I ordered a bellhousing gasket for a Detroit 8v92,it was 11 bucks last year,now it is $23.00 since they have a $25.00 minimum, I bought some other small items.I got the bill not the gasket yet,shipping cost more too.What pisses me off there is a new fee in town $2.13 for "supply chain adjustment" I never heard of that after about 30 minutes they credited the fee back.
Today was my doctors visit I decided to take Sonja for breakfast @ Perkins her omelet was 13 bucks,we both had water to drink.Guess what I got hit for a $.49 supply chain adjustment at a friggn restaurant. Because I wasn't paying $3.50 for a cup of coffee or juice ,the young lady was nice and tried to tell me making or buying ice is at a premium,people are so dumb. I took a buck off her tip probably not the right thing to do but I did it anyways
You are complaining about a 49 cent charge while bragging about taking twice that out of someone's pay who is probably barely scraping by.
Supply chains and inflation have been screwed up worldwide - I work in the telecom business and equipment shortages are a constant reality over the past few years, something I have to account for regularly but which I don't bear a grudge against the bearers of bad news for. It will stop when it stops, your waitress has nothing to do with it and is almost certainly having a rougher time of things than you are.
Quote from: Nova Eona on December 20, 2022, 12:54:03 PM
You are complaining about a 49 cent charge while bragging about taking twice that out of someone's pay who is probably barely scraping by.
Supply chains and inflation have been screwed up worldwide - I work in the telecom business and equipment shortages are a constant reality over the past few years, something I have to account for regularly but which I don't bear a grudge against the bearers of bad news for. It will stop when it stops, your waitress has nothing to do with it and is almost certainly having a rougher time of things than you are.
I wasn't bragging about it,and she is not barley getting by her and the husband family own the friggn restaurant and have for 17 years, she knew I done it I told her,and I hate credit card readers telling you how to tip anyways,24 bucks for breakfast and trying to squeeze you for another 49 cents for water is not happening with me
It doesn't matter whether she/he owns the restaurant or works for minimum wage. Wait staff is your point of contact. If you don't complain to them who are you supposed to complain to? I tip for a good experience. Wait staff attitude and performance is a large part of the experience but by no means the entire experience. And I'm a big fan of telling them in no uncertain terms what I think of the experience, including lavish praise when its positive.
I'm with you Clifford on the "suggested tip" BS. I've seen some machines that START at 20% and go up from there.
Quote from: luvrbus on December 20, 2022, 01:16:04 PM
I wasn't bragging about it,and she is not barley getting by her and the husband family own the friggn restaurant and have for 17 years, she knew I done it I told her,and I hate credit card readers telling you how to tip anyways,24 bucks for breakfast and trying to squeeze you for another 49 cents for water is not happening with me
Move back to Texas Cliff. A good Breakfast for you and wife in Kingsland tx. costs about 12 bucks. Heck I'm buying.
I hope this crap is over soon
I call it the covld gouge and everyone is just trying to make back their $$
I started building a house and bus garage this may 6th .. what a joke
If someone has what you need there is always something missing or it is seconds ? did I ask for seconds or pay for seconds ?
and everything is way up in price if you can get it
and don't get me started on the concrete fiasco and whatever you do don't piss off the concrete gods as then you will get nothing
needless to say I will finish the house and the garage next year when the SNOW is gone :D
Cliff your first mistake was not letting Sonja negotiate the bill, you might have come out ahead lol! ;D
Quote from: Van on December 20, 2022, 03:50:08 PM
Cliff your first mistake was not letting Sonja negotiate the bill, you might have come out ahead lol! ;D
Naw that would be brutal if she thought somebody was trying to over charge her,the little woman would cloud up and rain over who was trying to pull one on her
Quote from: sledhead on December 20, 2022, 03:34:12 PM
I hope this crap is over soon
I call it the covld gouge and everyone is just trying to make back their $$
I started building a house and bus garage this may 6th .. what a joke
If someone has what you need there is always something missing or it is seconds ? did I ask for seconds or pay for seconds ?
and everything is way up in price if you can get it
and don't get me started on the concrete fiasco and whatever you do don't piss off the concrete gods as then you will get nothing
needless to say I will finish the house and the garage next year when the SNOW is gone :D
There is no sense it being like that, the ones that kept the doors open could get the SBA forgivable loans (PPP) some collected 100's of thousands of dollars while still doing business, Canada had a similar payout for CV-19 but had limits I was told
Will it ever stop we can only hope. I afraid my hopes of retiring and traveling/ living in the bus are probably all but gone I would have be like the bus grease monkey but on the other hand who is going to be able to afford to get there bus fixed anymore or will you even be able to afford or buy diesel fuel (will it be available) Some talk about power plant conversions ok maybe if you have the ability to $#!% thousand dallar bills after breakfest will you be able to afford it. Anyway we will see.
The price of food now wow!!,I like prime rib shopping yesterday it is not happening this year no way am I paying over $400.00 for a chunk of prime rib on sale.I feel for retirees living on a fix income it is tough times for those you are seeing more and more seniors working in fast food places now.Tax people have no problem keeping up,we got a tax bill for property we own on the Texas coast it tripled this year, property taxes here in AZ has almost doubled since last year.You get tired of leasing property you spent years paying for that you never really own if you don't pay the lease in form of taxes they will take it. Now the idiots in DC are going to print another 1.7 trillion to flame the fire,I like the 50's better :^
Yeah. You really never own your land you just rent it ( property tax ) from the govenment. Hopefully "your" land isn't considered watershed either way more to deal with dnr epa on your @$#. Oh yeah then there is building permits you have to ask permission to build something it's all a crock and then theres codes when you do.
Quote from: tr206 on December 21, 2022, 04:35:50 AM
Yeah. You really never own your land you just rent it ( property tax ) from the govenment. Hopefully your land isn't considered watershed either way more to deal with dnr epa on your @$#. Oh yeah then there is building permits you have to ask permission to build something it's all a crock and then theres codes when you do.
I delt with the EPA for 20 years with the dumb @$# earth change permits, not that I felt sorry for Walmart but if a duck land on a piece of property EPA called it a wet land and for 1 acre of so-called wet land WM had to give up 3 acres for a wetland, then WM would give up more prime property for the EPA retentions ponds I never understood that BS when the pond filled some places they had flooding they never had before,I could see that one coming on store 3295 in Broken Arrow OK
Quote from: luvrbus on December 20, 2022, 05:45:25 PM
There is no sense it being like that, the ones that kept the doors open could get the SBA forgivable loans (PPP) some collected 100's of thousands of dollars while still doing business, Canada had a similar payout for CV-19 but had limits I was told
Yes but now the gov. is talking about getting back some of the $$ they gave out to business if on there tax returns they did not need it
billions of $$
good thing I never used any of it
yes I like the old days better
I Can't stand it any more.This is a bus forum ut here it goes. If there were one thing that I could tell the American public it would be, there is not a company in these United States that pays one penny for all this fulishnesh that is forced upon them. THE PEOPLE THAT BUY THE END WIDJET ( YOU AND ME) PAY FOR IT. All costs are pasted on to the consumer. That is a big part of the cost of things going so high .
End of rant
Merry Christmas to all
Wayne
Yep you are right Wayne it is all passed down even the tax increases John Q pays for it and John Q is getting overloaded already with more coming,The dumbest thing I read is we made 4 billion releasing 200 million barrels of oil from our SPR 120 day supply,the price we paid for 3000 barrels it's going to cost taxpayers 15 billion to refill if they refill it what a waste
Let's not forget that corporate profits are at a 70 year high despite the economic suffering of the lower and middle classes over the past generation. They'd really like you to blame regulations and taxes for the disparity rather than question things like why CEO pay has gone up by nearly 1,000% over the past three decades.
Quote from: Nova Eona on December 21, 2022, 08:08:11 AM
Let's not forget that corporate profits are at a 70 year high despite the economic suffering of the lower and middle classes over the past generation. They'd really like you to blame regulations and taxes for the disparity rather than question things like why CEO pay has gone up by nearly 1,000% over the past three decades.
I have problems with CEO pay on my bank stock they have a good year and instead of passing it on to stockholders the CEO gets the surplus,the difference is stockholders share payment is pre set before the final tally that I don't care for it, Corporations are still on the same profit margin in most cases it is just everything is so more expensive dollar wise it looks better on paper bottom line shows more money that translate into higher profits from past years that is the way Wall Street works to keep the price of stock up .LOL I wish Ford would figure it out
Quote from: luvrbus on December 21, 2022, 04:14:39 AM
The price of food now wow!!,I like prime rib shopping yesterday it is not happening this year no way am I paying over $400.00 for a chunk of prime rib on sale.I feel for retirees living on a fix income it is tough times for those you are seeing more and more seniors working in fast food places now.Tax people have no problem keeping up,we got a tax bill for property we own on the Texas coast it tripled this year, property taxes here in AZ has almost doubled since last year.You get tired of leasing property you spent years paying for that you never really own if you don't pay the lease in form of taxes they will take it. Now the idiots in DC are going to print another 1.7 trillion to flame the fire,I like the 50's better :^
Maybe the property tax is so low a 2x or 3x jump can still get paid from the retired person fixed income. What do most of these folks do? The only thing I can figure out is the retired get forced out of homes they own because they can't afford the taxes and upkeep hired in. Is that why so many flock to Florida?
CA cost is crazy but the goal to preserve intergenerational wealth remains strong
Ther are a couple of ways to look at profit one is raw dollars and that is higher for most companies because money is worth less. Another way is percentage of sales and that number doesn't change much. The oil companies percentage is up but I dont blame
them they spend the money to improve business only to have DC shut them down (pipe lines and permits) why spend the mioney sit on in
As far as CEO wages I don't think they need salaries as big as they are getting but maybe there are not enough good people to do the job correctly. I say I will pay someone 100 an hour if they made me 110 dollars
Wayne
We have seen the last of $40.00 a barrel oil because of policy I think it will level out at around $85 hopefully and it will spike to over $100 with China coming back online after 2 years of CV-19. Car makers are not ready to throw the towel in on combustion engines,the American buyers are not ready yet on EV's some of us may never be ready :P the 6% market share on new car sales for EV's is not very much,and without getting prices lower it is not going to increase by much.The dealers have a hard time selling a used EV's for some reason could be price or buyers are afraid of a used EV who knows
Starting Jan 1st you can get up to $4k rebate on used ev's
Lord help me I can't stop. Follow this. We all send way to much money to all the governments. When it gets there somebody to justify their salary does something most of the time not needed or flat out wrong. And what's left over they start another agency to do more crazy things. Now an oil company has brought some leases on the bet they will find oil. One day they wake up and want to poke a hole hoping to find oil. But wait you need a permit. After looking into a permit they find they have to go through 8 or 9 agencies very few of which have any interest In giving you one. So you send years and a lot of money to get the permit if at all. Now you and I go to the station and buy a gallon of gas and in the price of the gallon of gas of is all a charge to recover the money spent to fight the Feds. If you follow so far you and I just payed for both sides of the argument. And we bitch about the pice of gas. As long as we elect people that want our money to do dumb things nothing will change. What a country!
Wayne
Quote from: luvrbus on December 21, 2022, 08:49:12 AM
Corporations are still on the same profit margin in most cases it is just everything is so more expensive dollar wise it looks better on paper
Yeah see that's the problem - small businesses and working people have seen economic hardship the past few years (decades really), so it would be natural for those corporate profits to take a dip during record inflation and such when so many people simply have less money to spend. It would not be exceptional for specific industries or individual corporations to beat the curve and maintain or increase profit when everyone else is suffering, but when the vast majority of all large corporations are doing as well or better than ever, that suggests instead that they are using the power they have over the economy and government to shield themselves at our expense.
While economics in general is not a zero-sum game, in this microcosm it is. For the corporations to escape unscathed or even benefit as they have, everyone else - us poor folks who can't buy lobbyists and politicians - must carry a greater burden.
For those who like to point instead to the government as the root cause of all problems, I remind you that in this country bribery is legal and corporations have been pouring staggering amounts of money into the politicians which are meant to represent us. If our government is inefficient and foolish, I would argue at this point it's because their corporate paymasters want it to be so.
I read where health care, pharmaceutical and the environmentalists are the largest group of lobbyists like 78% lobby for those 3 groups Wall Street is next. Now not for profit health care is a different can of worm since we now have the government involved. I been undergoing some tests a PET/Scan cost $16,180.00 and 2 ultrasounds cost $5,137.73. Now all your medical records go into a database controlled by the Government you doctor has to do that by Federal Law, we have way too much government in our lives and getting more each passing day
Of course companies spend so much money on lobbying. Its just protection money to encourage the laws won't hurt their businesses. Just like when Al Capone solicited protection money. Today's enforcement is IRS, SEC, etc.
Quote from: luvrbus on December 21, 2022, 01:14:30 PM
I read where health care, pharmaceutical and the environmentalists are the largest group of lobbyists
I don't know where you're reading that, but I can't find any sources suggesting that environmentalist groups are even making it onto the ranked lists. Health care and pharma sure, and look how much that has benefitted us common people compared to other developed nations.
Quote from: chessie4905 on December 21, 2022, 02:44:31 PM
Of course companies spend so much money on lobbying. Its just protection money to encourage the laws won't hurt their businesses. Just like when Al Capone solicited protection money. Today's enforcement is IRS, SEC, etc.
At what point does 'protection to make sure the laws won't hurt the company' turn into 'persuasion to make sure the laws actively help the company'? Serious question here. if I was an amoral corporate lawyer (as if there are other kinds), I could argue convincingly that child labor laws harm my textile business or whatever, so wouldn't paying politicians to have those changed just be protecting my company's interests?
If you're referring to the IRS, SEC and such with all their myriad loopholes designed to make tax evasion and market manipulation easier for the wealthy and powerful, then that 'enforcement' is less Al Capone and more Tiny Tim. The IRS and SEC just seem like boogiemen to us little guys who lack the power to dodge audits and pay off million-dollar fines for unlawful schemes which netted billions. Granted, occasionally a C-level somewhere will get thrown to the wolves and have to retire on a private tropical island just to assure us common people that they're accountable to the law too, but that's just the cost of doing business after all.
Oh, I forgot to tell you, Bus Conversion Magazine will have a "Supply Chain Adjustment" of $10/issue starting in January. That will cover the cost of fuel for me to deliver the magazines each month. ;D
As for breakfast, a good breakfast down here in Mexico runs about $6 and also includes beans and rice. Just sayin'.
Quote from: Nova Eona on December 21, 2022, 03:34:35 PM
I don't know where you're reading that, but I can't find any sources suggesting that environmentalist groups are even making it onto the ranked lists. Health care and pharma sure, and look how much that has benefitted us common people compared to other developed nations.
I read it in article published by a college back east in my lawyer's office 4 or 5 years ago, it listed the name of all the lobbyist lol most were X politicians. They were supposed to stop x politicians from lobbying after they left office that hasn't happened, yet I know of. Now they lobby while in office making deals and passing laws. By the end of the year this country will be close to 40 trillion in debt still printing money with no Lone Ranger and Tonto on the horizon
Yes far too much of DC and politics in general is the old revolving door between politicians and lobbyists, each going round and round. The only solution is to get corporate money out of politics entirely - the corps don't care about the national debt, that's just extra incentive to 'privatize' nonprofitable services i.e. hand them over to the corporations so they can gouge us for fundamental services. Just look at our prison system.
Quote from: Nova Eona on December 21, 2022, 05:43:52 PM
Yes far too much of DC and politics in general is the old revolving door between politicians and lobbyists, each going round and round. The only solution is to get corporate money out of politics entirely - the corps don't care about the national debt, that's just extra incentive to 'privatize' nonprofitable services i.e. hand them over to the corporations so they can gouge us for fundamental services. Just look at our prison system.
John McCain did his best to get Corp money out of politics and did for a short while till the courts got involved, now everyone has a PAC to funnel the money to the parties and there is no limit on what they give to a PAC
Y'all are getting all excited about nothing you can change. It'll work until it doesn't. With any luck at all we'll be gone by then. It's the human cycle, just goes round and round. Been the same since humans first decided work had value. We're really lucky to live where life is easy and will stay easy for a long time to come. Might as well just sit back and enjoy it.
Jim
Quote from: Gary Hatt - Publisher BCM on December 21, 2022, 03:42:09 PM
Oh, I forgot to tell you, Bus Conversion Magazine will have a "Supply Chain Adjustment" of $10/issue starting in January. That will cover the cost of fuel for me to deliver the magazines each month. ;D
Gary I woulden't joke like that other wise Clifford might tack on 10% on your next bus service visit with a little extra 🤣😉
Merry Christmas! We are thankful for life and being able to bitch.. You all just preaching to the choir. Agree with it all! Dam glad we made it this far... Busnut Bob
Quote from: Van on December 22, 2022, 10:57:37 AM
Gary I woulden't joke like that other wise Clifford might tack on 10% on your next bus service visit with a little extra 🤣😉
Yes, I had better reonsider that. :-)
:^
We still live in the greatest country on earth. America must have something going for it. People are breaking into it every day.....
Quote from: Tedsoldbus on December 23, 2022, 03:32:02 PM
We still live in the greatest country on earth. America must have something going for it. People are breaking into it every day.....
Some of those have an agenda too