Braineack

iTrader: (62)

that $216,000 actually goes into another business that creates jobs/tech with it... so yeah, it's not really waste, just very generous.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

And this highlights a concept which seems to be absent from discussions of corporate policy in a broader, macroeconomic context.

Some people seem to be of the opinion that when money is spent, it is somehow destroyed. In fact, quite the opposite is true. From the point of view of a market economy, money is "destroyed" by being hoarded (saved) rather than spent. One could well argue that in a hypothetical marketplace in which all businesses spent as much money as possible without going bankrupt, that the health of the market as a whole would improve, the revenues of every business would increase, the payrolls of every business would expand, etc.

This isn't actually altruism per se. Rather, it's an economic variation on the classical Prisoner's Dilemma. If every company in a given market acted in this manner, then all companies would profit. But if only some companies acted in this way and others were extremely conservative in their spending, then those companies which were conservative would show greater margins than those which spent money freely, for which they would be rewarded by the securities market while the others were punished. Thus, no company is willing to take this risk, and the velocity of money is decreased with resultant decreases in employment, consumer spending, etc.

olderguy

iTrader: (19)

A bald-headed bearded stranger stopped in town and went into an small old hotel to check in. He asked to go check out the rooms first so, in good faith, he left a $100 bill—a deposit of sorts—with the hotel owner. The hotel owner immediately ran next door to pay his grocery bill. The grocer ran it across the street to pay one of his suppliers. The supplier used it to pay off his co-op bill. The co-op guy ran it back across the street to pay the local hooker who had taken up residence in the aforementioned hotel. The hooker ran it downstairs to pay her hotel bill just ahead of the returning traveler, who picked the $100 bill off the desk and left saying that the rooms were not satisfactory.

Someone asked the hotel owner, “Who was that stranger?” The owner said, “I don’t know, but he sure looked a lot like Ben Bernanke.”

mgeoffriau

iTrader: (7)

Do you actually mean hoarded, or do you mean saved in a bank account?

If it's actually being hoarded (ie, stuffed under a mattress), then it's no longer in circulation, and could be considered "destroyed" so long as it's not spent. In this case, it should have a deflationary effect.

But if it's being "saved" in a bank account (or investments), it's still available for lending or investment purposes, and cannot be considered destroyed.

flying_solo

iTrader: (5)

LOL, I may use some of your guys reasoning to make them feel better guys. I'll just tell them they were being good American citizens then thank them for screwing with my bonus for next year.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

I understand the argument you're making, and why you feel there is an important distinction. Under the fractional reserve model of banking which we all learned about in middle-school civics class, when deposits are made into a bank, this in turn enables the bank to make loans to other people. And since that money would in turn tend to be deposited in other banks (and subsequently re-loaned, and re-deposited, and re-loaned...), then it's possible for "new money" to be created which is several times the amount of the initial deposit by the time all is said and done.


Putting aside the various marginal arguments against this practice (eg: rapid money creation leads to price inflation, encourages deficit spending, etc), there is one fundamental reason why this concept is entirely tangential to the point I was making earlier.


In the "prisoner's dilemma" economic model which I described, nobody is borrowing and spending money in the first place, beyond the absolute minimum required. That was the whole point of the argument; it presupposes an environment in which companies are electing to spend as little money as possible. Thus, it does not matter how large the potential supply of money (in the form of bank credit) is, since nobody wants to borrow it in the first place.


And THAT was offered as a contrasting opinion to the more fundamental concept, made in direct support of what Braineack wrote concerning flying_solo's $216,000 internet connection. From from being "wasted" or "lost," the fact that that money is being SPENT is better (from a broad, macroeconomic perspective) than not spending it would have been. Within certain very reasonable limitations, spending money is always better than not spending money from the point of view of a market economy as a whole.

It is, in fact, a very fundamental prerequisite for having a market economy, much as having your heart beat (as opposed to having it not beat) is a prerequisite for being alive. An economy without the circulation of money is like a body without the circulation of blood. It will look very pretty lying there in its coffin as its lowered into a hole.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

today I saw a fox in my backyard and an albino squirrel in my front.

hustler

iTrader: (6)

A weekend with Tim Leary?

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

just another day in the blue state VA.

y8s

iTrader: (8)

Brain time. And lazy time!

Brewing coffee consists of about 5 minutes of work and 5 minutes of waiting while the coffee brews.

Same with Tea.

But how come brewing beer is not so simple and involves multiple steps, ingredients, and a painstakingly slow biologicial process wherein yeast flatulate?

What dipshit decided that brewing meant such vastly different things? In short: why can't delicious beer take 10 minutes to make?

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

When you "make" coffee or tea, you are skipping over a lot of the prep work that went into the process.

Even if we handwave over the planting and harvesting of the tea leaves and coffee beans as being equivalent to the planting and harvesting of the barley and wheat that we use to make the beer, there's still more to it.

Before the tea leaves reach your kitchen, they have gone through numerous preparatory processes. They have been sorted, withered, macerated, oxidized, rolled, dried, aged, and dispensed into nice little bags ready for your cup of water.

The same holds true for coffee- after the berries are harvested, they are sorted, pulped, fermented, washed, hulled, sorted again, sun-dried, dessicated, aged, packaged, shipped, unpackaged, roasted, blended, packaged again, all before being dropped into your grinder. In some processes, the beans are also passed through the digestive tract of a weasel and then **** out onto the ground prior to the first sorting.


All in all, it's like asking why it takes so much more work to prepared a nice roasted duck than to pop a TV dinner into the microwave. If we made our coffee the same way we make our beer, we'd need to keep some weasels in the back yard.


Disclaimer: Yes, I know that Paradoxurus hermaphroditus is not technically a member of the weasel family. But it sure looks like one.


And there is, actually, a TV-dinner version of beer making. Not that I have any desire to try it: http://www.mrbeer.com/category-exec/category_id/181

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

also, was it dumb i went outside to chase the fox with my camera? i just wanted to cuddle.

y8s

iTrader: (8)

I was about to comment your depiction of the Civet Cat. I'm fully aware of their existence and the attendant ridiculous cost of the coffee from their butts. Here is a picture of one I saw on my trip to Bali:


(that is a young boy named Liam. He is French, 5 years old, and was touring the world for a year with his partents--Americans can also not brew that kind of child.)

Here is a picture of his (the Civet Cat's) prized excrement (on the left):



I'm not entirely sure of what "Male" coffee is. Perhaps it's something you drink while you nosh on Men's Pocky?




In any case, I didn't realize coffee was fermented. That explains why it is delicious as many delicious things are fermented*.

It also explains why I don't make beer. That's a pain in the ***!







* flawed logic notwithstanding

rleete

iTrader: (21)

I have tried Mr. Beer brew. It's not great, but not terrible, either. Comes out pretty mild for the "Craft" beers, but pretty much what you'd expect of budget kits.

The biggest challenge with them is consistency.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

As with most animals, plants and their seeds also have distinct male and female genders.

In the coffee plant, the male seeds are smaller and smoother than the female seeds, and are usually understood to produce a stronger, more potent drink.

For most coffees, the beans are left undifferentiated and all go into the same process. Among producers of Luwak coffee, the two genders are often segregated (a matter of tedious hand-sorting) and processed separately, then blended according to the taste of the brew-master.



While the principle function of the fermentation is to soften and dissolve the flash of the berry, it does alter the flavor characteristics of the finished bean as well.

In the case of Luwak coffee, this is the step which occurs inside the digestive tract of the civet. It's the transformation of proteins within the coffee bean resulting from the unique combination of digestive enzymes in the animal's gut which are believed to produce the differences in flavor and mouthfeel from Luwak coffee as opposed to its conventional counterpart, even when the two are produced from exactly the same berries.

viperormiata

iTrader: (24)

That looks like an awesome backyard for LARPing.

We should really hang out someday.

Braineack

iTrader: (62)

only if I can be a paladin.

Joe Perez

iTrader: (8)

So, help me to understand the following thing about taxation:

Assume that I have gone to the store to purchase an oil filter, or a bottle of wine, or a jar of personal lubricant, or what have you. On the shelf, and perhaps also on the product, is a tag which tells me the cost of the product. $7.99, perhaps. The same is true of any advertizing for the product- be it in the store window or a newspaper insert or a pop-up ad on MiataTurbo.net. All of them will tell me that the price of the product is $7.99.

And, as consumers, we understand that this is the "base" price of the product, and that sales tax will be added to that amount at the register. So a product which is advertized as costing $7.99 actually winds up $8.63, and we just accept this as normal.

This seems to apply to pretty much every retail product in existence for which tax is charged. Tires, shoe polish, air compressors, sacks of concrete mix, motorized ******, boxes of toothpicks shaped like little swords, laptop computers, spray paint, books, RTV silicone, modular Swedish furniture, and on and on. Everything is $X.xx (plus tax.)

Except gasoline.

What's up with that? When I go to the filling station and it says that gasoline is $4.15 per gallon, I actually pay $4.15 per gallon. The advertized price already accounts for all applicable taxes.

Why is this?

I'm serious- does every single state in the US have a law requiring that advertized gasoline prices include tax? And what about Canada, Mexico, all of the EU countries, etc? So far as I can tell, this seems to be a global (or nearly global) phenomenon. Every single thing you buy is advertized as "plus tax" or "ex VAT" or whatever the local terminology is.

Except for motor vehicle fuel.


This is really bugging me.

Oscar

iTrader: (2)

I'm pretty sure that most, if not all products are advertised with the price including 21% VAT over here. What is see in an ad or on the shelf is the price I pay at check out.

Godless Commie

iTrader: (2)

Same here. 18%VAT inclusive of advertised product.