Obituaries

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concordtom
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500,000 Covid deaths.
Econ For Dummies
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concordtom said:

SFBear92 said:

concordtom said:

We should tax unhealthy food and subsidize healthy food as a health care initiative.
Duh!!!!
It's basic and simple.
People who don't get that are uninformed.
Tax the manufacturer, not the consumer.
Paid for by the consumer.
Same difference?

The objective is to incentivize healthy behavior (eating healthy foods) and dis-incentivize crap, not matter how tasty it might be.
We'd save money on the health care front by a mile. And people would have been quality of life in the meantime.
Oh, but FREEDOM! I can hear the catcalls now.
Sure, go ahead and eat crap. It'll just cost you more. You have the freedom to eat dirt, too.
Taste buds change, habits adjust.
It's hell living in a free society and letting people have choices that other people don't like.
bearister
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I wish I had the choice of not being on the hook for the healthcare cost of anyone that chooses to smoke, eat themselves into obesity and abuse drugs. Other than that, knock yourself out with your lifestyle choices.
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Econ For Dummies
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bearister said:

I wish I had the choice of not being on the hook for the healthcare cost of anyone that chooses to smoke, eat themselves into obesity and abuse drugs. Other than that, knock yourself out with your lifestyle choices.
So you're saying you don't drink alcohol or use marijuana?
bearister
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SFBear92 said:

bearister said:

I wish I had the choice of not being on the hook for the healthcare cost of anyone that chooses to smoke, eat themselves into obesity and abuse drugs. Other than that, knock yourself out with your lifestyle choices.
So you're saying you don't drink alcohol or use marijuana?

Moderate drinker, the consequences of which will cost society nothing. Stopped smoking weed at Cal in 1973. It was not helping me get where I wanted to go.
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Econ For Dummies
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bearister said:

SFBear92 said:

bearister said:

I wish I had the choice of not being on the hook for the healthcare cost of anyone that chooses to smoke, eat themselves into obesity and abuse drugs. Other than that, knock yourself out with your lifestyle choices.
So you're saying you don't drink alcohol or use marijuana?

Moderate drinker, the consequences of which will cost society nothing. Stopped smoking weed at Cal in 1973. It was not helping me get where I wanted to go.
Everybody thinks they're a moderate drinker. Except me, because I don't drink alcohol.

So why should I be on the hook for any health consequences you have later from the "moderate" drinking you've done. It's not like it's a healthy product. There's literally no health benefit to it at all and there are some health consequences form using it.

In other words, don't cast stones unless you're a vegan, non-alcohol drinking, non-drugging vision of perfection. i.e. the kind of people no one likes.
bearister
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SFBear92 said:

bearister said:

SFBear92 said:

bearister said:

I wish I had the choice of not being on the hook for the healthcare cost of anyone that chooses to smoke, eat themselves into obesity and abuse drugs. Other than that, knock yourself out with your lifestyle choices.
So you're saying you don't drink alcohol or use marijuana?

Moderate drinker, the consequences of which will cost society nothing. Stopped smoking weed at Cal in 1973. It was not helping me get where I wanted to go.
Everybody thinks they're a moderate drinker. Except me, because I don't drink alcohol.

So why should I be on the hook for any health consequences you have later from the "moderate" drinking you've done. It's not like it's a healthy product. There's literally no health benefit to it at all and there are some health consequences form using it.

In other words, don't cast stones unless you're a vegan, non-alcohol drinking, non-drugging vision of perfection. i.e. the kind of people no one likes.


So you see no distinction between me and someone who smokes a pack or more of cigarettes a day or a guy 70 pounds overweight who drinks several sodas a day? You could assign a pretty large odds factor on the respective likelihood of a related health problem ensuing.
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concordtom
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SFBear92 said:

concordtom said:

SFBear92 said:

concordtom said:

We should tax unhealthy food and subsidize healthy food as a health care initiative.
Duh!!!!
It's basic and simple.
People who don't get that are uninformed.
Tax the manufacturer, not the consumer.
Paid for by the consumer.
Same difference?

The objective is to incentivize healthy behavior (eating healthy foods) and dis-incentivize crap, not matter how tasty it might be.
We'd save money on the health care front by a mile. And people would have been quality of life in the meantime.
Oh, but FREEDOM! I can hear the catcalls now.
Sure, go ahead and eat crap. It'll just cost you more. You have the freedom to eat dirt, too.
Taste buds change, habits adjust.
It's hell living in a free society and letting people have choices that other people don't like.
It's not free if I have to pay taxes to pay for bombs and bases, or milk or oil - subsidized industries.
concordtom
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bearister said:

I wish I had the choice of not being on the hook for the healthcare cost of anyone that chooses to smoke, eat themselves into obesity and abuse drugs. Other than that, knock yourself out with your lifestyle choices.
Bingo!
concordtom
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SFBear92 said:

bearister said:

SFBear92 said:

bearister said:

I wish I had the choice of not being on the hook for the healthcare cost of anyone that chooses to smoke, eat themselves into obesity and abuse drugs. Other than that, knock yourself out with your lifestyle choices.
So you're saying you don't drink alcohol or use marijuana?

Moderate drinker, the consequences of which will cost society nothing. Stopped smoking weed at Cal in 1973. It was not helping me get where I wanted to go.
Everybody thinks they're a moderate drinker. Except me, because I don't drink alcohol.

So why should I be on the hook for any health consequences you have later from the "moderate" drinking you've done. It's not like it's a healthy product. There's literally no health benefit to it at all and there are some health consequences form using it.

In other words, don't cast stones unless you're a vegan, non-alcohol drinking, non-drugging vision of perfection. i.e. the kind of people no one likes.
You are changing the subject.
But if you wanted to go full monty, exercise would be mandated.
concordtom
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Also, there was no definition provided by either party as to what "moderate drinker" meant.

bearister
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Moderate: one 8 pack of these a day:

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prospeCt
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dajo9
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concordtom said:

SFBear92 said:

concordtom said:

We should tax unhealthy food and subsidize healthy food as a health care initiative.
Duh!!!!
It's basic and simple.
People who don't get that are uninformed.
Tax the manufacturer, not the consumer.
Paid for by the consumer.
Same difference?



No, not the same difference. The cost for a good is determined by supply and demand, not the taxes. If you tax the manufacturer some of the cost will be absorbed by the manufacturer, depending on the slopes of the supply and demand curves.
Happy Roevember
prospeCt
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deserves own thread, Beat Poet Patriarch, North Beach literary lion, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, 101

https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Lawrence-Ferlinghetti-literary-citadel-of-San-15972940.php

?fit=1778%2C1183
bearister
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okaydo
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concordtom
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bearister said:

Moderate: one 8 pack of these a day:


LOL.

and
"Hydrogenated for smoothness" - what the heck does that mean? They whip it with butter?
concordtom
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okaydo said:



It's been a long slow death.
Maybe a couple years ago I went into the Roseville store and noticed that the product on shelves was next to nothing. I had a 10 min talk with an employee and knew it was only a matter of time. The guy blamed Amazon.

So, for computer stuff, you've got, what? Best Buy? Walmart? Target? (All NOT computer stores)
No more Radio Shack for electronics.
Amazon is the answer?

I have to be missing someone, no?
dimitrig
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concordtom said:

okaydo said:



It's been a long slow death.
Maybe a couple years ago I went into the Roseville store and noticed that the product on shelves was next to nothing. I had a 10 min talk with an employee and knew it was only a matter of time. The guy blamed Amazon.

So, for computer stuff, you've got, what? Best Buy? Walmart? Target? (All NOT computer stores)
No more Radio Shack for electronics.
Amazon is the answer?

I have to be missing someone, no?

I went into Fry's last fall. The shelves were mostly empty. They did have a lot of PPE like KN95 masks and that's pretty much what I bought.

No computers, no televisions, not much of anything.

It's not Amazon's fault. Very few people build computers anymore. Gamers buy consoles or gaming laptops and everyone else uses a phone or a tablet.

Power users probably buy from places like Tiger Direct instead of buying the junk at Fry's. I had so many bad experiences with their crappy products.

I remember when there were lines a mile long and going to Fry's was like going to Disneyland. Those were the days, man.









Econ For Dummies
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Quote:

It's not Amazon's fault. Very few people build computers anymore. Gamers buy consoles or gaming laptops and everyone else uses a phone or a tablet.
Speak for yourself. I buy the parts individually every time and assemble them. Especially cause most of the time, I'm happy with 75% of the innards of my current rig. It's only when I need to upgrade a motherboard to run a better processor or get a newer better video card that I need to change something and why would I want to pay for new parts I don't need?
Unit2Sucks
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SFBear92 said:

Quote:

It's not Amazon's fault. Very few people build computers anymore. Gamers buy consoles or gaming laptops and everyone else uses a phone or a tablet.
Speak for yourself. I buy the parts individually every time and assemble them. Especially cause most of the time, I'm happy with 75% of the innards of my current rig. It's only when I need to upgrade a motherboard to run a better processor or get a newer better video card that I need to change something and why would I want to pay for new parts I don't need?
He's not speaking for himself, he's speaking to the market. I don't agree with him that people aren't buying computers - and neither do the numbers - but he's not wrong that the market for homebrew computers is small. The fact that you build your own doesn't change that.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/11/22225356/pc-sales-shipments-2020-growth-idc-canalys-remote-work
Econ For Dummies
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Unit2Sucks said:

SFBear92 said:

Quote:

It's not Amazon's fault. Very few people build computers anymore. Gamers buy consoles or gaming laptops and everyone else uses a phone or a tablet.
Speak for yourself. I buy the parts individually every time and assemble them. Especially cause most of the time, I'm happy with 75% of the innards of my current rig. It's only when I need to upgrade a motherboard to run a better processor or get a newer better video card that I need to change something and why would I want to pay for new parts I don't need?
He's not speaking for himself, he's speaking to the market. I don't agree with him that people aren't buying computers - and neither do the numbers - but he's not wrong that the market for homebrew computers is small. The fact that you build your own doesn't change that.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/11/22225356/pc-sales-shipments-2020-growth-idc-canalys-remote-work
That article has nothing to do with anything I said.

The reason PC's will never go away is because of heat and the ease of upgrade. Upgrading parts in a laptop is a pain in the butt and the extra airspace in a PC is good for the life of the components. I use a laptop for most things, but when I have a hard-core program to run, it's always the PC.

Of course most people will buy pre-fab stuff rather than build it, but "very few" is not true.
wifeisafurd
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concordtom said:

SFBear92 said:

bearister said:

SFBear92 said:

bearister said:

I wish I had the choice of not being on the hook for the healthcare cost of anyone that chooses to smoke, eat themselves into obesity and abuse drugs. Other than that, knock yourself out with your lifestyle choices.
So you're saying you don't drink alcohol or use marijuana?

Moderate drinker, the consequences of which will cost society nothing. Stopped smoking weed at Cal in 1973. It was not helping me get where I wanted to go.
Everybody thinks they're a moderate drinker. Except me, because I don't drink alcohol.

So why should I be on the hook for any health consequences you have later from the "moderate" drinking you've done. It's not like it's a healthy product. There's literally no health benefit to it at all and there are some health consequences form using it.

In other words, don't cast stones unless you're a vegan, non-alcohol drinking, non-drugging vision of perfection. i.e. the kind of people no one likes.
You are changing the subject.
But if you wanted to go full monty, exercise would be mandated.
If is impossible to only pay taxes on the things you support. Per Gallup, 57 percent of Americans polled told Gallup they pay "too much" in federal income taxes; note, though, that 45 percent of Americans pay no federal income taxes at all. Think about that, people who don't pay income taxes are complaining. An astonishing number don't even realize there are tax breaks for many things they may not support, or do support vehemently. In fact most people pay don't even realize they probably pay more in non-income taxes or equivalents, such as payroll, sales, property, governmental fees, etc. Like it or not, we all pay taxes and fees for things we don't like whether it be pork projects or what we think is bad public policy. Being part of a democracy means you get to exercise your right to vote and make changes, including how and where your tax money is being spent, but that is the best most of us get in our form of government.
Sebastabear
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okaydo said:



Sad to see. Fry's was a Bay Area institution. I did some deals with John Fry back in the day (helped them buy some of the assets of Egghead.com when they went bust in the dot com implosion). He was one of a kind. He and his brother had their own 192 acre golf course in Morgan Hill. And when I say "had their own golf course" that's exactly what I mean - he and his brother were the only two members. At one point. He was trying to put a giant castle (like 200,000 square feet) on it and host PGA tournaments. Not sure whatever happened there. He also owned the San Jose Sabrecats arena football team and was an avid fan.

So rest assured there used to be very good money in selling computer gizmos and shrink wrapped video games (and books and tootsie roles and electric mosquito repellers and whatever other bizarro stuff they threw together). E-commerce and Amazon in particular killed that business.
okaydo
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Sebastabear said:

okaydo said:



Sad to see. Fry's was a Bay Area institution. I did some deals with John Fry back in the day (helped them buy some of the assets of Egghead.com when they went bust in the dot com implosion). He was one of a kind. He and his brother had their own 192 acre golf course in Morgan Hill. And when I say "had their own golf course" that's exactly what I mean - he and his brother were the only two members. At one point. He was trying to put a giant castle (like 200,000 square feet) on it and host PGA tournaments. Not sure whatever happened there. He also owned the San Jose Sabrecats arena football team and was an avid fan.

So rest assured there used to be very good money in selling computer gizmos and shrink wrapped video games (and books and tootsie roles and electric mosquito repellers and whatever other bizarro stuff they threw together). E-commerce and Amazon in particular killed that business.

I had no idea the Burbank Fry's, pictured below, only opened in 1995, which is a year before I went off to Cal.

Whenever I'd be home in L.A. from the Bay Area, my dad and I would just go to the Burbank Fry's and just browse around. Sometimes, we'd buy something. Most of the time, we didn't. Other than a trek to the Fremont Fry's, that was the only Fry's I went to.



Sebastabear
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okaydo said:

Sebastabear said:

okaydo said:



Sad to see. Fry's was a Bay Area institution. I did some deals with John Fry back in the day (helped them buy some of the assets of Egghead.com when they went bust in the dot com implosion). He was one of a kind. He and his brother had their own 192 acre golf course in Morgan Hill. And when I say "had their own golf course" that's exactly what I mean - he and his brother were the only two members. At one point. He was trying to put a giant castle (like 200,000 square feet) on it and host PGA tournaments. Not sure whatever happened there. He also owned the San Jose Sabrecats arena football team and was an avid fan.

So rest assured there used to be very good money in selling computer gizmos and shrink wrapped video games (and books and tootsie roles and electric mosquito repellers and whatever other bizarro stuff they threw together). E-commerce and Amazon in particular killed that business.

I had no idea the Burbank Fry's, pictured below, only opened in 1995, which is a year before I went off to Cal.

Whenever I'd be home in L.A. from the Bay Area, my dad and I would just go to the Burbank Fry's and just browse around. Sometimes, we'd buy something. Most of the time, we didn't. Other than a trek to the Fremont Fry's, that was the only Fry's I went to.




Palo Alto for me. I was always kind of bummed because we had the Old West theme and other stores seemed to have cooler motifs (Aztecs, space aliens, underwater monsters, etc). But beggars for electronic store kitsch can't be choosers. Definitely a chain unlike any other.
calbear93
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Sebastabear said:

okaydo said:



Sad to see. Fry's was a Bay Area institution. I did some deals with John Fry back in the day (helped them buy some of the assets of Egghead.com when they went bust in the dot com implosion). He was one of a kind. He and his brother had their own 192 acre golf course in Morgan Hill. And when I say "had their own golf course" that's exactly what I mean - he and his brother were the only two members. At one point. He was trying to put a giant castle (like 200,000 square feet) on it and host PGA tournaments. Not sure whatever happened there. He also owned the San Jose Sabrecats arena football team and was an avid fan.

So rest assured there used to be very good money in selling computer gizmos and shrink wrapped video games (and books and tootsie roles and electric mosquito repellers and whatever other bizarro stuff they threw together). E-commerce and Amazon in particular killed that business.
Adapt or die.

Walmart and Best Buy recovered just in time to understand the importance of e-commerce. Lack of adaptability killed businesses like these. If regulation, taxes, and higher costs won't kill the traditional small to mid-size businesses, lack of adaptation will.
Sebastabear
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calbear93 said:

Sebastabear said:

okaydo said:



Sad to see. Fry's was a Bay Area institution. I did some deals with John Fry back in the day (helped them buy some of the assets of Egghead.com when they went bust in the dot com implosion). He was one of a kind. He and his brother had their own 192 acre golf course in Morgan Hill. And when I say "had their own golf course" that's exactly what I mean - he and his brother were the only two members. At one point. He was trying to put a giant castle (like 200,000 square feet) on it and host PGA tournaments. Not sure whatever happened there. He also owned the San Jose Sabrecats arena football team and was an avid fan.

So rest assured there used to be very good money in selling computer gizmos and shrink wrapped video games (and books and tootsie roles and electric mosquito repellers and whatever other bizarro stuff they threw together). E-commerce and Amazon in particular killed that business.
Adapt or die.

Walmart and Best Buy recovered just in time to understand the importance of e-commerce. Lack of adaptability killed businesses like these. If regulation, taxes, and higher costs won't kill the traditional small to mid-size businesses, lack of adaptation will.
Ironically of course that's why John Fry wanted to buy egghead.com (which was an early progenitor for the online distribution of consumer software). He could absolutely see what was happening to the market. The problem (and it's a classic one) is that he couldn't get the margins online he could get in physical stores and he was unwilling to cannibalize his fat brick and mortar margins. Same reason Kodak didn't want to get into digital photography, or Sun Microsystems didn't want to sell cheaper more modular servers. They were trying to protect their "core" business. The error of course is that if you don't do it someone else will and in the end you'll be left with neither the high margin business or the lower margin one. As you say, adapt or die.
Big C
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My kids heard one of Paul Simon's hits the other day and I had to go through a long explanation of what Kodachrome was. The next time my daughter wants to borrow my phone to take a picture, I'm gonna tell her, sorry, it's out of film.
Unit2Sucks
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SFBear92 said:

Unit2Sucks said:

SFBear92 said:

Quote:

It's not Amazon's fault. Very few people build computers anymore. Gamers buy consoles or gaming laptops and everyone else uses a phone or a tablet.
Speak for yourself. I buy the parts individually every time and assemble them. Especially cause most of the time, I'm happy with 75% of the innards of my current rig. It's only when I need to upgrade a motherboard to run a better processor or get a newer better video card that I need to change something and why would I want to pay for new parts I don't need?
He's not speaking for himself, he's speaking to the market. I don't agree with him that people aren't buying computers - and neither do the numbers - but he's not wrong that the market for homebrew computers is small. The fact that you build your own doesn't change that.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/11/22225356/pc-sales-shipments-2020-growth-idc-canalys-remote-work
That article has nothing to do with anything I said.

The reason PC's will never go away is because of heat and the ease of upgrade. Upgrading parts in a laptop is a pain in the butt and the extra airspace in a PC is good for the life of the components. I use a laptop for most things, but when I have a hard-core program to run, it's always the PC.

Of course most people will buy pre-fab stuff rather than build it, but "very few" is not true.
I mostly objected to you saying "speak for yourself" when he clearly was speaking to a market trend and you were speaking to a niche that isn't growing. I used to build my own computers and spend plenty of time walking the aisles at Frys to do so. I bought my last PC more than a decade ago and still use it occasionally after having upgraded some of the internals (SSD, etc.). I don't think I will ever build another PC but if I were a gamer I might. Regardless, I think it's pretty obvious that there isn't a strong business case for a warehouse size store catering to the DIY PC crowd in 2021 and beyond.
Econ For Dummies
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Unit2Sucks said:

SFBear92 said:

Unit2Sucks said:

SFBear92 said:

Quote:

It's not Amazon's fault. Very few people build computers anymore. Gamers buy consoles or gaming laptops and everyone else uses a phone or a tablet.
Speak for yourself. I buy the parts individually every time and assemble them. Especially cause most of the time, I'm happy with 75% of the innards of my current rig. It's only when I need to upgrade a motherboard to run a better processor or get a newer better video card that I need to change something and why would I want to pay for new parts I don't need?
He's not speaking for himself, he's speaking to the market. I don't agree with him that people aren't buying computers - and neither do the numbers - but he's not wrong that the market for homebrew computers is small. The fact that you build your own doesn't change that.

https://www.theverge.com/2021/1/11/22225356/pc-sales-shipments-2020-growth-idc-canalys-remote-work
That article has nothing to do with anything I said.

The reason PC's will never go away is because of heat and the ease of upgrade. Upgrading parts in a laptop is a pain in the butt and the extra airspace in a PC is good for the life of the components. I use a laptop for most things, but when I have a hard-core program to run, it's always the PC.

Of course most people will buy pre-fab stuff rather than build it, but "very few" is not true.
I mostly objected to you saying "speak for yourself" when he clearly was speaking to a market trend and you were speaking to a niche that isn't growing. I used to build my own computers and spend plenty of time walking the aisles at Frys to do so. I bought my last PC more than a decade ago and still use it occasionally after having upgraded some of the internals (SSD, etc.). I don't think I will ever build another PC but if I were a gamer I might. Regardless, I think it's pretty obvious that there isn't a strong business case for a warehouse size store catering to the DIY PC crowd in 2021 and beyond.
I don't know that there is a strong business case for a warehouse size store for much of anything anymore other than Costco and maybe hardware stores.
bearister
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Big C said:


My kids heard one of Paul Simon's hits the other day and I had to go through a long explanation of what Kodachrome was. The next time my daughter wants to borrow my phone to take a picture, I'm gonna tell her, sorry, it's out of film.


How sad is it when the people you surround yourself with are too afraid to tell you the truth. One day Gene Hackman made the quiet announcement, "I'm done." Not everybody does that.

See the next post.
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bearister
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bearister
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Hell hath no fury like a Mittens supporter scorned.



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