Hello Grandchild of Mine. Do You Want To Hear Me Drone On About The Old Days Again?

 

Here are a few observations from a Retired Mind which remembers things you probably don’t want to hear about...Or do u?

Ø Did you know that, when I was young, postage stamps did not have glue on their back and (hold your nose) we were required lick them with your glossa? (Google It) We had no idea what yucky stuff was lurking back there.

Ø When away from home we had to go into a phone booth to make a phone call. These phone booths were the same places that some people often used for urination.

Ø Since Steve Jobs had yet to be invented to invent the Cell Phone, we had to go into those smelly Phone Booths to make phone calls but now cars are Phone Booths and we hardly ever urinate in them. That’s progress.

Ø Since the Button had yet to be invented, we had to reach up and pull down the lift gate on the back of our SUVs to close them.

Ø Since the cell phone had yet to be invented, we had to drive with both hands on the steering wheel.

Ø We did not have little self-sticking return address stickers with pictures of cute little doggies on them for our envelopes. We had to write in the Return Addresses by hand. This was a tremendous time waster.

Ø Because the Flicker had yet to be invented, we actually had to get up out of our chairs and walk all the way across the TV Room (which had just been invented) to change TV Channels.

Ø You are going to find this one really hard to believe...The Electronic Key Fob had yet to be invented and we actually carried around Medal Keys to stick in our car doors just to get into our cars. What a pain that was!

Ø The manufacturers of Luxury Cars love this one...It appears Car Thieves are having a field day by electronically hacking into cars and driving them away all over the Fruited Plain. I have been noticing that the number of luxury cars on the road has multiplied a whole bunch. The thieves are driving their stolen cars all over everywhere and the Luxury Cars Manufacturers are selling new Luxury Cars to the rich people who had their cars hacked and driven away and they are driving their Replacement Luxury Cars all over everywhere.

>If you search something like “thieves hacking key fobs” you can read reports about this happening all over the Good Ole USofA.

>Here is just one... https://duckduckgo.com/?t=piriform&q=thieves+hacking+automobile+key+fobs&iax=videos&ia=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3Dxk_fTTlGcMA

>Here is where you can buy protection... https://duckduckgo.com/?q=protect+key+fob+from+hacking&t=piriform&ia=web 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

Lagniappe: This message from Amazon sounds very important but actually it proves that a computer does not know the difference between a Significant Price Change and a Teenie Weenie Price Change...

Important messages about items in your Cart:

1 item in your Saved Items has changed price.

Items in your Shopping Cart will always reflect the most recent price displayed on their product detail pages.

• Ikea Bevara Bag Sealing Clips 30 Pack has decreased from $6.90 to $6.89

It’s Going To Happen But Can’t We Be Smart About It?

Took a Smiley Face out on 9/1/22 cuz it appeared in the posting as a triangle with an exclamation point in it & when re-published it became published 9/1/22 & not the real date of 5/2/13.

Supporters say the Internet Sales Tax Bill is about fairness for businesses and lost revenue for cities and states.

Yes, that’s the Good Ole USofA today ... We are all about Fairness and Revenue.

As much as I wish Congress were not going to start taxing Internet Sales, it is going to become the law of the land. I am resigned to that fact because it means Increased Tax Income to several levels of government and there appears to be no stopping our various governments once they see the possibility of getting more money out of us.

What I am about to convey to you in this Blog Posting is not straight out of my usually foolish head. I will be parroting an article in the Wall Street Journal by a John Donahoe on April 23, 2013. Mr. Donahoe opened my eyes about this issue maybe I can do the same for you.

I have no such hope that Congress will open its eyes like I did. They are too obsessed with “fairness”. In their way of thinking, it is not fair that Mom & Pop Stores on Main Street have to collect taxes but that evil Internet Stores up in the clouds do not have to collect taxes. This results in Evil Internet Stores having an unfair sales price advantage over Main Street Mom & Pop Stores and that is not fair.

If we really want to level the playing field, what they ought to do is require that Mom & Pop Main Street Stores charge for shipping like Evil Internet Store have to charge to get their product to you. When you protest, “Why should I have to pay shipping when you did not have to ship?” You can be told, “It’s only fair.”

The first new fact I saw after Mr. Donahoe started opening my eyes was that Mom & Pop also reside on the Internet. Actually there is a GigaTon of such small stores on the Internet. Mr. Donahoe has this to say...

• Today small businesses that operate online are responsible for collecting sales taxes on purchases made in the state where they are located. That is fair. But the proposed bill would require them to collect sales taxes on behalf of every state where they make a sale. That would make it difficult, if not impossible, for them to succeed.
• Mr. Donahoe says small businesses with fewer than 50 employees or with less than $10 million in annual out-of-state sales should be exempt from the chore of collecting sales taxes nationwide. This is a reasonable exemption, equivalent to other federal standards, such as those set by the Affordable Care Act.
• This bill, as it now stands, could put entrepreneurs like Colleen Rast out of business. Colleen and her three employees run all of their business operations out of a small office in Kalispell, Mont. Although her apparel-sales business is located in a state without sales taxes, the Marketplace Fairness Act currently under consideration would require Colleen to track and comply with the tax laws of more than 9,600 tax jurisdictions across the U.S. It would create costly paperwork and accounting burdens and subject her to potential audits and litigation from tax collectors in states that could be thousands of miles away from where she lives and works.

I am responsible for the bolding in the above bullet. Don’t you think it was a very appropriate place to put in bolding?

• The $10 million exemption would protect businesses like Colleen's. To put the exemption in perspective, Amazon makes more than $10 million in sales every 90 minutes. This would be a reasonable exemption that recognizes that small businesses are vastly different from the nation's billion-dollar retailers. These are very small startups, mom-and-pops and entrepreneurs whose businesses and cost structures are nothing like billion-dollar retailers. They should not face the same tax-collection burdens.
• This isn't a debate pitting Internet Store Sales against Main Street Store Sales. This is actually about big retailers, like Amazon, trying to undermine small online businesses. Amazon supports the bill, while at the same time it negotiates local tax exemptions across the country where it builds warehouses. Small businesses don't have that kind of bargaining power.

Do you think Big Businesses like an Amazon would be sad if their many small competitors went out of business? The Smartfella does not think they would shed a single tear if their competitors were reduced in number.

The late Paul Harvey just came in and asked me to tell you the Rest of the Story. Mr. Donahoe is the president and CEO of eBay Inc. This means he has a vested interest in seeing Mom & Pop Small Internet Businesses survive.

That being said, it is up to us to make up our own minds. The Smartfella believes that asking small businesses to comply with 9,600 Tax Jurisdictions is asking too much and (are you ready for this?) is Unfair!

This posting is so serious that as I was writing it I sometimes became confused that it was really me. I kept saying to myself, “Self, this isn’t Foolishness!” Can you ever forgive me? I’ll get back on track next time. 

Would I kid u?

Smartfella

More: If you want to read all of what Mr. Donahoe had to say, click here... http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323735604578438643723029594.html

LiveJournal Tags: Internet Sales Tax,Marketplace Fairness Tax,John Donahoe