OK, so I know I am old fashion. When I make a big purchase, I like to exam the item first, before I lay down my hard-earned #dollars. Especially if the money is over $50 bucks. I’m old and funny that way. Even if the item is a store display, I don’t care. I can #examine it, tell if it has the #quality I expect, etc. That’s the old-fashioned part. Silly me, but I worked hard for this cash I carry.
Frankly I hate ordering off the #internet. I like dealing with #localbusiness with #local friendly people. People who are trying to stay alive in lousy times. I want to keep them employed. It helps the local economy which eventually helps me and those in my family. I found the item on your #website and expected you to have it. I wasted my gas. What the hell is wrong with you? If you have the item on your website, put have the item on display, so someone can see it, special order or not. I mean after all, you are spending millions of dollars each and every month, for that “big box hardware store” that will remain unnamed, why not use that big ass store to display the same items you have on your stupid website. A website that is a pain in the ass to navigate.
But lets say you have someone like me who goes to the store, because they didn’t see the small print that said the item was a special order. Why not have sales clerks trained to help that person right there in the store? A good sales clerk can make the order for the person and probably up sell for items they may need to go along with it. I mean after-all, they are standing around, picking their nose, talking to the other associates – doing absolutely nothing. I’m serious. I counted 11 store clerks doing absolutely nothing on my way out of your store.
I mean you are paying these people for what? So they can tell a person “Nope – don’t have it here. That’s a #special #order item. You’ll have to order that online.” What the hell do you have a store for? If I wanted to order the item online, why not bypass the store and just order it direct from another state, another city, another economy? While I was at it, why not use another store. Which is what I did.
Do you get the message? I sent my local money to another state. I boosted the economy of another state, another city and another business. When and if you lay off people in this city again, (and I am sure you will) make sure you tell them the reason is due to the lousy economy. I hope they will have read this, so that they can spit in your eye and say “Bullshit.”
Category Archives: Welfare
I Am – Therefore I Think.
Consider the following. There are those who can, and there are those who think they can. There are those who think and those who think they think. There are those who portray thinking, but they really don’t, they just think they are thinking.
There are the doers, and the thinkers who think they do, but who really don’t. They are often the first to tell you how you should do it. When faced with the ultimatum of doing it themselves, they often do nothing, because once they thought about it, it was not something they wanted to do anyway. They don’t have the time.
Then there are the thinkers who do little else but think and who when forced to do, think about it so long, that by the time they get around to doing it, it isn’t worth doing. These are most often cousins to the doers who can’t do. Then there are the doers who don’t think – they just blindly do, and then they have to do it again and again – because they should have thought about it more.
There are the “have’s” and the “have not’s” – who when asked are often angry with the “haves” for not freely giving them what they “have not” of.
Newspaper reporters love these people. They live on the left and can’t understand why living over there has given them nothing. The have’s on the right stole it all. They could have it – if the “haves” would have given it up, but the have’s do not – therefore the “have not’s” continue not to have. You can read about them every time there is an event that draws national attention. Like a swarm of hungry fly’s – the reporters zoom in on the “have not” in the background who is holding up signs and yelling obscenities. When they land on him, the “have not” is quick to point out that the entire blame lies with those that have. They will someday become a world leader building on a similar platform of what the “haves” are doing wrong. Saddam, Hitler, or some of our own home-grown pack of Washington Socialist, and a slew of current corrupt world leaders come to mind as being prime examples.
There are those who criticize purely for the sake of having something to say and who make money off of saying it. They are the “do nothings.” They fail to look inward and see where the most of their criticism should be directed. They are the hardest to catch also, for they have a logical argument which usually deals with something long since passed, but does little for the fast approaching future. They are the fist raisers, quick to point out the errors, but never offering a solution. I don’t like these people. They may occasionally hit the mark as all good snipers do, but they only expose one little bit of the problem. In most cases, they snipe and run. Limbaugh, Hannity, Coulter, or any of the other “Political Pundits” come to mind.
The “do nothings” will sometimes think of a solution, but fail to present it – for fear that it ends up – shock and horror – wrong. However, the thinking part allows them to elevate themselves into the realm of the “thinker doer.” However you soon grow tired of them when it becomes clear that they are probably best left as a “have” who never thinks.
The critical issue and primary point of all this, is that come one day, all of these people will sit and ponder the questions of “Was it all worth it?” “What did I accomplish?” “What mark did I make on this world?” and “Will I be remembered for being a “Have,” a “Have Not”, a “Doer” or a “Thinker” who thought themselves out of existence?
Think about it,
or don’t –
it’s up to you.
Public, Private & Secret
In the 70’s, George Carlin came up with the seven words you couldn’t say on TV. Today, in our new age of the internet and social media, we have a whole new set of rules you can’t say (write) on the internet. I won’t even list them here for fear that someone will actually start following my rants, but you can believe that I have the list in front of me when ever I write a post. Of course I have violated the list many times over the years and I have long suspected that there was a list, but now – I know it. Take a look.
“Dept. of Homeland Security Forced to Release List of Keywords Used to Monitor Social Networking Sites”
In the interest of all fairness to those dedicated people who are working so hard to protect me and my family from zealots who want to harm us, thank you. You have a thankless job, yet you do it well. Do I wish there wasn’t a list? Yes, but I lost that level of innocence a long time ago.
Now to dig a little deeper, is this list subject to being abused? Of course it is, and it could be said to be an invasion of privacy. However, if you want to see an invasion of privacy, you should see the list an ad agencies use. “But Edsson, I have the right to privacy.” Grow up. Anyone who uses the internet or social media, should expect little to no privacy. If you think otherwise, you are kidding yourself. Today, you are encouraged to network, share, link, join and put your entire life history on the internet. You are a wealth of information to every ad agency, government and identity thief out there. All our government (and others) does, is listen and read what you so freely put out. After all, that is what you wanted – isn’t it?
Years ago, Gabriel García Márquez, (Gabriel García Márquez: a Life) once said: “All human beings have three lives: public, private, and secret.”
Not anymore Senor Marquez.
A Solution for Balancing the Budget.
I first wrote this on June 21, 2011. Still the same solution on Jan 15th, 2013.
I hate complex issues. Complexity breeds confusion. Confusion hides errors and misuse, the two things we have in great abundance when it comes to federal spending. My solution to balancing the budget and stabilizing the economy is rather simple. Which is probably the reason why it has never been thought of.
However – thinking out of the box, the solution is evident and centers around the age-old economic premise that A) the government must spend its entire budget, and B) the government cannot save money. Two simple premises that when acknowledged, help you understand why we are so screwed up.
The fact of the matter is that when the government spends, the money eventually flows back into the economy. At least that’s what it is supposed to do. Take for example – government subsides. The government subsidizes companies in the form of grants and other funding, who in turn, buy goods and services from other vendors. These funds are spent the form of wages to its workers, who in turn spend those wages on food, clothing and shelter within their local communities. Given all the right conditions, our economy works. Therefore, why do we find ourselves in such odds over this mathematically correct formula? Why isn’t the system working when it works so well mathematically? Is it because we have funder two wars? How about giving money to countries who hate us, in the form of foreign aid/bribes? No, not fully. The answer is in the rules for spending. If we pay attention and close up the loose rules, we would have no problem.
Here are a few new rules that should (must be) put into place and followed.
Rule 1) If you receive government money in any form, (grant, loan, subsidy, tax breaks or bribe, etc) you must spend the money here in the US. You must buy US-based products and those products must be produced here in the U.S. Your vendors must also be US-based vendors, who in turn buy within the US. All other companies who do not receive government subsidies are free to buy wherever they want. All taxpayers however should buy from only those companies who are receiving government funding under the new rules. You would if you want your money back.
Rule 2) If you receive funds from the government, Federal, state or local, you or your company may not have an offshore account anywhere in the world.
Rule 3) You must be a full citizen of the US and not a dummy corporation set up in the Bahamas or other offshore area. You may not have any foreign investors or stockholders.
Rule 4) If you do not like these rules, or want to file an appeal, then stop taking funds from the government, or funds will be withheld pending the outcome of a court hearing.
Violate any of these rules, and you must pay back all funds received from the day of the first draft you took, plus an interest penalty of 50 cents on every dollar you received.
There are no conditions to these rules. There is neither appeal nor special circumstances. If you receive money in ANY form from the government, these are the rules in addition to the tax and other rules that regulate government funding.
With an installation of these rules, the American public is assured that the money spent here in the US stays here and in turn, flows back into our economy.
Oh, and Rule 5 – the bottom line of all these rules is simply this. If you don’t like the rules, don’t accept government funding. That alone will cut the budget down to almost nothing. Then we get to work on the real problem; such as term limits, government pensions and why a disgraced government official, who having been forced to resign, gets a government pension of close to a million dollars a year for the rest of his miserable life.
Edsson 