really didn't get into the underlying tax reasoning that drives developing countries' policies. We'll see how the rest of the program unfolds. Hopefully I'll be able to say something and bring them down to earth to think about the real concepts and the way taxation affects developing countries. Indeed, I've been wondering what a "developing" country is and the unique, identifying factor that seperates such countries from "developed" countries. It certainly isn't the World Bank's parameter based on per capita income - which makes China, India and Brazil developing countries.
I also hope I get to do some networking. I doubt that anything tangible will come out of it but, regardless, the food and hotel are free so I am certainly not complaining! I shall walk the university, sleep the sleep of the free, and enjoy the intellectual discourse. Amen!
Let's see how it goes.
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