Heresa couple things that I saw recently that caught my eye.....

Sooooo.....that makes the average price of a glass....what....two bucks now to pay off the inspectors??

Now, WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS??? I mean, back in the deep, (very) dark, misty past when I worked for The Government in a municipality in Oregon, I was sooooo totally Mr. Code!! The code is the code and it can do no wrong and it is not gray, but rather black and white......

.....but I could never threaten a 7-year-old girl with a $500 fine for operating a lemonade stand without a county temporary use permit! I mean, come on.....



Pirates who ain't from Pittsburgh -

Now, this is a weird one.....but I now totally see all sides of this issue. Yeah, it is rather bullshit when somebody steals intellectual property for their own profit. And I'm NOT really big on mass quanities of this stuff coming into the US from overseas and undercutting retailers!

But, on the other hand, how much does it hurt THE UNITED STATES??

I mean, let's take Converse, for example. Soooo, the Chuckie T's that we've all grown up with and love dearly, haven't been made in the United States since Converse closed down the factory in North Carolina in 2000 and shifted the production of these sneakers to China! So, while hundreds of people in The States are now outta work thanks to Converse's decision, some guy in China who was making a dollar an hour making Chuck Taylors for Converse (NOW owned by our friends at Nike) goes and takes out loans, gets a plant, pays his workers two bucks an hour, makes the Chucky T's at his plant, and sells 'em on the streets of Shanghi for a mark-up of, say, 30% above production cost (let's guess fifteen bucks) and the average Chinese can afford that!

Meanwhile, we got Phil Knight, who imports the Chucky T's back here (from the legitimate factory in China) and sells 'em at 4X markup ($60 or so) and puts a SIMILAR price tag for these same shoes for sale in the shops in China (even though the average Chinese wage/salary is about one-fifth of that in the United States).

I mean, if I come back to The States and bring back two pair of Chuckie T's that I bought on the streets of Hanoi for $15 each, does that mean that it is going to have an adverse effect on Phil Knight 's ability to pay his next speeding ticket because I didn't pay King Phil his $90 tribute?

And WHAT has a greater negative effect on the now-out-of-work former Converse employees? Pirate coipes being sold overseas or the fact that their Corporation decided to send their jobs off overseas for a fatter bottom line?

*************************************

Jes' some thoughts.......

Return to Ten Pics Posted next week!

More soon.....

-E-