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 .

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 .

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. 

 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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