Roadside Litter

[Patandlinda]

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

As I said, cash is used to evade taxes. Anyone who supports this presumably also supports all other financial crimes.


In the U.S. it is common to pay servers less, because they get tips instead. That's one of the regional differences: in Canada, the same minimum wage (minus about $1/hr in one province for specifically servers of alcohol because they get tipped a lot) applies to every hourly paid worker, whether they are servers getting tips or not. That means if you want to pity some hard working underpaid workers it is the people at fast food places (who don't get tips), not the servers in restaurants and bars who get the same pay, plus double or triple that in tips when it is busy.

I found your response a accusation.
Really I think we pay plenty of taxes already . We don’t have the luxury evading taxes like Amazon’s owner or the others at the top . Sorry Cash is King for us . Enough already . Pat

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by steve dunham

There have been several good documentaries about the abuse and the racism involved with prison labor from the end of the Civil War into the 1970’s

So people convicted of crimes with good behavior can’t go out on a nice day and pick up trash and contribute some service to society? I’m not talking about brutal Gulag labor camps.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by Patandlinda

I found your response a accusation.
Really I think we pay plenty of taxes already .

When someone says paying cash is good because the income is not reported for tax purposes, there's no accusation to be made - the declaration is already out there. I'm not saying that any specific person is doing that, just that we seem to agree that it is being done.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by rubicon327

Two questions regarding litter control that I originally posed that no one directly answered:
- ...
-Isn’t this a huge opportunity for towns to put unemployed people to work?

Any thoughts?

I think the concept of work-for-welfare is likely impossible to discuss without becoming unacceptably political. If the idea is simply jobs picking up litter, then the problem is the source of funding to pay them... oops, back to politics.

[Brian B-P]

Originally Posted by John in Santa Cruz

whaaaa, $0.10 boost for gas for credit, but $0.20 for diesel ?? that just doesn't make much sense.

Originally Posted by Patandlinda

Also John they really have bumped up diesel fuel which I don’t have to tell you was a lot cheaper .

$0.10 on $3 to $4 is about the 3% fee charged for credit card processing to large retailers, but I don't think there's a close correlation between the actual cost to the business of taking credit cards and the amount of the discount for cash. The cash discount amount could also reflect the price sensitivity of different customers (because different fuels sell to different groups of customers), the discounts offered for each product by other retailers, and the profit margin in each product.

The price of diesel versus gasoline is another large topic, covered in other threads. Diesel has become more expensive, but it has also changed. That, of course, doesn't have much to do with the discount for cash.

Back when debit cards were new, some retailers of small items (fast food vendors in malls, convenience stores...) charged a fee for using debit. That makes some sense, but when the card processing service's charge to the retailer was a few cents some of them were charging the customer 50 cents; they saw an income opportunity - selling convenience expensively - and took it. Good for them; the actual internal finances of any operation is not the customer's business, the customer just needs to decide if the price asked with worth the product offered.

The really amusing variation of this was when similar small retailers would set a minimum price for credit card purchases (such as $5), only taking cash or debit under that. That's backwards, because the fee charged to the retailer is typically a fixed amount for a debit transaction (regardless of transaction value), and a percentage of the transaction value for credit. That means they should prefer credit on small purchases and debit on large. I think all of this financial technology is too much for both small retailers and many customers to understand... perhaps one reason for preferring cash on both sides.

[gbaglo]

Originally Posted by Brian B-P

I think the concept of work-for-welfare is likely impossible to discuss without becoming unacceptably political.

Let's see. Overtime for the chain gang guards, transportation, catering. That couldn't possibly result in higher taxes, could it?

[steve dunham]

Originally Posted by rubicon327

So people convicted of crimes with good behavior can’t go out on a nice day and pick up trash and contribute some service to society? I’m not talking about brutal Gulag labor camps.

This is not the forum for this debate . I only pointed out some historical information that is readily available on the subject . Neither I nor anyone else mentioned “ Gulag”

One of the larger merchants in the Midwest is talking of no longer taking / making cash sales or limiting the number of checkout points that will accept cash .
They want to limit the number of store clerks who have access to actual cash
Kind of hard to steal from the till when everything is checks or charge slips

We have not full accepted or adapted to the computer age . We don’t do internet banking , we don’t buy from amazon , we pay for most stuff with cash , we don’t have an ATM card
we don’t have a debit card , we still have a land line , no cable or satellite tv ,no netflix
no wifi , no hotspot , no sirius radio , etc etc etc
Life is much simpler when you live in the woods in the middle of nowhere with the closest large town a 100 miles away
Not everyone can or wants to live on the coasts — East or West

[Iowa Dave]

Originally Posted by steve dunham

This is not the forum for this debate . I only pointed out some historical information that is readily available on the subject . Neither I nor anyone else mentioned “ Gulag”

One of the larger merchants in the Midwest is talking of no longer taking / making cash sales or limiting the number of checkout points that will accept cash .
They want to limit the number of store clerks who have access to actual cash
Kind of hard to steal from the till when everything is checks or charge slips

We have not full accepted or adapted to the computer age . We don’t do internet banking , we don’t buy from amazon , we pay for most stuff with cash , we don’t have an ATM card
we don’t have a debit card , we still have a land line , no cable or satellite tv ,no netflix
no wifi , no hotspot , no sirius radio , etc etc etc
Life is much simpler when you live in the woods in the middle of nowhere with the closest large town a 100 miles away
Not everyone can or wants to live on the coasts — East or West

Ahhhh
Why can’t things just be as simple as the Movie “ Cool Hand Luke”? Anybody who argues on the forum gets “A Night in the Box”!
Willie Nelson’s old song, Blackjack County Chain , comes to mind here.
Snow coming, have to go to the grocery store and buy stuff I don’t need.
Iowa Dave

[cpaharley2008]

What we have here is a failure to communicate....right now it is 55 and rising,,,going to take the horse out for awhile to charge the battery.....

[rubicon327]

Originally Posted by steve dunham

This is not the forum for this debate.

Agreed Steve. Didn’t mean to take this thread down a rabbit hole.

[vintageracer]

He's a little bit of me he's a little bit of you!

https://vimeo.com/84892675

[santacruzer]

Back to "cash only".....we went to the RV Manufacturers Show in Pleasanton last week-end. Parking was "cash only", as was admission to the show itself. Couldn't buy a ticket with a credit card. All food/drink inside was also cash only. And at $13 for a lousy beer, I found I wasn't that thirsty!

[Lynda]

Hi Rubicon:
I agree with pretty much everything you're saying here and would guess the answer to most of your questions is YES. One thought that occurs to me: as someone who grew up in the 70s, at a time when the seriousness of pollution was coming to the forefront of our national consciousness.. it seems to me -- of course, I was a kid at the time, but I remember -- there was push from the grown ups to raise awareness (I guess those "grownups" were actually the government?) I clearly remember Woodsie Owl and the "Give hoot, Don't pollute" campaign, and of course the crying Indian commercial. My parents would have chopped off my hand if they caught me littering: it just wasn't done; no question about it, you dispose of your trash properly, you DO NOT drop it on the ground....

I wonder if the root of the problem is just that it's not as socially unacceptable to litter as it used to be?

[Dmmsix]

Picking up litter is integral to a better home landscape. I was taught to always leave my "campsite" or neighborhood better than when I found it. So, I pick up trash on walks (most times) and at all campsites. However I do remembr being raised with a mother who was very neat and tidy except she threw her cigarettes out the car window! This does not happen as often as it used to. I agree, that mutually beneficial citizenship is critical to be taught to our children & grandchildren.

[LarryLSB]

Originally Posted by santacruzer

Back to "cash only".....we went to the RV Manufacturers Show in Pleasanton last week-end. Parking was "cash only", as was admission to the show itself. Couldn't buy a ticket with a credit card. All food/drink inside was also cash only. And at $13 for a lousy beer, I found I wasn't that thirsty!

At $13 a pint, I expect a great beer, not a lousy beer! I see you are in my area, where do you go for beer?

Larry

[Ronn]

Originally Posted by vintageracer

he's a little bit of me he's a little bit of you!

https://vimeo.com/84892675

cute video, thanks

[cpaharley2008]

Interestingly, the Monkees released a song, same title in 1967, 43 years ago....

[Iowa Dave]

Hi Jim
I doubted your expertise as a musical historian but now “I’m a Believer”.
Iowa Dave

[cpaharley2008]

In 66/67 I was at Parson's College listening to them on the juke at Connie's Place in Rome, Iowa

[santacruzer]

Lots of good places in Santa Cruz and local area for beer! Discretion Brewery on 41st, West End Tap on the West Side, Seabright Brewery....small breweries are popping up all over the place.