A long time ago there was a village called Blorn that was hit by lightning storms every year.

And every year at least one house would burn to the ground. The village was home to a carpenter, a plumber, and an electrician.

Every year they would donate their time to help rebuild the house that burned down. The mayor of the village, being very wise, came to the conclusion that if one house could burn down a year, so could a lot of houses if it were a bad year.

And the people that fixed the houses; the carpenter, the plumber, the electrician wouldn’t be able to feed their own families if they were spending all their time building up their neighbors houses without pay in a bad year.

the mayor decreed that every citizen should contribute a fair, but small sum of money each month into a big pot, so that if that bad year happened, then there would be money to pay the carpenter, plumber, and electrician.

Now it just so happened that the people noticed that it was the houses made of wood that burned to the ground, while the brick houses didn’t burn when they were hit by lightning.

The worst that happened to the brick houses was the roof would scorch and have to be replaced. “Why should we pay the same amount as the people with wooden houses when the risk of our homes burning to the ground is so much less?” they asked. “We would only need the carpenter.”

The mayor agreed with them and reduced the amount they had to pay to reflect the lessened risk of their brick houses burning to the ground.