Publicani

Listen Interview

April 12, 2008, 10:30am – noon

WSTC/WNLK 1350/1400 AM

Lisa Wexler: Zak Maymin is a Russian immigrant to this country who believes in freedom. [Read more →]

“I am just a private citizen who is sick and tired of other people coming to me and taking something from me and explaining to me that’s it’s done in my own interest.”

From the “MaryAnne Show” on WGCH (1490am) on Friday 4/11.

Q. Once again, we are speaking to Zak Maymin. He wrote a book “Publicani.” He came over here with his family from Russia in 1980. He is here about 28 years now and we are happy you do. So, Mr. Maymin, you are not happy with the government of the United States, or you were not?

A. I was happy, I am not happy right now.

Q. You are not happy right now?

A. And it’s not just the government, I am not happy with the people. [Read more →]

Savino: WGCH News Center, the time is 8:21, and my guest now is Zak Maymin, who is a Greenwich resident, author of the book, “Publicani.” Good morning Zak, welcome, thank you for coming in this morning.

[Read more →]

Click on the image to see it in a larger size.

My son, Phil Maymin, wrote an article in Fairfield Weekly about me, Publicani, and the income tax.
Here it is:

“You never hear people badmouth the income tax anymore. Not even this week, when each of our three hundred thousand Fairfield County households will on average fork over twenty thousand dollars, hundreds of pieces of private and personal information, dozens of otherwise enjoyable hours, and all of our self-respect.

Maybe it’s the Helsinki Syndrome in action, where, as hostages, we begin to sympathize with our captors who punish and rape us. Whatever the reason, it’s nearly impossible to say the income tax is evil. You’re either labeled a nut, an insurgent, or a greedy bastard. But is it really crazy to observe that an income tax penalizes effort? Is it really unpatriotic to want your country to be free? Is it greedy to want to keep what’s yours? [Read more →]

 Iraq… world’s highest percentage of people in prison… warrantless phone and email searches… Fed printing money as if there’s no tomorrow… state prevention of medical use of marijuana and other drugs… suspension of  habeas corpus… searching your shoes at the airports… government’s new authority for taking private property from one citizen to selling it to another for profit because of the “public benefit” in higher tax revenue…

…these are examples of the modern state of the USA. 

Those are just some examples: not necessarily the best examples, just indicators pointing to a rotten state.

Before we discuss what is the root of these problems, who do you think the enemy is?  The lobbyists? Potential terrorists? The rich?

It feels like a seven-headed dragon is conducting a full-scale assault on our life, property, and liberty, attacking us from the left and right – both Republicans and Democrats voted for the Iraq war and the Patriot Act.  Attacking us from above and below – both the government makes laws assaulting our liberties and the people keep voting for such a government. [Read more →]

The revised edition is now available on Amazon.com. It features a lower price, fewer typos, and an improved cover. Enjoy!

I won the last 16th annual New York State Open chess championship. The tournament was held on June 21-22 in Lake George, NY at Howard Johnson Tiki Resort. I’ve shared first and second prize with Daniel Lawinger which makes two of us 2008 cochampions.

The tournament consisted of five games. Because I chose to play 2-day option (there was also a 3-day option), I played the first three games with a shortened time control: 1 hour for the entire game for each player. THe fourth and fifth games I played with normal time control: 90 minutes per 30 moves and then 1 hour for the rest of the game for each player.

In my first game I played against James Hiltunen. He had a better position from the opening, but then I “showed” him a pawn which he took. That gave me a strong initiative, Under pressure he made a non-obvious error, which let me make a small combination in a style of ‘find the best move.” I won the game. It turned out that after that game my opponent kep winning all his game until the last round where he lost to Lawinger. [Read more →]

Amazon has two POD (Print-On-Demand) publishers: BookSurge and CreateSpace. Amazon owns CreateSpace and, I believe, “almost” owns BookSurge.

For additional cost, BookSurge offers complimentary services while CreateSpace does not. I used some of the services BookSurge provides and was always happy with those. BookSurge does a good job and is practically always on time. You get a team working for you: your publishing consultant (mine was Zach Coddington and I was happy with him), your Product Fulfillment coordinator (mine was Douglas Thompson, also a good fellow) and other people who gently guide you through the process of publishing your book. [Read more →]

I recently started a discussion on RonPaulForums. com forum with this question: What is the best argument against income tax? Here is a shorter version of this discussion. Paraphrasing Einstein, I still don’t know the answer, but I don’t know it on a much higher level.

Publicani: I will be interviewed on TV this Tuesday about my new book, Publicani. The major topic will be the Income Tax, which I passionately hate. Help me to make an argument against it. What do you think is the most convincing reason for abolishing the income tax?

Danke: Because it is enforced against those generally not liable. Mainly due to the convoluted way the IRC is written.

[IRC stands for Internal Revenue Code.]

Truth Warrior: It’s theft AKA robbery by and under threat of force and violence for non obedience and non compliance.

Publicani: I believe it is a theft. It’s not hard to make this argument. It’s immoral. It’s invasion of privacy. But why the income tax is the greatest evil?
And why if we abolish income tax, things will be good? [Read more →]