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Is anyone else concerned with the increase in oil prices and its impact upon the discretionary spending habits of the on-line consumer? Will this be another "slow" spring/summer? Is this our springtime Katrina?
Or...
Will our on-line consumers stay home and order in????
Any thoughts on where we're heading?
i'm quite concerned. when the price of gas goes up a lot, so does the price of other things that have to be transported - like food and clothes. while the price of internet connections don't go up, if prices for everything else does it will affect us.
I'm buying a car that runs off vegetable oil! Or a hybrid. Oil is the evil of the world.
Yes it worries me allot too, it does not take much to keep people for joining something like a porn site. :wtf:
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Not concerned.
I've never really noticed a substantial increase in price of goods sold where I live, or abroad (with the exception of traveling &/or shipping of goods), also, (and to my amazement) the sales of SUVs and other gas guzzlers in N.America did not drop drastically with the last increase of petroleum, so as far as I am concerned consumers can't be too worried about it.
I've always believed the price of oil to be too low compared to the price of a bottle water:
1-liter of gas = $0.90 CAD
1-liter of H20 = $1.60 - $2.00
I do drive a VW TDI Golf, so that's another bonus.
Woo hoo ... biodiesel!Quote:
Originally Posted by XXXWriterDude
Not to attack you, again, Ken, but most Hybrids still use combustion - which is totally fricken off the wall.
But they do get much better mileage than regular combustion engines. Speaking of which... what ever happened to cars from the late 70's-early 80's that got 50 mpg? Didn't Honda Civics get 50 mpg in the early 80's now your lucky to get 30 mpg from the smallest new car. WTF?Quote:
Originally Posted by Paco
We should be getting it for free. Spending 100's of billions in Iraq and we are paying the highest amount we ever have for gas. Makes zero sense.
The good thing about the high pricing of gas is maybe we will start being smarter about our consumption before it's all gone.
Paco - You live in a place that is enjoying the revenues from oil prices! All Albertans received a check for $400 (CAN) this year.... which is a lot in part because of the province's oil royalties.Quote:
Originally Posted by Paco
Just because the price of oil rises, it is not all negative.
Plus, it is against the law to look for oil off the coasts of California, Florida and in a lot of Alaska. So if we have decided to rely on others for it, we should set our expectations properly.
Steve
Figures you're towing the party line on this too. :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by desslock
But since you're so fond of hispanic guys I bet you aren't jumping on the illegal immigration reform bandwagon with your fellow conservatives.
haha
Funny.... That's absolutely correct!
Now if you dislike Republicans, I would think that you should experience some kind of shadenfreude in the fact that if they are going around trying to make illegal immigrants felons, and all that other junk. If they keep that up, they will start losing elections in Texas, Colorado, Arizona and Florida.... just like what happened in California with Prop 187.
That's one effective way to make the "Solid South" no longer so solid.
Steve
I'm glad you found the humor in my post. Lol, I wasn't sure I intended there to be any.Quote:
Originally Posted by desslock
I don't take any schadenfreude in the immigration debate. I'm not towing the liberal party-line on this issue. I see too many of the ill effects of unchecked illegal immigration living here in Dallas. I would love for the borders to be closed down and illegals sent back. I am for legal immigration and guest worker programs but I firmly believe that if you want to be in America, you needed to be American... speak english and pay taxes.
Well, when my mother brought the subject of immigration up to me the other day on the phone, I told her that she shouldn't worry too much, because they will be paying for her social security in a few years.
So what exactly are the ill effects of immigration in Dallas? I'm curious why you say that.
Steve
That would be fine if most of them actually paid into SS. These are undocumented workers that are paid cash and contribute NOTHING in taxes except sales tax. I don't know if Austin is the same as Dallas but if you drive to any predominantly mexican neighborhood in the morning, every prominent corner is crowded with day-workers waiting for cash jobs.Quote:
Originally Posted by desslock
Btw, I fear that the democrats are taking the wrong side of this issue because they see the massive crowds of protesters and think "OH! Potential voters!". WRONG! Very few of these protesters are registered voters and even registered hispanic voters don't go to the polls. By November, Middle America will have voted republican (again!) because the are so passionate about this issue. And we all lose again. :(
I guess because of my tastes in guys, I also know other gay guys who are into hispanics. Us pedrophiles typically do not see things so negatively.
A friend of mine in Dallas has had a real cute guy from Mexico as his bf for three years now. He doesn't stand on the street corners pleading for work.... he's worked at the same furniture manufacting shop for several years. Of course, they have turned the blind eye on many of their employees because they need people to run their factory.
The problem is that the country's immigration system is so knarled up, there's just no way for him to become a legal resident. EVEN though he's been gainfully employed here.
A friend in Houston has a BF from Hong Kong. He was here on a student visa, and he just graduated University of Houston with a hospitality degree. He's been working check-in (not cleaning toilets) at a Houston Hyatt for several years..... but obviously they are not going to sponsor an H1b visa for him. So looks like he's going to probably go move to Australia..... which is as gay friendly as here.... and they apparently have a better process to immigrate.
(Like the US they are at full employment, and need more people for jobs)
Of course the Human Rights Campaign has gotten NYC/Greenwich Village Congressman Jerry Nadler to file a bill every year that allows gays and lesbians bring their partners to the US legally. Although they do that to gin up money for their campaigns and Washington DC offices; they do not seriously lobby it. This may be one reason the Human Rights Campaign's Black Tie Dinner in Dallas produces the most revenue for itself.
And if these individuals aren't paying social securty taxes, then that's one reason to give them legal status. Like Italy, Germany and France, our population is aging. And us white people just aren't having enough babies.
And if the Social Security ponzi scheme is going to pay for my mother's benefits plus the rest of the baby boomer generation, we need young people in the work force to fund it. This issue will become more and more obvious in the next ten years.
Steve
First off... people, don't buy the bullshit about Social Security failing. It's just another scheme by Republicans to privatize another industry to enrich themselves and their cronies. The formula of Republicans creating panic and fear in US citizens to promote their own agenda is getting old. Isn't it funny that when the heat comes down on this administration, something manages to change our focus away from the real story. Immigration is just the latest tactic to divert our attention away from how incompetent and corrupt this government is. They've even managed to divert my attention with immigration. :(
Hell, Social Security is about the only part of the government that isn't horribly broken. Here's an interesting read if you are worried about Social Security.
Jeeeez! I go to the gym (our home away from home) and look what happens!
Cam and I were talking re: the topic of higher prices (as we sat at the Exxon fillin' up the old Jeep) and came to the conclusion that we will be facing tight months ahead (as we watched the little digital read-out soar upwards at break neck speed! (Thank God the Bentley Continental GTC is not shipping yet!)
All kidding aside, labor and modeling costs will begin to increase, along with utilities catering costs and, other production costs - DVDs are made from crude - and chicken feed near our family home in Delaware will rise raising the price on the chickens that go into daddy deAngelo's chicken cacciatore - along with the growing and shipping costs for the local CA grown organic tomatoes, etc…not to mention shipping costs for sending all of our DVDs around the globe…
This is not a pretty picture
HOWEVER, I can tell you one thing for sure, no matter how quickly people will start to cut back, cocktails and porn will survive - somehow - tobacco too
Don't you think?
When I first worked for Radio Shack like a dozen years ago, my first store was over on the east side of Austin in a mixed latino/UT student apartmentland area. My first ever big sale was to this hispanic family who walked in and bought a camcorder. Now back in those days, that was a $1200 product. Then with an extended warranty and extras, that was $1500.
Now, they could barely speak English. But they knew what they wanted and they paid by handing me fifteen one hundred dollar bills.
So Tandy Corporation made money off that sale, plus even a little extra cause it was a cash transaction, without the merchant fees. And I made a nice commission off that, which I guarantee was used and appreciated when I paid the rent for my apartment that month.
I seriously doubt they were in the country legally. If they stayed in Mexico I would have worse off that pay period. Now why don't we just multiply that trabsaction out to every purchase every illegal makes just here in Texas.
Any idea why our economy is doing pretty good now? We depend on what those people do here very much. It is much more then a bunch of unwanteds grovelling for menial jobs. I bring that up to illustrate how just anyone working any ol' job would be seriously effected if those people were exiled out.
The biggest mall in San Antonio is Northstar Mall. It's bustling, which means big rents to the landlord Simon Properties (a very well performing REIT). They also have their own credit card there for Mexican nationals, who go there constantly to buy everything. Simon's mall in McAllen (The Mall del Norte) is humongous and extremely dependant on their purchases. And those people just don't buy beer and tacos. The Abercrombie and Fitch in McAllen is one of the highest grossing stores in the entire chain.
We benefit from anyone coming here and working in our society. Turning the United States into a closed society.... like building a Berlin Wall along the Rio Grande would mean big woes. And I do not understand why people are scared about the death of the English language from immigrants. For crying out loud, have you listened to rap music lately???
One last thought - making it a federal felony to be in the country illegally, plus federal penalties to help or hire illegals: We all know how utterly ineffective the Feds are with 2257 and federal porn laws. There is nothing more tedious, expensive, potentially abusive to civil rights, and ineffective then the federal criminal legal system.
In general, why would adding even more criminal penalties to the federal code do any good for anyone? Just ponder that. Just on that alone, I would seek alternatives.
Steve
PS: Living in Dallas.... if it is like people I know in Houston, their beef with people sitting around, not doing anything and collecting welfare is NOT people from Mexico. You know who I'm talking about. In Houston, they are called Hurricane N*****
Sorry for hijacking your thread Anthony. I promise that this is the last I will say on the topic of immigration in this thread. I just want to remind Desslock that I did say in a previous post that the only tax illegals pay is sales tax... which is A LOT less than I pay for the privilege of living in America.
And I am completely for legal immigration as long as ALL employable American legal residents are fully employed and living above the poverty line.
no problem - for the hi-jack... at least its not at gun point and at 35,000 feet!
just kidding...
I'm just trying to hang here for a while amidst the LEGAL work force of carpet installers, gardeners, housekeepers, painters, dog walkers care-givers, assistants, etc...and, everyone else that keep the DeAngelos and everyone else here in BH and surrounding LA happy! I'm talking about talented Philipinos, Koreans, Japanese, Mexicans and people from all over the world... BTW, they all get 1099'd and W2d (is that a word?) and written off too!
I just don't know. My mom immegrated legally from Brazil; my dad's family immegrated legally from Italy, Great Britain and points East...
My folks sponsored people and gave them work when they moved here legally...they set stuff up and helped families get a start here in the US...why can't people just figure it out?
Well perhaps that was before 1986. Yet another part of the KNARL is that if you are a skilled professional, the tiny number of work visas issued every year are completely snapped up way before the end of the year. (H1b visas)
Imagine Marie Antoinette throwing out crumbs and coins to the hungry masses of Paris.
Since the 1980s, there's a lot more software companies, tech companies and such needing programmers, engineers, etc from other countries. So even coming to America "following the rules" means lots of red tape, and enriching immigration lawyers with big bucks....if you can get it.
As always, time and human innovation typically does not smile upon a federal legal creation.
A few years ago, a friend of mine fell in love with a German student named Robbie, who was getting his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Texas. When it was time to gradulate, that meant it was time to return to Germany, unless he pursuaded a US employer to sponsor his H1b visa.
I know for about two years, he couldn't ever get anything through, and they were already paying a lawyer some money for counsel. And this was a PhD in Math! My friend moved to Phoenix, so I don't know how it worked out. Of course Robbie could have married a woman and become a citizen that way...
Steve
So what does all of this have to do with the price of tea in China...
Well, as the need for more better bigger and huger dominates the shelves of WalMart stores who continue to drive prices down and demand up and ship our jobs overseas...the US no longer turns toward Mexico to build Apple computers and everything else so the tide shifts to the east and the east pumps more nitrates into the atmoshpere (ad nauseum)
when does it end? where does it all lead?
Personally, I think its a great thing that some of this years' stars and red carpet walkers showed up in Toyatas in place of their stretch limos...
that's the kind of signal and message we should be broadcasting...
...not this Paris Hilton Bentley shit that thrives on greed and waste and is fired by the compressed remains of pre-historic vegans that once roamed the planet...
Its Passover in LA!
Quote:
Originally Posted by LiveTwinksCam
It makes perfect sense when you consider that Daddy Bush and Baby Bush are both involved heavily in the oil industry in Texas and are personal friends of the kings and prince's in Saudi Arabia who visit regularly at the Bush Ranch in Texas and the Bush Compound in Maine or CT or wherever the hell it is.
It was announced just this weekend that the expected "average" price of a gallon of gas will be $2.62 a gallon assuming no major catastrophes like Hurricane Katrina occur.
I sometimes wonder where they get those "averages" from. I left California last week. A gallon of gas in Palm Springs was about $2.86 a gallon. I arrived in Delaware yesterday. The average price here is $2.57 a gallon.
Bill
I'm sure glad we've got someone guarding the chicken coop back home in Delaware...Quote:
Originally Posted by hdkbill
Yah, you're correct, they do get better mileage, but I simply do not understand why people are so apposed to diesel hybrids.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xstr8guy
I know, isn't it ironic: technology is suppose to make life easier etc, however it looks to be taking us down a different road. My first VW Rabbit (1976 gas-jobbie ) had better fuel economy than todays version ... WTF sup with th@ ? (sorry about the 'F')Quote:
Originally Posted by Xstr8guy
I think its great that people are beginning to take car pooling seriously and are trying to reorganize their lives and move closer to work!
I always lived close to work until I moved to LA, where cars rule and isolate people from each other inside moving metal capsules...
In LA, there's always someplace better there than wherever you are...or like Gertrude Stein wrote about Oakland, "There's no There There." Having lived in Oakland while I was in art and design school, I can attest to that...but, there IS a BART there and soon to be an extended Red Line here...
right on with mass transit, even if it costs 5 billion dollars!
Jim,Quote:
Originally Posted by Xstr8guy
Back around 1983 or 1984 I had a Chevrolet Geo. If I remember the engine was actually a 3 cylinder made by Suzuki. It average 52 mpg on the highway which is why I bought it because I was commuting to work 60 miles and 60 miles back home each day. Damn thing was efficient but small and cramped....not sure that today I'd even be able to get in the damn thing, really, as I look back on it, I don't think it was much bigger than a rolleskate.
Gas prices went down, supply went up and people weren't interested in buying small cars so the auto manufacturers fazed them out.
Oh well, guess those were the good ol days.
Bill
I guess it all it just about price collusion. The gay porn movie studios collude to set the sales prices of movies so easily, it's just clear as an unmuddied lake that naturally the same would hold for oil.
Steve
Man do I disagree with that. The biggest problem I see, at least in the particular genre we sell in, are studios selling their films for $29.95 and $39.95. Our films have always been in the $59.95 to $64.95 and for other studios who make similar type films to sell them at a $29 and $39 price point just devalues the entire genre.Quote:
Originally Posted by desslock
Bill
Quote:
Originally Posted by hdkbill
Just wait its going to get worse as bandwidth cost goes down, free videos clips are going to get longer and longer, hell maybe even full-length “older” movies too will be available for free. The you will see what devaluation really is, just like the pic situation is now. I personally think the studios did this to all of us, by being to greedy, and letting everyone, give away all of their content for free. Now pics are not worth even paying for, people don’t care about your pics in a members site, they have seen it all before on about every site for free. But what do I know, I am just a newbee at all this anyway. :honest:
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We sat in traffic today at the corner of Beverly Blvd. and Fairfax and watched the EXXON service station guy change out the regular price from $2.79 to $2.89; from $2.89 to $2.99; and premium from $2.99 to $3.09...
I must take this opportunity to apologize to this board for my previous life as a designer and creative director (in the REAL WORLD)...responsible for the logos and service station design of EXXON and other popular international brands...I can assure you all that my fees did not adjust with the market...stupid me!
the world stage is first and foremost in my sights ( everything trickles down, but what catches my attention faster is merges and company closures ) even a little war can make a difference.
unless the world has suddenly out-grown the use of "fossil-fuels" ( i should have bought stock a long time ago! ) it most certainly dictates the spending habbits of some. ( i've learned to tighten my belt and make due with mcdonalds on ocassion )
but as my grandmother once said..."we will always have the rich , and we will always have the poor"... and even in the worse economies there is always money to be made.
sincerely ~ ..."making ends meet when gas prices increase"... a guidebook now available at am*zon.com for only $14.95 :goof: