In his novels, Charles Dickens creates a cast of characters whose eccentric behavior provokes both laughter and a knowing nod of the head.

Richard Carstone, of “Bleak House,” has a typically Dickensian point of view with regard to personal finance. When Richard is repaid a ten pound loan, he considers himself ten pounds to the good. When he is talked out of making a fruitless expenditure of five pounds, he calculates that by spending four pounds on a night in London, he will be another pound to the good. In Richard Carstone’s world of finance he has now made 11 pounds. And he will have enjoyed a night of revelry to boot. Getting rich was never so easy as with the Carstone Method.

Then again, perhaps the Carstone method of bookkeeping isn’t as eccentric and as one might think.

Take New York State’s STAR (School Tax Relief) program. Without diving too deeply into the typically tangled weeds of this curiosity, we can simply describe it as a vehicle for giving property owners a break on their school taxes. Granted, it isn’t an unqualified “break.” Each........

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