Text 11793, 163 rader
Skriven 2009-06-04 15:42:02 av Ross Cassell (1:123/456)
  Kommentar till text 11791 av Richard Webb (1:116/901.0)
Ärende: ANOTHER damn tax!
=========================
Hello Richard!

04 Jun 09 16:45, you wrote to me:

 RC>> All stores have a cost structure in order to do business, the cost
 RC>> of the bags they use, maintaining shopping carts, utility costs,
 RC>> payroll, rent, business taxes etc, they normally build all that
 RC>> into the retail prices of their merchandise.

 RW> OF course, and I"m sure this is factored in some sort of way <g>.

Well unless Sauer's state of Wisconsin is one of these states and the bag tax
is passed onto the customer as an itemized detail on the receipt???

I suspect that it is not and the stores simply have to eat it in their profits
with minor adjustments to their retail prices to compensate. A can of soup
selling for 97 cents might go for 99 cents??

 RC>> I think states that tax the shit out of tobacco to offset health
 RC>> costs are fiscally stupid, if the tax forces people to quit or get
 RC>> their tobacco elsewhere, then what they budgetted for the health
 RC>> programs suffer.

 RW> AGreed.  I"m close enough to the border that after Tennessee pulled
 RW> that BS I just make a run down to MIssissippi where they haven't been
 RW> so stupid once a month and buy my tobacco products there.

Here in SC they have tried to raise the tobacco tax this year and last year.
Last year the Governor vetoed it and the Legislature failed to override, this
year the bill languished in Senate Committee. Most of the rationale both times
was to raise it because we have the nations lowest state tax. I expect them to
successfully raise it next year because I think part of the reason it failed,
tho not publicized was that the tax hike would have come at the heels of the
major federal tax hike on it.

 RW> cOst of a carton of plain end no big name smokes, already
 RW> manufactured for one in MIssissippi at the shop I use:
 RW> $21.98.

 RW> WHo lost?

Your state and Mississippi won.

 RC>> Sound radical? Not really for a 100 pack spindle, its only and
 RC>> extra $2 to $5.

 RW> WHich I"m going to pass along to the clients.  NOT just do I factor in
 RW> the cost of the disk, but the time it took me to make a redbook
 RW> compatible audio cd, the trip to FEdEx or UPS, the mailing container,
 RW> etc. IF I record directly to an audio cd recorder and hand them the
 RW> disk when the performance is done of course I don't factor in the
 RW> mailing label and the trip to the shipper <g>.

Here is the profit a bootlegger makes..

They prefer to buy disks when they are on sale, which we typically advertise
them every week, but even not on sale they make a handsome profit.

A spindle of 100 DVD's costs regularly average $38, when on sale they can be
half that, so lets say the sale price is $20.

They are paying 20 cents a disk.

They eat up them cheap paper disk sleeves, a box of 100 costs 7.99, thats 8
cents a sleeve, adding that to the cost of the disk, they now have 28 cents in
each disk.

The bootlegger I spoke with sells each disk with whatever movie on it for $5
each.

So his initial investment per 100:

$19.99 + $7.99 = $27.98

Once he has burned the disks and sold that 100:

$500

His Profit is $472.02

If he opts to not buy the disks on sale, some do or have no choice:

$37.99 + $7.99 = 45.98

His profit is $454.02

Not bad eh?

I think it is safe to say that he recoups equipment costs relatively quickly
and probably did so after his first 3 to 5 spindles.

His customers are getting a movie for 50 or more percent of the cost of buying
the studio released disk from Walmart.

 RC>> Where I work, I sell these and trust me the majority of what I
 RC>> sell is to bootleggers and where I live the majority of them are
 RC>> blacks..

 RW> I can believe that.

I think this is a economic thing more than anything else although these
bootleggers are catering to "their own".

 RW> would you pay for that hip hop stuff?  THat market and the
 RW> karaoke market are why I'm not in the sound reinforcement
 RW> business anymore.

I wouldnt take that music if you recorded it and paid me to take ownership of
the disk. I dont have an appreciation of a music type that degrades females and
more often than not advocates violence, even if it is doing so under the guise
of story telling from the "hood".

But the music apparently catches the ears of the young and resonates, when I
moved down here in 1987, the white kids would be dancing to it while at the
same time exhibiting the typical southern racist attitudes.

On the same token there is music put out by black artists that I would prefer
to listen to above and beyond that which is put out by white ones. Lionel
Richie is a prime example of an artist I have a respect for. When I was
younger, I even liked a little Michael Jackson before he got weird, some
Whitney Houston, definately Tina Turner, oh lets not forget the unforgettable
Barry White!

Speaking of Barry White, I remember in the 70's coming into the living room on
Saturday afternoons, my father was watching Golf on TV and I recall the music
they played when going to or coming from a commercial break, I always called it
the Golf Song.. But it was Barry Whites Love Theme (Love Unlimited). My father
resorted to watching Golf on TV when he could no longer play it due to bum
knees, so instead of drowning his own golf balls in the water traps, he watched
other people do it. <G>

 RW> sTrange as it may seem, the hip hop rappers and dj types are also the
 RW> most abusive to sound reinforcement equipment, often provided by
 RW> others.  I'm not the only one that refuses to work with them because
 RW> of this. Btw it's the white rappers and dj types too, so it isn't
 RW> a race thing.

Its a music genre thing.

 RC>> Helper magnets for the malware.

 RW> OF course they did, and too dumb to know that those
 RW> so-called services invite that stuff in.  Hope you charge a
 RW> real good price for that service, and explain to them why
 RW> they keep coming back to pay you for it.

169.00 to remove them.

199.00 if they want removal and *REAL* protection put on.

I am starting a new echo, already boned called CYBER-DANGER, I can tell you
some horror stories I have witnessed.

When I get the particulars together, the echo will become more active.

==
Ross
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