When is a Sale a Sale? Something I've always wondered. According to Boston.com, in Mass. a item can be advertised as "On Sale" for 69% of the year....
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Malcolm Gladwell, (The Tipping Point, Blink), has an article in the New Yorker that asserts:
"The truly successful businessman"..."is anything but a risk-taker. He is a predator, and predators seek to incur the least risk possible while hunting. Would we so revere risk-taking if we realized that the people who are supposedly taking bold risks in the cause of entrepreneurship are actually doing no such thing?"
I hadn't been in business for long before I realized it was possible to make MUCH more money if you didn't have a conscience. I mean, it didn't even require that you do anything illegal, or ... in many cases...even something that most of the public would consider unethical. You just had to ignore that little voice that said it was "Unfair."
Which I couldn't do.
I've seen a couple of people make big money, and in both cases they did things that I would charitably call "leverage" and "playing the angles."
Whatever. I hope they enjoy their ill gotten gains.
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From Yahoo.finance:
Within the Borders superstore segment, total sales for the period were $649.2 million, a 14.7% decrease from a year ago. Comparable store sales at Borders superstores declined 14.6%.
That's just brutal.
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I probably ought to hold off commenting about the city council race until it's further along. But one thing I do worry about:
After throwing money away on ill-considered, pie-in-the-sky, bad development projects, that we'll compound the problem by throwing money away on 'good' , all for the social 'benefit' projects.
Just saying.
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About 20 years ago, I read a very 'authoritative' article that said video stores would be extinct in about 5 years because of 'streaming' video on demand.
In another 5 years, I think they'll be right!
From today's Oregonian: "The Wall Street Journal reported that Movie Gallery, parent of Hollywood Video, may be about to launch a major restructuring that could include another mass store closure.
It would be the second restructuring for Wilsonville-based Movie Gallery in three years. The company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2007. "
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Weirdly enough, it looks like losing the Mass. Senate seat might pass the health bill faster. You know, if the House Democrats are panicked enough to accept the Senate bill as it is.
I'll believe when I see it.
Epic fail?
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My favorite bookstore blog, Inkwell, appears to have gone belly-up.
It seems like the more intensive a blog is, the more likely it is to dry up. Not counting what I would consider "professional" blogs, who actually make their living that way. But very few blogs seem to last all that long...
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8 comments:
"I've seen a couple of people make big money, and in both cases they did things that I would charitably call "leverage" and "playing the angles."
Giving the lie to the carefully fostered conservative myth that all rich people amassed their pile through "hard work" and therefore it's a crime to take any of it away from them through taxation.
People believe that bullshit because they WANT to believe it -- they want to believe that life is fair, that the rewards are passed out on the basis of merit.
They ain't -- or at least they often are not.
"Behind every great fortune there is a crime." -- Balzac. More often there are many crimes.
"After throwing money away on ill-considered, pie-in-the-sky, bad development projects, that we'll compound the problem by throwing money away on 'good' , all for the social 'benefit' projects."
Do you have anything specific in mind?
I don't see this council going overboard on "progressive" projects. This ain't Ashland or Boulder CO.
"very few blogs seem to last all that long..."
Hope this isn't your signal that you're getting tired of this stuff, Duncan!
It seems like the more intensive a blog is, the more likely it is to dry up. Not counting what I would consider "professional" blogs, who actually make their living that way. But very few blogs seem to last all that long...
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Let's figure? 'professional' aka writers like HBM,... who is going to PAY? Post 1995 computer world aka WWW, everybody wants everything for free. Doesn't take long with any web model to see if your going to be a facebook, or google, or 2nd-life,... the whole deal is to sell your website, so people can make this shit 'sticky' by paying BIG bucks for professional content, but eventually somebody is going to pull the plug.
How long? The clock seems to be running out quicker everyday. I have stood by 1996 and scratched my ass how long this new 'paradigm' of FREE will last. Ok, so its lasted 14 years and now we're in a depression.
With regards to 'streaming-video', let me just say that USA has probably the worst and oldest and most expensive 'bandwidth' in the world. There is no hope in sight. Want cheap, fast internet? Go to Asia or Europe. The USA is now stuck in a mode of selling obsolete technology to its monopoly holdings, the rest of the world simply doesn't care.
It's quite funny, so long as ameriKKKans don't travel they'll continue to believe that they're not a third world country. Like BB2 the USA will not end with a bang, it will end with a whimper.
"It's quite funny, so long as ameriKKKans don't travel they'll continue to believe that they're not a third world country."
But ... but ... but ... this is The Greatest Country in the World! They told me so in the third grade!
Goddam communist.
"Like BB2 ... it will end with a whimper."
So why indeed did BB2 end with a whimper? Everything has been erased everything as if nothing ever happened.
"So why indeed did BB2 end with a whimper?"
I've been wondering about that myself.
I wonder if he got in some kind of trouble, and he had to erase his very existence.
"Who me?"
So why indeed did BB2 end with a whimper?
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Well they outed Homer almost two years ago and he came back, so I doubt his disappearance is legal trouble.
What we know about homer is he was a day-trader with an MBA, let's face the facts the stock-market is net-zero less transaction cost past ten years, ... its BendFucked(tm).
Homer had to get back to work, and most likely NOT Bend. He played the game way to long for rationality, lets be honest here way too long.
Like me and dunc pointed out long ago, most people aren't in this shit for the long haul, the Bpussy is gone, homer, .. most few remain, hbm, me, dunc, ... we're old-timers all seen this shit before, all been in Oregon 20+ years, .. its the newbies that come & go.
We know that homer was married with kids, we know he was a middle age, post 50 guy, without shit to show for his life. Not a pretty sight, .. sorry homer, .. but your making the right decision, get the fuck out of here and do something with your life.
Not to pick on Dunc, but he has the right idea, 'great job, min-wage', same-same for hbm, great job min-wage, ... same-same me, great job, .. min-wage, ... if you need money, WTF are you doing in Bend?.
Trouble is that a lot of people came here post 1990 and wasted their nest-egg, .. and now they're BEND-FUCKED(TM).
I know for a fact that me, dunc, and hbm always lived way below our ability to earn. So we're survivors. Failures in Bend always go out with a whimper, .. you probably need to live in this town 20+ years to understand what I write.
I came to Bend in the 60's to climb, xc-ski, hike, and ... explore and that's still what I do, I never came to Bend to make money. That is the difference between long-term and short-term. I hope you MOFU's have made your money elsewhere, otherwise we're going to fuck you in the arse.
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