The Democrats used to be a good party for well over a hundred years. Why they changed for the worst is anybodies guess.
But I do know nearly every single relative of mine switched parties, starting after Kennedy and now I would say most of them are Republicans.
But you have to admit, the new Democratic ways are destroying this country faster than an ice cube in hell.
I don't expect to see another Democrat get into the office of President for years to come after this fiasco.
Missouri is a strange place, I'll grant you that much. One never knows what is going to happen where, with the Poly-Ticks.
Alexa vs Alexa
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Any topic is acceptable, and topic drift is permissible.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
I was comfortable with Illinois and the political scene therein because I knew what the corruption was all about when it occurred. It was traditional mob style wherein "the Family" was sacred and everyone worked to keep it together. There were feuds between competing Families, but that was all about territory and who controlled what. The individual political figures whose scandals were front page news were caught working to further their own best interests. It was pretty simple actually, if not bloody at times. The nature of corruption has changed over the past decade or two. There are few mob family loyalties to be had, although they do still exist. The bulk of the corruption no longer is focused on individuals or their family ties, but instead the goal is to change the system wherein they function. Explicitly stated the democracy we enjoy today is targeted to be reduced and eventually eliminated. It used to be kept as a secret agenda, but that isn't the case any longer. There are people in congress who admit to wanting to replace what we have so that our strength as a world power is reduced or eliminated. The frightening aspect of it all is that this faction seems to be growing in numbers and strength.
The end of democracy in our republic is in sight. It's my opinion that the fate of our form of government will be decided within the next few years.
The end of democracy in our republic is in sight. It's my opinion that the fate of our form of government will be decided within the next few years.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
I visited a town once back when I was like 19 or 20 years old. It only lasted for about a decade, but was a neat place to visit.
It was called New Memphis, but no relation to Memphis Tennessee, hi hi.
I don't know the whole history of the town, nor why it was so short lived, when you consider the Village of Country Life Acres has been around now for over 100 years. But then too, CLA is only a residential area.
New Memphis was established by some very wealthy folks who bought up a few thousand acres.
They designed their own residential, commercial, and industrial areas, for their new little town.
Each of them owned either a manufacturing plant, or the commercial buildings, or both if they wanted.
Plus their massive houses for the original families.
They also developed three or four large residential areas of different price levels.
If you were a factory worker, you probably lived in the subdivision behind the industrial district.
If you owned a store, or worked in the commercial district, you probably lived either in the subdivision behind the commercial area, or in a subdivision between that area and the rich folks residential area.
After I was first married, the first time, I actually considered moving there, into the subdivision outside the commercial area.
But then I learned a little bit more about the place and decided against it.
The big shots own everything. You can buy a house, but then you have to sell it back to them, you can't sell to an outsider. And they set the prices for nearly everything. I could lease a storefront for a flower shop lets say. But you can only hire folks from inside the community. The only exception is the industrial area which does require outsiders to carry goods to and from there area, and outside drivers can deliver to the commercial area. But if it was something made or sold in the town, you could not buy from outside the town. At the time, there was not a lot yet made inside the town, so UPS trucks were always in and out of there.
I have a hunch that some type of Federal or State law prevented them from carrying on the way they started. And the rich folks decided to move on to elsewhere. Most of those big mansions sat empty for years, as did many of the larger buildings.
Then poof, almost overnight, well from the time I was there last to the next time, about 5 years apart, it was all gone, and new subdivisions were in place of everything there. And a big shopping center at the far end, along with fast food places and the like. No more industrial there at all.
The Oak Brook area I was in, up by Hinsdale near Chicago, was something a little similar, only without the industrial area.
It was called New Memphis, but no relation to Memphis Tennessee, hi hi.
I don't know the whole history of the town, nor why it was so short lived, when you consider the Village of Country Life Acres has been around now for over 100 years. But then too, CLA is only a residential area.
New Memphis was established by some very wealthy folks who bought up a few thousand acres.
They designed their own residential, commercial, and industrial areas, for their new little town.
Each of them owned either a manufacturing plant, or the commercial buildings, or both if they wanted.
Plus their massive houses for the original families.
They also developed three or four large residential areas of different price levels.
If you were a factory worker, you probably lived in the subdivision behind the industrial district.
If you owned a store, or worked in the commercial district, you probably lived either in the subdivision behind the commercial area, or in a subdivision between that area and the rich folks residential area.
After I was first married, the first time, I actually considered moving there, into the subdivision outside the commercial area.
But then I learned a little bit more about the place and decided against it.
The big shots own everything. You can buy a house, but then you have to sell it back to them, you can't sell to an outsider. And they set the prices for nearly everything. I could lease a storefront for a flower shop lets say. But you can only hire folks from inside the community. The only exception is the industrial area which does require outsiders to carry goods to and from there area, and outside drivers can deliver to the commercial area. But if it was something made or sold in the town, you could not buy from outside the town. At the time, there was not a lot yet made inside the town, so UPS trucks were always in and out of there.
I have a hunch that some type of Federal or State law prevented them from carrying on the way they started. And the rich folks decided to move on to elsewhere. Most of those big mansions sat empty for years, as did many of the larger buildings.
Then poof, almost overnight, well from the time I was there last to the next time, about 5 years apart, it was all gone, and new subdivisions were in place of everything there. And a big shopping center at the far end, along with fast food places and the like. No more industrial there at all.
The Oak Brook area I was in, up by Hinsdale near Chicago, was something a little similar, only without the industrial area.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
That's an interesting tale you tell in that it is similar to but not exactly like the Palmetto Bluff area in South Carolina. That's the place we celebrated our 50 years of marriage at the Montage Hotel. The Palmetto Bluff area is a conservancy of 20,000 acres located on the Atlantic coast just down the way from Hilton Head, which is infinitely more renown. The land had only two or three owners prior to the current person who has title to it. The current owner established three gated communities a few miles apart from each other and are very upper class. The hotel was in an area of it's own which was next to a golf course that is famous in the area. The population is limited by design. If you want to build your mansion in one of the existing communities you would have to tear down an existing one, or remodel what is there. We looked into buying something there, which we could never do but they didn't know that at the time. Among other things there was an annual "donation" of $25,000 that each resident had to give to the conservancy fund. It can be quite expensive to maintain a swamp full of alligators, I guess. The place we stayed was luxurious to the extreme and well worth the $1,000 a night, not to mention all the gourmet restaurants. Well, you get the idea, I'm sure. The point I'm getting to is that a single individual (or family) owns all that. That person owns a piece of the Atlantic coast and rules over three small communities of people.
When you are wealthy enough you can do what I described above and more. Getting back to my gloom and doom forecast for the end of democracy, I have reason to believe a small group of billionaires are responsible for the assault. They are funding activities and organizations which are designed to create a society to their own personal liking. It's easy enough to see a guy like V. Putin doing such a thing, but the people I'm talking about have a lot of political clout in this country and are home grown. They simply have enough money, and power, to change things to their liking. Think Elon Musk as an example. He doesn't like Twitter as it is currently being run, so he wants to buy it and change it to his liking. It remains to be seen if that will actually happen, but Elon CAN do it and have tons of money left over. So it is with the Koch's and Soro's families, as well as others.
When you are wealthy enough you can do what I described above and more. Getting back to my gloom and doom forecast for the end of democracy, I have reason to believe a small group of billionaires are responsible for the assault. They are funding activities and organizations which are designed to create a society to their own personal liking. It's easy enough to see a guy like V. Putin doing such a thing, but the people I'm talking about have a lot of political clout in this country and are home grown. They simply have enough money, and power, to change things to their liking. Think Elon Musk as an example. He doesn't like Twitter as it is currently being run, so he wants to buy it and change it to his liking. It remains to be seen if that will actually happen, but Elon CAN do it and have tons of money left over. So it is with the Koch's and Soro's families, as well as others.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
There are a lot of ritzy areas in St. Louis County where just anybody can't get in. Most of it is Old Money areas that have been around like forever, hi hi.
Although a privately owned company can technically set the rules for the service they provide.
Just like the electric company, phone company, and gas company, social media needs to be under laws that stop them from doing many of the things they are currently doing.
Can you imagine being on the telephone and getting your phone turned off because you told your mom about something on the phone that the phone company didn't like?
In essence, that is what social sites like Farcebook, Twitter, and many others are doing.
Now I don't want to see nude pictures of Robert Hall, or filthy language being used either.
And as far as Broadcast TV and Radio, we have laws in place to keep it off our airwaves.
Cable TV has gotten around many of those laws, since they are a subscriber service.
But at least now you have to subscribe to the filthy channels separately from the main feed.
Most of the social media sites are basically Liberal Propaganda Machines, which has become quite obvious.
And for this reason, they need to have a heavy arm and strong laws brought down on them.
Although a privately owned company can technically set the rules for the service they provide.
Just like the electric company, phone company, and gas company, social media needs to be under laws that stop them from doing many of the things they are currently doing.
Can you imagine being on the telephone and getting your phone turned off because you told your mom about something on the phone that the phone company didn't like?
In essence, that is what social sites like Farcebook, Twitter, and many others are doing.
Now I don't want to see nude pictures of Robert Hall, or filthy language being used either.
And as far as Broadcast TV and Radio, we have laws in place to keep it off our airwaves.
Cable TV has gotten around many of those laws, since they are a subscriber service.
But at least now you have to subscribe to the filthy channels separately from the main feed.
Most of the social media sites are basically Liberal Propaganda Machines, which has become quite obvious.
And for this reason, they need to have a heavy arm and strong laws brought down on them.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
... simply breathtaking.Most of the social media sites are basically Liberal Propaganda Machines, which has become quite obvious.
And for this reason, they need to have a heavy arm and strong laws brought down on them.
The public utility companies in this country are common carriers. That is to say they are neutral and must supply their service to anybody who can pay for it. They are not allowed to choose who gets how much electricity or natural gas. The phone company is just a bunch of wires networked to connect people and the owners of said common carriers also are not allowed to filter or moderate anything sent over their networks. The point is that certain services are needed for the public at large to function. Because of that necessity the owners of those companies must remain neutral and not discriminate in their product distribution.
The Internet was considered a common carrier, but under the last presidency that classification was eliminated. Thus the Internet does not fall under the common carrier regulations and can in fact be manipulated by service providers. That's the reason why you must pay Comcast a higher fee if you want faster download speeds. Plus, Comcast can restrict the content that they serve if they so chose to do so. Unlike the utility companies ISP's are not bound to a defined price structure and can charge whatever the market will bear for their services.
Social networks, such as Facebook and Twitter, are content generators. They are much like FOX News Media Company which by the way is not registered as a news outlet. It is registered as an entertainment channel and serves its content in that light. All these social and entertainment companies are just that and nothing more. The owners, who would be the shareholders, determine more or less what is broadcast, regulated, moderated, filtered, or in any other way manipulated before it is presented to the public. Trump's Truth Social falls into the same category as all the above and enjoys the same content freedom as all the others.
Yes, there are folks who do not appreciate the content of the social and entertainment outlets that are popular. To say that those companies should be regulated with a heavy hand because you disagree with their content is to advocate government control of the media. I don't know where you have been all these years, but here in America that is not part of our constitution. If you don't like Twitter's version of content, there is always Truth Social.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
Hmm. I hate to say this, but utility companies CAN and DO shut down businesses when demands are high.
When we converted our oil boilers over to natural gas, our contract with Laclede Gas clearly stated that if there is a gas shortage, they can shut us off until the supply is back up again.
This is one reason we still kept both the old coal boilers and the older oil boilers in working order. Just in case.
When I was working for Sverdrup & Parcel, one of the office buildings they owned had the electrical power shut down at least twice while I was working for them. Thankfully it was only for like 4 to 6 hours each time. But the point is, it was purposely shut off because there was a hospital on that same Circuit Area. Other than a natural power outage, places like hospitals are always the first to be supplied with electricity. Then residences, and finally commercial enterprises.
But that is not discrimination, it's common sense.
I wonder what is going to happen when there are so many electric cars that the grid can't handle the excess power consumption load they place on the grid?
I think they need to make the Internet classified as Common Carrier, and this should be carried over to the companies who provide access to the internet.
Social media site DO DISCRIMINATE and do so BIG TIME!
While at the same time allowing pornography and foul language to run rampant.
The Internet has went from a novelty to a MUST HAVE utility.
And it won't be long before you can't do anything at all without a Schmartz-Fone.
I'll hold out as long as possible before I ever get one of them.
I do a lot of ordering on-line now, and the amount of scammers out there is unbelievable.
Social media sites should be able to control their content. WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION to certain segments of people.
After all, when they BAN a sitting president of the United States because he's a conservative, that tells you all you need to know about the Socialist Commies who own the propaganda services.
When we converted our oil boilers over to natural gas, our contract with Laclede Gas clearly stated that if there is a gas shortage, they can shut us off until the supply is back up again.
This is one reason we still kept both the old coal boilers and the older oil boilers in working order. Just in case.
When I was working for Sverdrup & Parcel, one of the office buildings they owned had the electrical power shut down at least twice while I was working for them. Thankfully it was only for like 4 to 6 hours each time. But the point is, it was purposely shut off because there was a hospital on that same Circuit Area. Other than a natural power outage, places like hospitals are always the first to be supplied with electricity. Then residences, and finally commercial enterprises.
But that is not discrimination, it's common sense.
I wonder what is going to happen when there are so many electric cars that the grid can't handle the excess power consumption load they place on the grid?
I think they need to make the Internet classified as Common Carrier, and this should be carried over to the companies who provide access to the internet.
Social media site DO DISCRIMINATE and do so BIG TIME!
While at the same time allowing pornography and foul language to run rampant.
The Internet has went from a novelty to a MUST HAVE utility.
And it won't be long before you can't do anything at all without a Schmartz-Fone.
I'll hold out as long as possible before I ever get one of them.
I do a lot of ordering on-line now, and the amount of scammers out there is unbelievable.
Social media sites should be able to control their content. WITHOUT DISCRIMINATION to certain segments of people.
After all, when they BAN a sitting president of the United States because he's a conservative, that tells you all you need to know about the Socialist Commies who own the propaganda services.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
Perhaps I didn't explain my point clearly. Utility companies are regulated as common carriers and they do have the authority to deny service when issues of infrastructure, supply and demand, and non payment for service are involved. I am sure that is all stated in the fine print that only a lawyer would comprehend. They are obligated by law to provide the utility service regardless of what you use it for. In that sense the utility companies are neutral. ISP's are not bound by such regulation because the Internet was but is no longer defined as a common carrier.
Social media has no comparison with utility companies. While the biggest ones are very influential they fall under the freedom of speech amendment in that they can freely provide content of any kind. Like any other company social media exists to be profitable. So when in 2016 Mark Zuckerberg sold ad space and collected Facebook user data that also was sold to Russian robots to promote voting for Donald Trump, that was ok and in fact legal. After four years of being forced to publish Donald Trump's lies and misinformation because he was after all POTUS, Twitter in January of 2021 banned his personal account. His content was not consistent with their Terms Of Service. Twitter, as you may or may not recall, was not the only social media to ban Mr Trump. He was banned just about everywhere which is why he decided to create his own social network where his lies and propaganda would be welcome, and legal by the way. None of the social media that I know of canceled his account simply because he was conservative. Truth be told, Donald Trump does not follow the traditional conservative line of thought to begin with. Be that all as it may, each one of the social media organizations is free to discriminate in any manner they feel proper and consistent with making a profit from their users and sponsors.
Donald Trump established his own social network called Truth Social. There is no secret about what is going on there in terms of bias. Like minded people tend to flock together and that is what is happening on Trump's social network. Donald Trump is doing exactly what those other social media platforms are doing but applying his own unique perspective. Saying that his lies and conspiracy theories is the truth doesn't make it so. But, he is free to say what he likes for the same reasons Twitter, Facebook, and all the rest are allowed. This is America after all.
Social media has no comparison with utility companies. While the biggest ones are very influential they fall under the freedom of speech amendment in that they can freely provide content of any kind. Like any other company social media exists to be profitable. So when in 2016 Mark Zuckerberg sold ad space and collected Facebook user data that also was sold to Russian robots to promote voting for Donald Trump, that was ok and in fact legal. After four years of being forced to publish Donald Trump's lies and misinformation because he was after all POTUS, Twitter in January of 2021 banned his personal account. His content was not consistent with their Terms Of Service. Twitter, as you may or may not recall, was not the only social media to ban Mr Trump. He was banned just about everywhere which is why he decided to create his own social network where his lies and propaganda would be welcome, and legal by the way. None of the social media that I know of canceled his account simply because he was conservative. Truth be told, Donald Trump does not follow the traditional conservative line of thought to begin with. Be that all as it may, each one of the social media organizations is free to discriminate in any manner they feel proper and consistent with making a profit from their users and sponsors.
Donald Trump established his own social network called Truth Social. There is no secret about what is going on there in terms of bias. Like minded people tend to flock together and that is what is happening on Trump's social network. Donald Trump is doing exactly what those other social media platforms are doing but applying his own unique perspective. Saying that his lies and conspiracy theories is the truth doesn't make it so. But, he is free to say what he likes for the same reasons Twitter, Facebook, and all the rest are allowed. This is America after all.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
Our local electric company is once again trying to get on the Internet band wagon, by providing an Internet connection through the utility lines for electric. They tried this once before and had so many transformers and things they had to change out, they were losing money at it. So, the set it aside for a few years until most of their old problematic transformers have been replaced with newer modern ones.
I just let the Trump Biden info rest. You all got what you voted for, and now look at the mess!
I just let the Trump Biden info rest. You all got what you voted for, and now look at the mess!
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
I guess it's technically possible to use the power lines for connection to the Internet. The advantage of doing that is in the rural areas where service might be limited. Power lines are everywhere. I can't see how all those data packets would make it through the transformers necessary to conduct power, but apparently they solved that problem somehow. It would be interesting to know if the electric company was thinking of end-to-end connectivity or if they are just going to connect you to an intermediate ISP and onto the network from there.
That's what democracy is all about, is it not?You all got what you voted for, and now look at the mess!
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
Companies have been using BPL for several years now, on their own dedicated circuits, which means after the transformer.
To get Internet from your house to the substation where they then connect to cable or fiber optics is the challenges.
They have to bypass the transformer, and there are a few ways to do this already.
One is to replace the transformer with one that has an internal circuit to intercept high frequency signals and pass them through the transformer. The other is to use a tickler box that bypasses the transformer and goes from the high tension lines to your house input lines, but it only carries the high frequency signal. They say this way is better as it causes less interference.
However, the big problem with using power lines is they are NOT Shielded and can pick up all kinds of noise from radio and tv stations, police radios, CBs and Ham Radio's. They can also LEAK spurious radiation in the radio bandwaves which is illegal to do. And Ham and Police radio operators will be on their case to get these emissions stopped PDQ. Which could be costly.
The other problem is, each electrical substation will have to have expensive equipment to capture the Internet signals and transfer them onto the cable or fiber optic systems. Since many substations are not near mainline cable systems, they would have to tap into local cable company lines, which would also come at a hefty price.
I think StarLink will give everyone a run for their money. Right now they are 99 bucks a month for UNLIMITED, but will go up to 110 bucks a month in May. Then there is the DISH you will need and the Dish System was 499, but has gone up to 599.
But once he has more satellites up, it is claimed that as the number of users increase, the price will be able to come down.
This won't happen until after the cost of getting all those satellites up there reaches a break even point, and this includes the maintenance costs as well.
Yeppers! We are a Democratic Republic, currently being run by the crooked Church of Lyintology!
To get Internet from your house to the substation where they then connect to cable or fiber optics is the challenges.
They have to bypass the transformer, and there are a few ways to do this already.
One is to replace the transformer with one that has an internal circuit to intercept high frequency signals and pass them through the transformer. The other is to use a tickler box that bypasses the transformer and goes from the high tension lines to your house input lines, but it only carries the high frequency signal. They say this way is better as it causes less interference.
However, the big problem with using power lines is they are NOT Shielded and can pick up all kinds of noise from radio and tv stations, police radios, CBs and Ham Radio's. They can also LEAK spurious radiation in the radio bandwaves which is illegal to do. And Ham and Police radio operators will be on their case to get these emissions stopped PDQ. Which could be costly.
The other problem is, each electrical substation will have to have expensive equipment to capture the Internet signals and transfer them onto the cable or fiber optic systems. Since many substations are not near mainline cable systems, they would have to tap into local cable company lines, which would also come at a hefty price.
I think StarLink will give everyone a run for their money. Right now they are 99 bucks a month for UNLIMITED, but will go up to 110 bucks a month in May. Then there is the DISH you will need and the Dish System was 499, but has gone up to 599.
But once he has more satellites up, it is claimed that as the number of users increase, the price will be able to come down.
This won't happen until after the cost of getting all those satellites up there reaches a break even point, and this includes the maintenance costs as well.
Yeppers! We are a Democratic Republic, currently being run by the crooked Church of Lyintology!
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
I understand all the problems you mention regarding using electricity supply lines for Internet data transmission. I haven't seen on advantage other than what I mentioned about the infrastructure already being in place. The problem you did not mention and one of the greatest to be solved has to do with security. Internet traffic uses a carrier frequency and as you say the power lines are not shielded. That means anybody along the transmission path can intercept the hi frequency radiation and do what they like with the information. It would also be possible to easily inject interfering signals that could shut down the entire network. The current cable network is not immune from such things, but most of that is underground and optical which makes it a lot more difficult to access than open air power lines.
StarLink might sound like a great idea but it is based on the old debunked "trickle down" theory. That is the theory that any excess profits made by the company, any company, would be returned to the users in the form of reduced costs. It's a joke. That was the theory behind the big tax cut all the corporations were given a few years back. They did make some token reductions and gave out bonuses, but the vast majority of the companies kept the windfall profits to enhance their own operations. StarLink isn't any different than the rest of them. At best it's a "Bait and Switch" con game they are playing. It may be a good idea to sign up in the beginning when rates are low, but they most certainly will not stay that way. It's against the age old business maxim to maximize profits.
StarLink might sound like a great idea but it is based on the old debunked "trickle down" theory. That is the theory that any excess profits made by the company, any company, would be returned to the users in the form of reduced costs. It's a joke. That was the theory behind the big tax cut all the corporations were given a few years back. They did make some token reductions and gave out bonuses, but the vast majority of the companies kept the windfall profits to enhance their own operations. StarLink isn't any different than the rest of them. At best it's a "Bait and Switch" con game they are playing. It may be a good idea to sign up in the beginning when rates are low, but they most certainly will not stay that way. It's against the age old business maxim to maximize profits.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
Many eons ago, back when I had one of those HUGE satellite dishes in my backyard, I could get cable TV for free, but not from the satellites. If a cable line worker left a cap off one of the connection points, all I had to do was swing my dish so it was pointed toward the cable junction box, and voila, we had free cable TV, hi hi.
Later on, I found out we could do the same thing using a short dipole antenna mounted in the yard, but with a pigtail end placed very near the cable junction box. Trouble is, if any lineman saw an antenna close to their box, they would check the box and make sure all the caps were in place, and sometimes add a second steel cover over the existing tin cover, hi hi.
You are right about one thing, a company is NOT going to reduce the price customers have become accustomed to, even if they got a huge deduction in their taxes. But eventually the price would not climb like it used to.
Most companies prices are set using a formula, a percentage over Cost of Goods Sold.
They are not likely to raise this percentage as it has been set in stone for 50 years or longer for each industry.
The taxes a company pays out, including the cost of accounting for those taxes, becomes a part of the Cost of Goods Sold.
So getting a tax break this year will not affect the sale price of the goods, but they probably won't go down in price either, since the higher price was already established.
You'll never see prices go down, but once they finally get to the equalization point, you either won't see them go up when they normally would have.
Although, right now with Bidenflation, everyone is cashing in on upping their prices when they didn't need to.
Heck, even my aquarium product which traditionally sold for 18 to 19 bucks for years, because folks wouldn't pay more for it, now suddenly all the stores have marked it up to 29.95 and are offering 20% off right now. So the product is selling for over 23 bucks. And that is how they are getting the price up. After a while they won't give a 20% discount, but drop it to 15% or 10% and eventually no discount. This trick works in nearly every industry too, with little or no competition.
Later on, I found out we could do the same thing using a short dipole antenna mounted in the yard, but with a pigtail end placed very near the cable junction box. Trouble is, if any lineman saw an antenna close to their box, they would check the box and make sure all the caps were in place, and sometimes add a second steel cover over the existing tin cover, hi hi.
You are right about one thing, a company is NOT going to reduce the price customers have become accustomed to, even if they got a huge deduction in their taxes. But eventually the price would not climb like it used to.
Most companies prices are set using a formula, a percentage over Cost of Goods Sold.
They are not likely to raise this percentage as it has been set in stone for 50 years or longer for each industry.
The taxes a company pays out, including the cost of accounting for those taxes, becomes a part of the Cost of Goods Sold.
So getting a tax break this year will not affect the sale price of the goods, but they probably won't go down in price either, since the higher price was already established.
You'll never see prices go down, but once they finally get to the equalization point, you either won't see them go up when they normally would have.
Although, right now with Bidenflation, everyone is cashing in on upping their prices when they didn't need to.
Heck, even my aquarium product which traditionally sold for 18 to 19 bucks for years, because folks wouldn't pay more for it, now suddenly all the stores have marked it up to 29.95 and are offering 20% off right now. So the product is selling for over 23 bucks. And that is how they are getting the price up. After a while they won't give a 20% discount, but drop it to 15% or 10% and eventually no discount. This trick works in nearly every industry too, with little or no competition.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
When corporate taxes are reduced their expenses for paying whatever taxes remain are more or less constant. In other words it does not cost less to pay less tax. However, two events occur when corporate taxes are reduced. The income from those now reduced taxes is no longer available to the United States Treasury. Like corporations, expenses for the Treasury remain pretty much the same regardless of income so that the shortfall of income has to be reconciled in some way. The reconciliation is either in the form of higher taxes for individuals or by borrowing more money in the open market, thereby increasing the national debt. The second event to occur is the increase in corporate cash profits due to the taxes they no longer must pay. That creates a pool of money which essentially was unearned. The increased profit due to lower taxes does not add to the cost of running the corporation. Trickle Down economics assumes (albeit it never happened in all of history) the excess profit will be returned in some form to the consumer. In practice the excess profits go to increase already excessive salaries of executives and/or to buy back stocks in the open market. The buy back has the effect of raising the price of the stocks which most corporate executives own outright or in the form of options.
The bottom line is that individual taxpayers get screwed while corporate management benefits.
You did some weird things back in the day. LOL I suppose adjusting the satellite dish in your back yard was not a big deal when you did it. I also suppose there was a time when you didn't need a black box inside your house to decrypt the signal on the cables too. Now and days I've not seen a residential dish on the ground anywhere. They are small and typically mounted high up on the house they are connected to. Even if you could adjust it to receive the radiation from the cable junction box, I do believe you would still need to decode it before you can see anything.
The bottom line is that individual taxpayers get screwed while corporate management benefits.
You did some weird things back in the day. LOL I suppose adjusting the satellite dish in your back yard was not a big deal when you did it. I also suppose there was a time when you didn't need a black box inside your house to decrypt the signal on the cables too. Now and days I've not seen a residential dish on the ground anywhere. They are small and typically mounted high up on the house they are connected to. Even if you could adjust it to receive the radiation from the cable junction box, I do believe you would still need to decode it before you can see anything.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
ALL Taxes on ANY BUSINESS, large or small, including all those in the chain of manufacturing and distribution, is ultimately paid for by the End Consumer at often a 5 to 1 ratio or higher up to around a 7 to 1 ratio.
If you were ever in business you would understand this.
We quit using our BIG Satellite dish when they started charging to decrypt their signals.
Plus, the small Dishes for the Low Orbit Satellites had many features, such as record 3 to 5 shows at once. Now that is much higher, the system my wife currently uses, she can record like 20 shows at once.
Going back to my big satellite dish. I had to buy a new receiver that had sockets to plug in the decryption chips. It only had four slots if I remember right, and there were six different signals we wanted to watch. So we were forever swapping out the darn plug in chipsets.
I had a really nice big dish too. Automated so I could turn it and raise and lower the dish from inside the house, from the controller box for that. And it had memory so I could save the settings and not spend all the set-up time each time.
Our neighbor had a semi-automatic it could turn to 3 different satellites, but if he wanted the other set of satellites, he had to go out to the dish and raise it up himself.
When we first got the Big satellite dish, I loved too play around with it using my Ham Gear. You would not believe the number of things being sent back to earth from the satellites out there, and back then, nothing was encrypted, hi hi.
Now I think they are all digital and encoded big time, hi hi.
One of them I enjoyed listening to I think belonged to the Navy. I say that because almost everything I heard originated on a ship out at sea. Some of it was sailors calling home, but you could only hear what they were saying, not the person they were speaking to. Or the navigator radioing in their coordinates, amount of fuel, things like that.
I really lucked out the day they were having some type of maneuvers and there must have been 20 ships all the same band.
But heck, that was like 40 years ago now. Days of Yore long gone bye.
When we switched from one satellite company to another back home, the small dishes. I kept one of the dishes and used it for 2-meter packet radio. Not pointed to a satellite but to a distance packet repeater. Worked better than a Yagi antenna.
But then my horns burned out, first one and then another, so it ended up in the scrap heap.
If you were ever in business you would understand this.
We quit using our BIG Satellite dish when they started charging to decrypt their signals.
Plus, the small Dishes for the Low Orbit Satellites had many features, such as record 3 to 5 shows at once. Now that is much higher, the system my wife currently uses, she can record like 20 shows at once.
Going back to my big satellite dish. I had to buy a new receiver that had sockets to plug in the decryption chips. It only had four slots if I remember right, and there were six different signals we wanted to watch. So we were forever swapping out the darn plug in chipsets.
I had a really nice big dish too. Automated so I could turn it and raise and lower the dish from inside the house, from the controller box for that. And it had memory so I could save the settings and not spend all the set-up time each time.
Our neighbor had a semi-automatic it could turn to 3 different satellites, but if he wanted the other set of satellites, he had to go out to the dish and raise it up himself.
When we first got the Big satellite dish, I loved too play around with it using my Ham Gear. You would not believe the number of things being sent back to earth from the satellites out there, and back then, nothing was encrypted, hi hi.
Now I think they are all digital and encoded big time, hi hi.
One of them I enjoyed listening to I think belonged to the Navy. I say that because almost everything I heard originated on a ship out at sea. Some of it was sailors calling home, but you could only hear what they were saying, not the person they were speaking to. Or the navigator radioing in their coordinates, amount of fuel, things like that.
I really lucked out the day they were having some type of maneuvers and there must have been 20 ships all the same band.
But heck, that was like 40 years ago now. Days of Yore long gone bye.
When we switched from one satellite company to another back home, the small dishes. I kept one of the dishes and used it for 2-meter packet radio. Not pointed to a satellite but to a distance packet repeater. Worked better than a Yagi antenna.
But then my horns burned out, first one and then another, so it ended up in the scrap heap.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
OK, you actually did a LOT more weird stuff with dish antennas that I originally thought. LOL And, it goes without saying that forty years has seen unimaginable changes in technology. There are thousands upon thousands of satellites out there irradiating the earth with more information than humankind is capable of digesting. That will all change when quantum computers are readily available. The problem with those quantum computers of the future is that the current systems for security and encryption will become obsolete. Something new will need to be invented to make all that free data secure again. I'd love to be around when that day becomes a reality.
Just to remind you I explained clearly (so I thought) that I understand your explanation of how the consumer pays all taxes. That reality does not change anything regarding the consequences of reducing the corporate tax rate. The world of economics is a lot larger than the inside of a mom and pop shop, believe it or not.
Just to remind you I explained clearly (so I thought) that I understand your explanation of how the consumer pays all taxes. That reality does not change anything regarding the consequences of reducing the corporate tax rate. The world of economics is a lot larger than the inside of a mom and pop shop, believe it or not.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
I think the other way around. Security will be handled an entirely different way.
By the time quantum computers fall into the hands of the general public.
There won't be a single person on planet earth who is unknown to the system.
Nobody will be able to hide behind false identities anymore, much less try to reap havoc.
And I really don't think it will be due to a chip everyone has to have, because those could be removed.
Just like we have fingerprints, and a few places have retina scans, I'm thinking way ahead of that.
A method of reading our DNA signature from touching something, breathing, or having a dot shined on us, will be invented.
Akin to how the FBI currently uses facial recognition, only in the future they won't use cameras, a single invisible dot could extract your DNA from a wall mounted scanning device.
You also won't be able to fool your computer as to who you are, because it won't turn on for anyone other than an approved user, and this user will be well known also.
Individual people have no way of recouping the taxes they are charged on their income and when they spend, plus all the fixed taxes we have to pay.
A business entity of any size, that sells a product or provides a service to generate income, is allowed to deduct the cost of doing so from their taxes. In other words, they only pay taxes on the net income as it should be.
BUT, those taxes and the accounting for them is also an expense, and ALL expenses are figured into the cost of goods sold.
Once the cost of goods sold is established, then the percentage markup for the industry is added to the sale price.
So every business gets back the taxes and the cost to account for them in sales, which in turn creates a higher price for the products, as well as increases the net revenues, so it becomes a vicious circle.
By the time quantum computers fall into the hands of the general public.
There won't be a single person on planet earth who is unknown to the system.
Nobody will be able to hide behind false identities anymore, much less try to reap havoc.
And I really don't think it will be due to a chip everyone has to have, because those could be removed.
Just like we have fingerprints, and a few places have retina scans, I'm thinking way ahead of that.
A method of reading our DNA signature from touching something, breathing, or having a dot shined on us, will be invented.
Akin to how the FBI currently uses facial recognition, only in the future they won't use cameras, a single invisible dot could extract your DNA from a wall mounted scanning device.
You also won't be able to fool your computer as to who you are, because it won't turn on for anyone other than an approved user, and this user will be well known also.
Individual people have no way of recouping the taxes they are charged on their income and when they spend, plus all the fixed taxes we have to pay.
A business entity of any size, that sells a product or provides a service to generate income, is allowed to deduct the cost of doing so from their taxes. In other words, they only pay taxes on the net income as it should be.
BUT, those taxes and the accounting for them is also an expense, and ALL expenses are figured into the cost of goods sold.
Once the cost of goods sold is established, then the percentage markup for the industry is added to the sale price.
So every business gets back the taxes and the cost to account for them in sales, which in turn creates a higher price for the products, as well as increases the net revenues, so it becomes a vicious circle.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
You might have the right idea about security in the future. Identifying individuals should not be all that difficult given that no two of us are alike. It might take a quantum computer to do the analysis, but I agree the tagging of unique individuals should be a no-brainer in the not too distant future. About the same time universal identification becomes commonplace there will be machines with artificial intelligence. There are already some pretty scary predictions as to the time it will take for those intelligent machines to exceed the capacity of us humans. Once that happens things can go out of control because stealing individual ID's will not be necessary. Systems can be compromised without authorization today and it will only get more sophisticated as technology progresses.
Once again I will say that I understand your explanation of how businesses handle taxes they must pay. Out of curiosity more than anything else I will pose a question to you as an experienced businessman. Let's assume you are running a business in today's business environment. In other words none of the rules would be any different than what you have explained already. At the end of the fiscal year your tax accountant audits the books and calculates that your company has made a net profit of $100,000. This is a net figure which is derived after all expenses have been paid, including taxes. The next fiscal year business is the same with one exception. The business tax rate was reduced. At the end of that fiscal year your tax accountant happily reports to you that your company's net profit is $110,000. That increase in profit was due to the reduced tax expense. My question is, "what do you as the owner of the business do with that windfall $10,000 increase in profits?"
Once again I will say that I understand your explanation of how businesses handle taxes they must pay. Out of curiosity more than anything else I will pose a question to you as an experienced businessman. Let's assume you are running a business in today's business environment. In other words none of the rules would be any different than what you have explained already. At the end of the fiscal year your tax accountant audits the books and calculates that your company has made a net profit of $100,000. This is a net figure which is derived after all expenses have been paid, including taxes. The next fiscal year business is the same with one exception. The business tax rate was reduced. At the end of that fiscal year your tax accountant happily reports to you that your company's net profit is $110,000. That increase in profit was due to the reduced tax expense. My question is, "what do you as the owner of the business do with that windfall $10,000 increase in profits?"
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
Debi's niece had to go to another state for a funeral, one of those she had better be there for or else, hi hi.
Naturally she decided to fly. As she was entering the terminal at the airport, like usual, they have metal detectors and like, but while you are in the short narrow space, somehow it also takes your temperature. If you are running a fever, instead of going straight in, you have to exit to the side.
Must be something they set up during the big Covid Scare, probably funded by our taxes too.
After she got back home again, she started looking up things about airport security, and apparently they have all kinds of sensors at the gates now too. One is supposed to be able to detect if a person is nervous. Now who isn't nervous going through an airport?
If the business has shareholders, a percentage of that would go to their dividends for the year.
Some may go to replace some equipment or add newer types of equipment to their production line.
If it were my business, all the employees would get bonus, and I would take a bonus also, to use up about half of it.
No remember, those bonuses are taxable to the individuals and myself as personal income.
I too would upgrade some of the equipment, and possible purchase some additional inventory.
I would not be reducing my current sale price of the products I sell.
But with the cost of all the inventory items going up, it may mean no product price increase the following year.
In reality, whatever the government gives in a break one year, they usually take back the next or the year following.
Even so, it wouldn't change the cost of goods sold by more than a very small margin.
For a company to have 100k in net profits, they are probably doing 2 million or more in sales.
So a 10k difference on the plus side at the end of the year, really isn't that big of a deal.
And like I said, the price for raw materials probably took a jump as well, so it all got burned up real fast in inflation.
Naturally she decided to fly. As she was entering the terminal at the airport, like usual, they have metal detectors and like, but while you are in the short narrow space, somehow it also takes your temperature. If you are running a fever, instead of going straight in, you have to exit to the side.
Must be something they set up during the big Covid Scare, probably funded by our taxes too.
After she got back home again, she started looking up things about airport security, and apparently they have all kinds of sensors at the gates now too. One is supposed to be able to detect if a person is nervous. Now who isn't nervous going through an airport?
If the business has shareholders, a percentage of that would go to their dividends for the year.
Some may go to replace some equipment or add newer types of equipment to their production line.
If it were my business, all the employees would get bonus, and I would take a bonus also, to use up about half of it.
No remember, those bonuses are taxable to the individuals and myself as personal income.
I too would upgrade some of the equipment, and possible purchase some additional inventory.
I would not be reducing my current sale price of the products I sell.
But with the cost of all the inventory items going up, it may mean no product price increase the following year.
In reality, whatever the government gives in a break one year, they usually take back the next or the year following.
Even so, it wouldn't change the cost of goods sold by more than a very small margin.
For a company to have 100k in net profits, they are probably doing 2 million or more in sales.
So a 10k difference on the plus side at the end of the year, really isn't that big of a deal.
And like I said, the price for raw materials probably took a jump as well, so it all got burned up real fast in inflation.
Re: Alexa vs Alexa
I don't think the sensors Debi's niece passed through at the airport should come as a surprise, especially not to you who is familiar with how slot machines work. I know your experiences there was many years ago, but the house could tell when the slot player was getting excited, for example. The facial recognition machines readily available today can detect a whole range of emotions and I'd not be surprised that gambling houses use those things freely.
As I write this the current situation is that gasoline prices at the pumps you and I use are very high. At the end of Q1, which just ended a few weeks ago, those companies refining oil and distributing gasoline all reported record profits. It's not too hard to imagine from where those record profits came. The huge increase in profits were realized in spite of the cost of a barrel of crude being close to all time highs. It is hard for me to believe the oil companies simply added the industry standard markup to the increased cost of raw material they must buy. Doing only that would not produce "record" profits. As far as I know all the refineries in this country are operating at 100% capacity leaving little room for capital improvements. The dividends to shareholders are set in concrete and will remain the same unless all those companies declare a special one time dividend to distribute the extra profits. They could just keep the money in the bank in case they need it going forward, send it to their favorite political lobbies, or distribute it to CEO's as a performance bonus. In any event the oil companies are benefiting greatly from the increased price of gasoline at the pumps. You and I are still paying all the "hidden taxes" on that gasoline plus whatever else the oil companies think they can suck out of the market. At the end of the day you and I have less disposable income because of the high price of gasoline while the companies which sell it are benefiting beyond normal expectations.
The above is not an unusual or, unfortunately, unexpected scenario. It's classic capitalism driven by the concept of maximizing profits. The intention of capitalism is to encourage competitiveness and improvements in the processes which ultimately result in the lowest possible consumer prices. Some companies follow that business plan. Most of yours did, I'm sure.
Your response to my question was not totally unexpected. You have talked about many of your business endeavors here in these forums so that I had some insight into how you like to run your businesses. Essentially you reiterated my assertion that windfall profits do not trickle down to the consumer but instead are used to enhance the company's operation and it's employees compensation. Bonuses do happen, but I don't believe they are the norm in most companies.Facebook wrote:TSA receives funding from three streams: 1) passengers pay a “9/11 Passenger Security Fee,” a ticket tax of $2.50 per flight segment with a maximum of $10 per round trip; 2) carriers pay an Aviation Security Infrastructure Fee, based on year 2000 domestic screening costs; and 3) TSA also receives direct taxpayer support. Of the sectors overseen by TSA (including rail and pipelines), however, only airlines and their customers pay special taxes for its support.
As I write this the current situation is that gasoline prices at the pumps you and I use are very high. At the end of Q1, which just ended a few weeks ago, those companies refining oil and distributing gasoline all reported record profits. It's not too hard to imagine from where those record profits came. The huge increase in profits were realized in spite of the cost of a barrel of crude being close to all time highs. It is hard for me to believe the oil companies simply added the industry standard markup to the increased cost of raw material they must buy. Doing only that would not produce "record" profits. As far as I know all the refineries in this country are operating at 100% capacity leaving little room for capital improvements. The dividends to shareholders are set in concrete and will remain the same unless all those companies declare a special one time dividend to distribute the extra profits. They could just keep the money in the bank in case they need it going forward, send it to their favorite political lobbies, or distribute it to CEO's as a performance bonus. In any event the oil companies are benefiting greatly from the increased price of gasoline at the pumps. You and I are still paying all the "hidden taxes" on that gasoline plus whatever else the oil companies think they can suck out of the market. At the end of the day you and I have less disposable income because of the high price of gasoline while the companies which sell it are benefiting beyond normal expectations.
The above is not an unusual or, unfortunately, unexpected scenario. It's classic capitalism driven by the concept of maximizing profits. The intention of capitalism is to encourage competitiveness and improvements in the processes which ultimately result in the lowest possible consumer prices. Some companies follow that business plan. Most of yours did, I'm sure.