Monthly Archives: August 2017
Governmental Dumbness . . .
Kinda par for the course, right?
In a fantastic display of business acumen, the United States Post Office wants to raise stamp prices again. They’re losing too much money because less and less people mail letters every year. Well, that’ll encourage ‘em to mail more letters.
It’s called a death spiral, guys.
In other stupidity, the city of Philadelphia passed a ‘soda tax’ that took effect this past January. But unlike other cities that tax ‘sugary’ drinks, Philly is taxing everything non-alcoholic, fruit juice, diet drinks, anything with any sort of sweetener in it, artificial or otherwise at 1.5 cents per ounce.
In many cases it more than doubles the price of the drink,
and makes ‘soda’s more expensive than beer.
The mayor in pushing this bill though assured the public and the city council that the beverage distributors would absorb the cost of the tax and the public wouldn’t see any increase.
Unfortunately no one ask the beverage distributors about this. But even without eating the tax, they’re hurting anyway, with some reporting sales down nearly 50 percent, and both Coca Cola and PepsiCo having to lay people off.
And PepsiCo is no longer selling 12 pks and 2 liter bottle because they’re become so pricey no one is buying them anymore.
And now convenience stores and family grocery stores located near the city limits are starting to go under. If you going outside the city for your ‘soda’, why come back in the city for your gas, cigarettes, beer, etc.?
Oh, and the sales of alcoholic beverages have skyrocketed.
Who could have seen that coming?
Of course, not to be outdone, Cook County, IL (basically Chicago) had to get in on this largess of tax money. But they decided to cut the public a break and only tax ‘soda’ at 1 cent per ounce additional.
But then they already have a 3 percent soft drink sales tax as well as a 10.25 percent general sales tax. And it’s all cumulative. So you’re paying a tax on a tax on a tax.
And because many small business’ computer systems can’t handle all this taxing going on, people find that they’re paying the new tax on bottled water as well.
And now in one of those real ‘gotcha’ moments, the U.S Department of Agriculture is threatening to withhold $87 million in food stamp payments because of the new tax. Apparent food stamp recipients can not be charged this tax, since their purchases are suppose to be exempt from state and local sales taxes.
The city tried to have merchants charge the tax and then immediately refund the tax, but Ag Department said NO.
So the whole thing may go down in flames anyway.
Thought for the Day:
“A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.” — Sir Barnett Cocks
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A Yen For . . .
Yen.
I spent the day working on my new/old client’s problems, but at least I could do it remotely using TeamViewer, which lets me see and control the computer desktops at the client’s office from my laptop here at Brandi’s in Katy.
I’m finally starting to get a handle on things. In many cases I’ve figured out what the other guy has done, but for the life of me I can’t figure out why he did it.
I do know that the superfast SSD (Solid State Hard drive) and the increased Internet bandwidth (up to 400 Mbps) that he said was needed to host the website, were not needed or used for the website he was hosting on a server in the backroom. But instead was being used to slake his online game-playing addiction.
In fact the webserver that was running the company’s website to take orders was partitioned off so that it only was able to use about 15% of the bandwidth, with the rest allocated for gaming.
I also found that he’s been using the Point of Sale computer as a bootleg music server, holding thousands of albums, unfortunately mostly hip-hop and rap.
The one thing I haven’t found yet, but still expect to, is his almost-certainly extensive porn collection. But I’m still looking.
Nick says he wants to look too.
Still no news about the rig. Hopefully we’ll hear something today or tomorrow.
Tonight for dinner, Brandi and Lowell took us to a new place right down the road call Yen Hibachi Steakhouse. They said it was really good, and boy, were they right.
The look is kind of Asian Modern Fusion, very nicely decorated.
And of course the Hibachi area with the grills.
The chef starts things off with a big fireball which really grabs the kid’s attention.
Then while the waiter brings out our soup and salad,
the chef whips up the Fried Rice, in the shape of Mickey Mouse. Again a kid pleaser.
Now with the steaks, seafood, and veggies on the grill,
the kids get the onion stack volcano.
Finally the entire meal is on our plates and ready to eat.
I had the rare Rib-Eye Steak,
and Jan had the Chicken
Very, very good. We certainly want to go back.
Tomorrow and Monday I’ll be traveling back down to Clear Lake again for more client stuff.
Thought for the Day:
“The trouble with some women is that they get all excited about nothing – and then marry him.” – Cher
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