Of All the Taxes in All the World, Yours Just Landed on My Doorstep

Amazon, based in Seattle will now start collecting sales tax for orders shipped to Massachusetts beginning in 2013. Following pressure from municipality and business leaders Govenor Deval Patrick's office put pressure on the online retail giant.
Jon B Hurst, President of the Retailers Association of Massachusetts is quoted "Our members are greatful  and relieved to know that they will not have to face another hiday sales seaon with a 6.25% tax disparity with the world's largest online seller... Although we would have preferred a level playing field this holiday season, we are grateful to Gov. Partick for his tireless work on this issue." [Input input] A level playing field? Are you a capitalist in namesake only?

Appartenly the state losing out on millions of dollars in potential sales-tax revenue weighs greater than the fact that it will hit Massachusetts consumers. When shoppers are attempting to make thier purchase/ advertising/ afficable dollars go further, one business entity crys foul on another, and recieves favorable mediation due to potential revenue for the state. This is lazy, uncompetative, and boorish.
Mom and pop shops have been hurt over the last couple of decades by the convenience of online retailers, who can facilitate trassactions for those without the overhead and can charge prices basically independent of all factors apart from the market. Beating out brick and motar stores is not what online retailers do best, it is to provide services and products over a range that would be available to them otherwise by utilizing the net, and to keep up with the trend many physical stores have had to create an online presence to meet customers where they shop.
Govenor Deval Patrick called this a "win for all sides... pleased it promises to generate millions in klong-term revenue for the Commonwealth"; unfortunately what I read was, "tax, tax, tax... tax, tax, tax, resulting in fewer online purchases and eventually stronger intrastate regulation". Shame on me, right? The taxes will be applicable on all purchase on the first of November, the beginning of the holiday sales season and host to Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Why Bad Things Happen to Good People; Spew

Bad things happen to good people simply because there are no good people.

Terrible events are just events. Nature sans the freak. Events take place and make present the constant truth and fragility of humanity. Ground us. Remind us that we are only human and have little control outside of ourselves.

A myriad of events are actually rather limited to experiences between people, the self, and God. God is whatever you want God to be. It doesn't need to and won't resemble my God in the slightest. Nor should it. Otherwise we're just perpetuating the point I make. We all like the same fast food or we don't. All watch the same television show or we don't. Read the same book or didn't. Write for business or pleasure or don't. We release our writings and send them into the world like unprotected children, ready to be sullied by every negative experience while attempting to hold on to the good intentions of their parents.

A secret? That it's all been said before. A tirade no more than sound. Your tie my dinner and the sinners are winners. Shooting Publish all over your screen, into your thoughts, and out of your heart. Stomaching the (non-)verbal impotence of those around me and spewing my own intellectual blank shots every time I open my mouth. People speaking, if you could call it that the way you could call it spewing hate and fear, have the least to say although those that speak the loudest are often heard most frequently. Laugh and I'll tell you a joke.

So are we good? Good in the sense of good that we know good? Benchmarked with varying levels of cynicism... I'll paint houses all day and give my friend my bed but I'll be damned if I'll simply hand my life over to humanity. Does that make me bad? I assume it does; do I care and does not caring make it all the worse?

I wonder if I only talk to people as to affirm my own beliefs. Talking, no speaking, not conversing, not communicating. If bearing a disguise for my ineptitude and dullness, I should pass off as a creative, critic, thoughtful man I should endear to ruse so long myself and others as to become that person.
A duck shall "woof" a million times and still have webbed feet, but should it fly with a gaggle of geese, who are we to recognize and say that it is not a goose? Different disciplines recognize each other only by their title, a call of the business wild, and would as like see berries of a poisonous variation as beneficial. It is much easier to learn an accent than it is to learn a language. Fluency falsely interpreted by the audience. How far will my lie carry? Good and bad are constructive paradigms to judge one another, always giving emenence to law over human fallibility. Good people make mistakes, and bad people are just waiting for their next mistake. Good and bad.Inconsequential when considering that terrible people have made all the difference as "good" ones. For who? God? Pride? Greed?

And I, your snake-oil salesman, will sell it to you of you'll buy it.




Photo courtesy of Prinon Hossain