- “As the world struggles with economic challenges, governments everywhere are cutting back on services and seeking new forms of revenue. One of the most talked about new ideas for raising revenue is the financial transactions tax (FTT). Debate over a European FTT dominated June’s European Union summit, while in the United States, civil society groups kicked off a major new FTT campaign.”
- “China’s trade growth decelerated sharply in June as a slowdown in the world’s second-largest economy deepened despite stimulus efforts.”
- “For more than 40 days, 14 men in the north of Spain have spent their days and nights in dark shafts, 3,000 feet underground. They are not trapped. Instead, these miners have voluntarily locked themselves in the depth of the mines to protest against the massive government cuts to the sector.”
- “Egypt’s highest court cancelled a decree by the country’s Islamist president to restore parliament on Tuesday. The supreme constitutional court issued a ruling that overturned President Mohamed Morsi’s decision to reconvene parliament until a constitution is ratified and fresh elections are held.”
- TRNN: “Obama’s Education Policy. First in a three part series about education policy in the US Presidential elections.”
- “After reading an exclusive report that appeared at Working In These Times, the Department of Labor has opened an investigation into captive-audience anti-union meetings held on an army base in Fort Lewis, Washington. Ayofemi Kirby, spokeswoman for Rep. Adam Smith (D-Wash.), and International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) Local 286 union organizer Jeff Alexander both say their respective offices were contacted by a Department of Labor agent looking into whether General Dynamics violated the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act during a recent union election held at Fort Lewis. The DoL’s Office of Labor-Management Standards would neither confirm nor deny that the investigation was taking place.”
- “Ecuador’s ambassador to Washington Nathalie Cely says that granting political asylum to the Australian-born Wikileaks founder Julian Assange could discredit Quito in the US.”
- “It has been nearly two weeks since the parliament of Paraguay orchestrated an institutional coup that removed President Fernando Lugo from power and installed vice president Fernando Franco in his place, a mere 9 months before the next presidential elections.”
- TRNN: “Fruitful pressure. The Israeli membership in the prestigious OECD organization obligates Israel to certain economic and social standards. One of the demands is to close social gaps. But instead of encouraging Jewish employers to take on Arabs workers into hi-tech, Israel instead encourages investors to establish separate hi-tech companies in the Arab sector.”
The truth will set you free but first it will piss you off.



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Mornin’, pups
Morning SD, checking some of your links, thanks again for sifting through the daily spew and bringing us a few.
morning
G’Morning folks….Thanks for the news, SD. It is nicely cool
here…such a change. More rain yesterday. Such a blessing.
Good Morning, Southern Dragon, and Diner Patrons
There’s Trouble Everywhere.
I was just reading and then writing to inquire of my state democratic party leadership, why on their plea to join one of the “official,” party caucus groups, their was no progressive caucus and no labor caucus. I pretty much know the answer already, but supposed they need to know how (Hans the Math Horse)clever they are with their artificial separation of interests in weakening any one of them to effectively have a little say or sway in policy.
Sounds like the new Medicaid provision may be a mess; of course, the TX GoodHair Gov wants no part of it…..Let them eat Nothing…..
FTT: I see absolutely no downside to this.
China: At least they’re not using austerity to fight the problem. Perhaps others will see that stimulus works. Of course, china is a “communist” country, so even if it does work the 1% can still cry “socialism”.
Spain: Good for the miners. But I fear they’ll be down there a long time, as the solution would require reduction of austerity. Wouldn’t shock me a bit to see the mine just close for a couple years, then reopen and hire at miniumu wage.
Egypt: Who’s driving? Where are we going? What’s with the handbasket?
Obama’s education policy: Whatever he says now will change after the election. And not for the better. A good policy at the federal level would be something to make universities cheaper along with direct aid to states for schools. But the Goper’s are driving things, education policy is science denial and as much religious indoctrination as we can get away with. And you can’t say “gay”.
DoL: They’ll spend $$$ investigating, fine a triival amount and pretend they’ve done something. Admittedly, that’s more than DoJ would do.
Equador: Ya think maybe they’re getting some pressure? I hope they tell ObamaLLP to stuff it and offer asylum to Manning as well.
Paraguay: Still no extradition treaties, still a good place for banksters to go hide. I’d call ‘em a banana republic, but if somebody brought up Gore/Bush I don’t know how I’d counter.
Israel: If you think prejudice and discrimination against blacks in the American south is bad, you’ll be AMAZED at how much farther Israel has taken it against Arabs. They’re in separate but (kinda) equal mode. They haven’t even reached the “I’ve got friends who are Arabs, but I wouldn’t want them marrying my daughter” stage yet. The GZ/TM incident could never have happened in Israel, as no Arab could enter a jewish settlement without a pass and an escort.
Anybody know a good way of getting poison ivy oil off of pet fur?
Boxturtle (Baths just spread the oils to the bathers)
Good morning, friends. Blessedly cool here again this morning, but it heats up rapidly (high 91º forecast today). No bike ride today, probably, since I have commitments from mid-morning through the afternoon, and by then it will be too hot!
One of my daughter’s Facebook friends lives in England, and she reported rain, rain and more rain.
I watched the Frontline report on ENDGAME: AIDS in Black America last night. It was horrifying and very moving.
Divide and conquer. Subdivide and rule. Fragment and rule absolutely.
My local Dem’s want me to go stump for Obama. I have enough trouble defending my vote to myself, I’m sure not going to suggest others vote for him. Nor am I going to give him money. If fact, if this was a DECENT bana republic, I’d insist he make a nice donation to the local aminal shelter for my vote.
Boxturtle (Why don’t I form a local progressive caucus?)
Highway to hell?
Ahem. Paging Nonquixote. He oughtta have some good ideas for you, and yeah, WHY DON’T YOU? Excellent idea.
This popped up when I was reading the article about the miners in Spain. Apparently there’s religious discrimination in Pakistan. Who knew?
Good morning, folks.
SD,saw Wolff’s session on Mondragon. What is not clear is what allows members to be members. It seems that there is some cash contribution to the capital fund on joining, but joining is contingent on there being a good fit with other members and there being work to do. And work depends on capitalist markets external to the Mondragon region. The discussion about the difficulties they had in India and China with setting up affiliates was very interesting and pointed to the need to have an existing culture that supports honest collective decision-making and acceptance of responsibility. If you’ve ever seen the rush for the exits in civil society groups in the US when there is talk of serious time and money commitment or legal exposure, not to mention the “when is this meeting over?” question, you wonder how transferable the Mondragon model is to the US.
As to the legal environment questions I raised yesterday, legally it seems that it would be possible for someone to pull a Stephen Wolf/United Airlines move with the Mondragon group. However, after 56 years, the cooperative culture is probably so firmly set that it would not work. And the fact that the immediate line of business, the largest of which is the 20,000 in grocery retailing, means that the number of members to consider general manager performance is relatively small and there are not voting members who do not work for the line of business. Also the voting appears to be one-member/one-vote instead of voting by number of shares. Both of those would make it hard to push through a item against the workers’ interest. As long as the legal environment doesn’t have mechanisms by which outsiders could challenge the bylaws that structure the cooperative, a general manager taking one of the lines of business private is possible but less probable.
But capitalism being what it is, widescale implementation of Mondragon-like structures in the US would probably cause a defensive campaign by competing for-profit capitalist firms to undercut the cooperatives. And it would likely be carried out in 50 state legislatures instead of at the federal level.
That should be the motto of the new revolution. Not joking, in the least. I bow to you, Rev Bev.
Oops, sorry. Good morning pupses and than you, SD.
A tea-party opinion piece, given “feature,” status, here in our rural, “newspaper,” of record claimed the poor, the sick and the elderly didn’t deserve safety net support because those elitist,(socialist/Marxist) “liberals,” fail to understand and have failed to produce evidence of any positive cost/benefit analysis to justify tax-payer subsidized safety net expenditures. Hoping my response gets printed today.
Sadly the paper still has a large influence on conservative voters in the area.
Do post a linky if it does!
Thanks Ladies…No cost benefit…Nice. Nothing like health, nutrition…we are so lost.
It’s a model, an idea. We have to start somewhere and trying to make it perfect from the getgo will only result in disaster. I’d prefer to look for ways that the model would work. Do you have a better idea?
Jared Bernstein weighs in. Good talking points to counter the “too much taxation” mantra from the right.
Boy, Are Americans Not Overtaxed: New CBO Data
Steve King (R-Iowa)
Quoted as saying
Are the poor and out of work being told that government programs will give then a middle income standard of living?
I’m trying to figure out what he was trying to say.
A little help here?
Partnered and got to know many of the local D party (fine folks, all of them) during the recall, but they refuse to acknowledge or discuss the TPP, or similar topics, are cheer leading to get new membership, but simply fail to understand that cheer leading is not actually the same as demanding progressive action in government.
Having a beautiful day weather-wise here and attending a hearing on Great Lakes water preservation tonight.
Shouldn’t that read”Sadly the conservative still have a large influence on papers in the area.”
Once you decide that some human lives are worth less than others, it becomes very important to avoid supporting the worthless.
Especially when the worthless look different than you do.
It’s amatter of finding a justification that does not reflect poorly. It can’t be racist or greedy and it has to hang together enough that your average Fox viewer won’t call bullcrap.
Boxturtle (So now we have to do cost/benefit anaylsis on human life)
That F’ing F.
What kind of life form is he?
Could also be a question in response to BoxTurtle @ 23.
Low, low, low.
(And, as much as I’d prefer to have a job and contribute to my household’s economy, who is he to tell me I should feel guilty?)
Maybe his dick will fall off.
Might send it privately. My last response that was printed was either deliberately or incompetently “re-written,” (edited) and left out a couple of pertinent sentences which made the piece. This is the same affiliate whose ownership publicly outed their own recall supporting employees, McCarthyism style, last winter. A fine bunch.
He’s saying that the homeless, unemployed, etc are parasites feeding off of good Republican taxpayers.
I guess that wasn’t a very nice thing for me to say.
It’s the heat.
No, it’s the guilt.
Sorry everyone.
Steve King (R-Iowa) is doing what Steve King (R-Iowa) consistently does, dropping his pants and whipping out his profound stupidity.
Please excuse me. Good morning all and thanks for the post and host SoDrag.
Speaking of homeless, thanks for reminding me. I’ve got a bag of My Favorite Homeless Person’s laundry in the van that I told him I’d launder today. That should burn off some of my bad karma.
Is that what that is? It’s so small, I can’t tell.
Good morning SD and firedogs. Another inch of rain here last night. 72 here now without any heat index. Feels incredible.
Egypt is getting very interesting for us on the outside, and I’m sure it’s getting terrifyingly tumultuous for those on the inside. Shaping up to be the President and Parliament vs. the Courts and the Military. I’m afraid for the Egyptian people.
‘Cause they really should afford all that health care even if out of work. I heard a bit of Tammy Bruce yesterday on car radio; the ACA is the end of the world. These people are mean/ruthless when it comes to the poor. So odd that they have no solutions for fixing things, either. Scary.
The locals here are good folks, too. A few Obots (the ones in control), but that’s it. I have a feeling they’d be pretty supportive of anything that would get more people active in the party, as long as it did not conflict with Obot dogma.
Alas, as my basic platform is intended to be both wise and progressive, it’ll be tough NOT to conflict with Obot dogma.
Boxturtle (Cognative dissonance in a Obot is fun to watch)
microscopic
I’m analyzing, not criticizing. I like the model and would like to see some efforts in job desert area of the US, combing local services (laundry, banking, auto repair,…), local goods (groceries, hardware,…) and “export” (out of the neighborhood) products.
National Cooperative Business Association might have technical resources on the federal and state-by-state legal situation.
National Society of Accountants for Cooperatives has technical information on financial reporting and likely also has some US and tax technical information slanted for cooperatives.
In addition to worker cooperatives, there are consumer cooperatives – co-op housing, food co-ops, in Durham a bike maintenance co-op. And of course credit unions, which are different from banks owned by the workers at the bank.
The hardest initial part is member recruitment and governance training (which looks a lot like Occupy facilitation) and legal records management. And then it’s finding a suitable attorney and accountant (or organizing professionals in law and accounting into a branch co-op).
It’s not an unknown model in the US, not at all. What is different is Mondragon’s use of a conglomerate structure to hedge risks of loss of demand for goods and services. That allows them to move people from one branch to another or from one location to another. Most US co-operatives are single-line-of-business: dairy, electricity, telephone, …
Good Morning Kris,
I’m happy for you. Rain would be welcome here. It got up to around 103 here yesterday, and with some humidity too. I’m glad I put my little wading pool up this weekend.
Lol! If he even has one.
Shorter Steve King: “Get a job, you lazy bastards. So we can get rid of this socialistic social safety net nonsense.”
You do NOT have to be poor or unemployed to be destroyed by a minor medical problem any more. I am employed, allegedly middle class and have medical insurance and am currently being devestated by out of pocket medical costs.
That comment caused me to spit a mouthful of cereal all over my keyboard! Sorta goes with demi’s comment at #25.
Possible response: King, you SOB, I followed your advice and Chose Life. This what I have to do to support that life. Should i have got an abortion?
I saw that comeback to Portman at a town hall. He gave a rambling, two minute non-answer that seemed to imply she should just try to be in two places at once.
Boxturtle (Advice: Anything King says will just annoy an reasonable person. Bozo Bin him)
Does anyone have thoughts/info about what is going on with Jesse Jackson in Ill? On leave for exhaustion, I guess, but no real news from what I can tell.
I don’t think it is impossible to imagine a medical co-op either, despite the bad rap a lot of doctors have earned. There are still human ones around.
So true….I had a very short hospital stay in the fall. When I saw my bill, I said well, I shoulda bought a house. It’s really shocking. Good luck to you. And the R’s reaction also is shocking, it seems.
Glad I could help this morning!
The fact that things are still in flux in Egypt is a good thing as long as the politics are being negotiated. The court seems to have empowered itself as a separate authority, which gives it a balance-of-power role. Likewise, the Moslem Brotherhood’s ability to put people in the streets balances against the military power, with the fragmented secular parties adding to MB strength on critical issues and standing aside on others. But on the parliament gambit, Morsy even lost the Sufis.
We are barely a purple district here, but sure, cart/horse, horse/cart, good to see you man.
There’s this (from CBS news). Doesn’t sound good to me.
Thanks…
Workers co-op or patients co-op?
Some rural practices already operate as something of a workers co-op (as far back as the 1970s).
HMOs were originally proposed as patient co-ops whose purpose was wellness. Way back in the early 1960s.
Given the amenable people, I don’t think there is any business reason why any business cannot be structured as a co-op. You still have to have financial controls and other ways of validating trust.
Spain is a small country. My vision is more of a regional/state enterprise. It’s not going to be long before shipping/transportation costs are going to skyrocket. I envision smaller enterprises, serving smaller areas, rather than a huge conglomerate. For example, a coop of family owned pet stores with a central location for receiving products could put PetSmart stores out of business in some cities. By using the coop as the buyer the pet stores could compete with the box stores in the area. Something along those lines.
These big box doc shops like Beacon Health are a prime example of why health care costs are skyrocketing. Last year (close your imaginations and eyes) when I had my yearly physical, my Beacon doctor did it all, including that lovely pap smear. This year, not the same. No med reason, but this time I have to make an additional appointment (read: another office visit fee) with an obgyn specialist (read: higher hourly or procedural charge than the GP) and had I been working, take additional personal horurs and time to go to a wholly unnecessary appointment. The obgyn specialist is employed by, no big surprise, Beacon Health.
This “System” Sucks.
You’ve described it perfectly. Start actually being small, “d,” and new/past membership will be clambering to join, no cheer leading required. Of course we all know that, already. ;^)
Thanks for listening to my little corner of the world here, pups. I have to change from the garden clothing and make an already scheduled appointment.
You are an inspiration, truly, Nonny.
I hope you have a wonderful day, dear.
Well, not sure I agree That the purpose was wellness. Remember Nixon opposed the idea until he and Kaiser had that little chat…. Let me see if I can find an audio link. Nixon was suddenly all excited (not a nice image) over the fact that HMOs were for-profit. It was obscene in oh so many ways. *spit*
Riddle me this – if Joe Paterno is dead, and therefore beyond the reach of prosecution, why is his family whining about an ongoing investigation into Joe Paterno’s conduct, and why is the state of Pennsylvania wasting money investigating Joe Paterno?
And why the hell is ESPN giving any airtime to the story? Who gives a flying fuck what Joe Paterno’s family thinks about the investigation?
I am having a similar experience. Urologist is double co-pay because he is a specialist. Office visit is $386.00 instead of $126.00.
I have long been an advocate of ALL medical professionals being employes by We The People and ALL medical facilities being owned by We The People. Medical care for profit is nothing short of inhumane.
Spain is 47 million people in 194,000 sq. miles (roughly 440 mi x 440 mi). But Mondragon is participating in the Euro and global export markets.
Shipping/transportation costs skyrocketing will first affect low value/weight products. If it’s small, lightweight, and has a high price, transportation will not be as large a part of the total price. MMV by product.
With transportation constraints, a co-op of pet stores would likely have to source products closer to the customers. That might mean conglomerating branch co-ops of collar craftspeople, pet food manufacturers, metalworking for bowls, and so on. In-store pet grooming and in-store veterinary services could be done as branch co-ops. There are other conglomerate possibilities, like pet photography…
thanks (((demi)))
Bye-bye.
Im glad it’s continuing…Let the disclosure continue about his coverup, etc. I hate the football idolatry. There may be potential liability agst the estate as well from what I understand.
There was some interesting writing about his role in protecting Sandusky (ick) in the same way local police and college staff protect high value players. It’s all a stinking fraud.
Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.
US KIA Afghanistan: 2,040
Afghan, Iraki, Yemeni and Pakistani casualties: estimates vary to over 2M
US MBS 2012: 23,808 and counting
No war but class war
Hellbound Train
Be good to yourselves, and all other living things
Namaste
Never. Give. Up.
I understand that ongoing investigations are needed here to fully uncover the amount of corruption and misconduct. However, investigating Paterno specifically is silly. I think the investigation should be into the broader scope of the athletic program at Penn State and that would uncover all the information you would need in a Paterno investigation, given that you’d be talking (as an investigator) to all the same witnesses.
Thanks for clearing up one key question – estate liability. JoePa’s family is whining because they’re scared that someone is going to take their money.
Pathetic.
Sen Kyl calling “gamesmanship” to split the tax extension vote.
Hmmmm. everybody gets the under $250M tax cut extension. Everybody.
So we’re just arguing about a cap.
If the Rethugs don’t want a cap on the tax extension, then let them lift the cap on SS and Med payments. Fair’s fair.
Show us your tax papers, Mitt….
He doesn’t have any because he’s an anchor baby.
I’m sorry you are going through this. You are right, it is inhumane at the very least to tie health and physical/emotional suffering to a goddamn dollar bill.
The people who perpetuate this should be treated as pariahs and thrown out of offices medical, business and governmental.
By the time Nixon got involved, the HMO idea had morphed into one-stop shopping for-profit medicine. Originally it was a flat yearly payment for community health on a per person basis with lots of patient input to decision-making and a co-op structure. It was essentially an mutual insurance group and co-op provider set-up for a community. This was in the days when health insurance was major medical only and physicians did physicals for free and charged $5 a visit otherwise. And lived like ordinary humans.
Because anything that Penn State can shovel off onto a dead guy will reduce their exposure. LARGE numbers of students and Alumni feel Paterno was a scapegoat for the admin and the admin is uner tremendous pressure because of it, so anything they can do to show that Paterno was badly involved helps them.
His family is whining because his steller reputation is being sullied.
ESPN must fill hours of broadcast time before football starts again. And Joe Pa is like a God to college football followers. And they can sell political air time at premium rates for anything that’ll be hot in Penn.
Boxturtle (And after all those years of wilful ignorance, they must look like they’re doing something)
Places like PetSmart forced small stores out of business largely because of their ability to buy in a volume not possible with a small store, resulting in lower prices. With all the pet stores in, say St Pete, using one central warehouse owned by the coop, the volume issue is moot. Pets stores would have the same wholesale price now enjoyed by PetSmart. But this is all just off the top of my head as an example, not trying to work out all the details. I do think it can be done in an easier manner than you’ve described.
Yep, And I guess I have the impression that it is broader. The Pat family may be the most prominent voice….
Steve King is my Congressman. I detest him.
For the first time, we have a chance to beat him. I am trying to do my part in terms of work and money to make this so.
The Dutch Reformed and the booming farm economy are the primary obstacles.
This is the beloved JoePA, who looked the other way while Sandusky buggered little boys in his locker room. So apparently in the sports dens of ESPN it is big news.
EDIT: other answers upthread were much better than mine.
BT,
I have been away from the tubes for a few weeks and trying to catch-up on reading. Came here to read SD’s excellent links and read your comment.
I. Am. Still. Giggling.
Thanks BT.
I worked with a very big-deal 1%er who woulda said that issue is “mute”; I love it. I never did correct him…after all he was so rich and smart. I did laugh alot.
Welcome back…great way to start the morning almost always…;)
Can we turn back the clock? I think we can and must, even if just on the scale you and SD were discussing up thread @ 53 and @ 60.
Let tax dollars pay their schooling bills in return for a commitment to work in the co-op for an agreed amount of time.
I come here for the pellet ice in the tea ;)
Hi and welcome back!
Best of luck with that, oldgold.
And now I read this response @ 23. BT, you are the best.
Thanks for the shout out RevBev and OmAli!
Got to go start packing and running all the errands that pile up before going away for a few days :(. Would rather stay here this morning with you guys.
See you next week if I don’t have a chance to check in before that. Safe travels and safe home, pupses dears.
Love from
Ohmmmm
Have a swell time, OmAli.
We’ll see ya when we see ya.
Welcome back! Seems like you’ve been a bit scarce recently. Still in Columbus?
Boxturtle (Sad that I’ll sell my vote for a few bags of catfood, eh?)
Thank you kind Dragon, for this morning’s follies.
Time for tennis shoes and a Walk In The Park.
Much fondness going out to Everyone.
Ohhhhh, Ommmmmm…we’ll miss you….Take care and have fun.
I try to value all human lives the same. But if Bush the Lesser and Bradley Manning were both about to be hit by a car and I could only save one…
Boxturtle (I’d just hope the treadmarks matched Bush’s tie)
Hey, I was just thinking it got such a reaction maybe we should have a JoePa thread sometime….tho the topic, esp. Sandboy, makes me sick. But truly instructive in its evil and hypocrisy.
Thanks you guys. And yes, SD and everyone, I’m echoing demi’s sentiments.
Still. And yes, scarce. Lots of kiddo stuff going on and not home much.
Got shaved and showered, changed and the phone rang asking for a re-schedule. Caught up here and realized I might have been a bit pessimistic this morning so I thought one of my favorite pick-me-ups over a couple decades now might be appropriately shared.
The late Stan Rogers.
you might mention public health as a community benefit: for example, the new TB outbreak in Jacksonville, FL. some of the cases are attributed to the homeless population.
How in the world did I miss this one?
With a big, somewhat teary, smile, (((nonqui)))
I think the National Health Service Corps still exists. It requires a physician in the local practice to act as a supervising physician for folks who are essentially residents. And the physician need hospital privileges at the nearest hospital and be able to refer to a regional hospital.
And then there is the issue of getting an existing physician short of Patch Adams to sign on to a co-op to begin with. And the state insurance regulations that would likely affect the mutual insurance part of the operation. Also negotiations with for-profit insurance companies to accept billing for their patients who might also be members of the co-op.
That co-op warehouse could be organized as a separate branch and could market to any buyer (even PetSmart). And could create its own supplier base in addition to buying in quantity through organizing other co-ops. That creates a basis for gradually weaning away from imported goods.
Namaste SD !
My reply button is not working. Hmmmm.
SD@63
And as for you, boyo. You think a Hellbound Train will keep you from having to clear up the clog in this kitchen sink?
You have seriously misunderestimated the long arm of OmAli :)
Good morning, Petro!
Nice to see you Petrocelli, as always.
Just got back from my morning walk and it is getting really humid out there. Nice walk, tho. I have happy hips.
I think you would have takers on the physician end. My neighbors in Canada (husband and wife docs) emigrated from England there instead of the states because they were sickened by the healthcare for profit model.
Chose to live as mere mortals rather than on Olympus.
Hiya demi, msmolly !
We’re basking in summer temps, and enjoying the BBQ … of Romney by the Obama Camp ! *g*
You’re not following my line of thinking, going off on your own tangent. I try not to analyze things to death.
Ooops. Just mentally working through how that would work under the Mondragon model.
Here’s a mutual wholesaling and distribution cooperative that has been around for a while: Mutual Drug Company
These are the services they provide to member stores besides joint buying. They distribute to 400 stores within a roughly 100-mile radius of their warehouse.
I used to get paid to analyze things to death; hard habit to break.
LOL! Know just what you mean. I kinda like the car commercial where the car honks to tell the clueless guy when to stop…a buncha dumb stuff.
OmALI You’re going away? I thought you were away, at the beach, on an island, something. Didn’t know you went home.
How will we function without your online presence? Oh, well, have fun.
Been trying to log on off and on all day; either site funky or my interfering job kept interrupting. Ofc manager asked for help interpreting tax forms….offered my disclaimer as to absolutely not expert in tax law.
Much of day pursuing small stuff to make sure something gets done right.
Raining cats and dogs most of the day; slept right through the alarm, or turned it off in my sleep, something. Third day of rain. Flooding some places. Already had a rescue from floods.
pfft. “public health.” That evil word “public”-refers to the 99%, the ones who don’t matter, are too poor to take care of their own health. Let’s just round em all up, pen ‘em in, and “wait for ‘em to die.”
When it rains, it pours, grandma always said. We had a nice, soaking rain today off and on, but mini floods last evening downtown.
*g* you iz silly, I’ll leave you all a list and things will run just fine, lol! Don’t forget to give the fridge door a good bump with your hip, though, or it won’t close tight sometimes. Don’t let SD give away the store :)
Got back from St Simons (the island) on Saturday, back and forth to Nashville yesterday, leaving for IN and Michigan early tomorrow and back on Monday. My little Toyota is getting a workout.
Hope you don’t get washed away in all the rain, but it must be a relief after all the heat and dry. I did all my errands today without an umbrella and noticed a lot of other people doing the same thing, it felt good getting out in it. Drivers were crazy, though, sheesh.
Safe travels, OA, and enjoy the visit(s).
See you Monday, Tuesday?
Here’s the basic idea. A number of people get together to open their own pet supply stores in their community/neighborhood. Food, beds, litter, litter boxes, all that routine stuff. No animals for sale. They’re not competing with each other due to their location. In my experience there wasn’t a lot of competition between pet stores before the big box guys. They were spread out, serving a small segment of the population. In addition to their storefronts they buy/lease/appropriate a building as a warehouse. As a coop they order supplies from various companies and those supplies are shipped to the centrally located warehouse. Each store owner orders through the warehouse they collectively own, enabling them to get basically the same wholesale price as the big box stores do because they’re buying in pretty much the same volume. They may have to charge a few cents more for products than the big box guys but their customers don’t have to drive 5-10 miles for cat food, etc. The idea is to get them up and running. All that ancillary stuff, groomers, etc, is off in the future and something to be worked out. Most indy stores now are owned and operated by family members with few, if any, “employees.” The money stays in the local economy. Before PetSmart moved in I bought all my stuff at small indy stores. The only way to return to that scenario is gonna be through coops. Mondragon is still a work in progress and I don’t envision anything like that. I’m thinking local, micro, not macro.
Thanks, demi. Scritches to PickyLowLow and Mama’s Good Man :)
I sure hope I got Brindle’s name right, *g*. Sounds like it could be the mister, too!
See ya soon.
It seems to me that the structure of the volume discounts of suppliers will determine whether it’s a go or no-go. How many stores, given their current volume, will need to join to be competitive with the big box stores.