Internet Sales Tax; is anything but fair

I have been in the Aquarium, pond, and general pet supply business, along with a stint in the candy business now for over 34 years.
I have run a brick & mortar business most of these years, as well as an internet business.

In this time I have seen many anti-small business proposals come and go, however this Internet Sales Tax proposal is easily the most heinous and dishonest in the way it is being presented.

Let me set the record straight and present some facts.

First this is being called the "The Marketplace Fairness Act" by known dishonest politicians such as Harry Reid.
This bill is anything but fair.

Let me explain;

• As a brick and mortar store owner in LA County California, I had to only collect and report sales tax to one authority; the California State Board of Equalization based on LA County and California Sales Tax.
  
  Whether you as a customer lived here (LA County) or not I collected taxes for just this one entity and had to file a report and occasionally get audited by just this one entity (BTW, I passed all audits as everyone was based on a mistake by the CA BOE!!)
  
  However as an Internet based business, I and others would have to report to potentially over 9000 separate entities (state & local), with the impossible amount of paper work and likely audits that would require more staff or paid outside help I cannot afford.
  
  HOW IS THIS FAIR?
  IT IS NOT, as the difference in paper work proves this alone as the scam this bill is.


• As well, an Internet business has shipping fees, whether paid by the business or the consumer directly, these fees in the end are passed on.
  This is something a customer of a brick & mortar business does not have to pay.
  
  As well, a brick & mortar business has the advantage of immediate product availability. I know for me as a consumer, I like to see and view, and then take home a product asap.
  I also know from a retailers point of view in the aquarium/pond business, most persons inquiring as to fish medications or similar must have these immediately and are more than happy to pay a higher price at a brick & mortar business so as to have this product immediately.


• Another lie tossed about is that many will claim that Internet Business "steal" customers after visiting a local brick & mortar business.
  While this might be true to some extent in some business (if you are to believe Best Buy or Walmart), this is further from the truth than the east is from the west in my field of endeavor.
  
  As Senator Roy Blunt of Missouri stated: "it is a bridal shop in St. Louis where customers try on dresses, check the labels for the product code, and then order the same product online, free of sales tax". Sorry Senator, I too can report similar cases from my Brick and Mortar business; HOWEVER for every one of these cases I can cite 50 of just the opposite.
  
  The FACTS ARE, I receive over 6000 hits per day to my many information pages that provide correct, researched information that is not found at many PetCos, PetMarts, and local Aquarium/Pet Stores.
  These persons in turn often email and take up very limited staff time to often answer further questions (that are often already in these articles), only to then purchase at their local store.
  I know this for a fact based on our stats, and in many ways I certainly understand this too when it comes to their sick pets/fish.
  
  When I compare this to my brick & mortar business, the VAST MAJORITY of customer questions were from CUSTOMERS who primarily patronized our business.
  In fact it is about 50 to 1 the number of inquiries of of non customers when compared to my brick & mortar business.
  
  Add to this that I generally sold products at a vastly higher mark up, it was much easier to "shoot the breeze" with even non customers and still make a profit, unlike our Internet business where often we have to cut off "lazy" email discussions and ask these persons to read the information we have provided, only to get back very hateful emails from these non-customers or at the very least persons who will purchase one item every two years and then send over 200 email questions in between these infrequent sales.
  The FACTS are we NEVER had to deal with this in our brick and mortar business!!


• Another comment I have read by many persons either ignorant or hateful of small Internet business is that Amazon supports this bill.
  
  So What!!
  
  Amazon knows full well that this will considerably lower competition to them, and at the very least force many small websites to join their family of companies and pay their high fees and follow their VERY controlling policies.
  HOW DO I KNOW? Amazon has attempted many times to get us into their "fold".
  
  As well, Amazon is the same "Big Brother" company that has been known to go into a Kindle and remove a book from a customer, so why not support a "big Brother " tax?
  Reference: http://www.jimlynch.com/technologytips/2009/07/18/why-amazon-com-sucks-and-why-i-wont-buy-any-more-kindle-books/
  
  From my field of endeavor, I also know that Amazon is the same company that sells many junk aquarium products (that any knowledgeable business would never sell), in particular UV Sterilizers that are at best clarifiers than can NEVER perform true level 1 or higher UV Sterilization.
  
  Also many reviews on Amazon are not based on facts or correct use, in part because Amazon provides NO good information (based on their selling platform) as to proper/correct usage of the product. A good example here is the Rena Smart filter which is a top notch product when used properly, but based on erroneous Amazon reviews you would never know this.
  
  The bottom line, is Amazon is not a company to listen to when comes to the Internet Sales Tax Issue.


• Another lie is this: "the Internet Sales Tax Bill is not a tax increase at all. It only ensures that taxes already owed are actually paid."
  
  Sadly Republicans such as Senator Roy Blunt of MO or Senator John Thune of South Dakota have bought into this absurd lie.
  
  How is this not a tax increase? I already pay higher than many areas in property taxes to support my local police.
  I should point out that I use far less civic services than my brick & mortar business ever used, especially when the volume of business is considered!
  
  Sorry Senator Blunt, I have owned a Brick & mortar business for many more years than an internet business and the FACTS ARE I get VASTLY more time consuming enquiries online or in forums about fish, aquarium, pond, diseases, etc. where by the customer goes to their local merchant after I provide free advice.
  As I pointed out earlier, the difference is not even close. This is a sad rumor that even many misinformed Republicans such as the before mentioned senators have believed.
  The facts can be painful, but these Republicans are clearly in the back pockets of Big Business if they actually are going to repeat this lie.

IN SUMMARY

This tax is nothing more than another dishonest anti-small business power grab by many in Congress such as Harry Reid and President Obama, and when you look at their track record of dishonesty, why should they be believed?

Worse there is a rumor, if need be, so as to get this bill through the House of Representatives, it might be attached to a bill to aid the FAA with funding lost in the sequester cuts. Obama has already lied here and attempted (successfully too) to push the blame onto Congress and this tying of the two bills together would again make the House of Representatives look bad if it were to vote down.

Socialism, Communism, Nazis, Dorner; The Evil the Left attempts to hide

 

The News Media is up their old tricks again, again displaying why the mainstream news media and elite is probably the biggest threat and the greatest evil against our once great nation.

Sadly the "Low Information" voters who placed Obama in office will "lap this up" like they do everything else the media spews from their hate filled mouths. BTW, let me clarify, I am not calling those who believe the lies evil, ONLY those the propagate the lies, often as in this case simply by omission of the facts.

With the murderer Christopher Jordan Dorner, you have a cult hero being made out by many.
As well this guy is made out to be intelligent when in fact many experts in Police tactics state he has shown no special skills and behaves more like a typical criminal on the run.
Another point in fact finds an Internet copy search showing that many of his "thoughts" found within his manifesto are not even original!!

Sadly the failure by any responsible mainstream news media to publish the FULL manifesto which includes Christopher Dorner's praise for Obama and other left wing agendas, including the attempt to take away our 2nd amendment rights; clouds the fact of what a monster this man really is.
I myself have had my family severely wronged by immoral police officers, but this still does NOT give me or ANYONE else to take the law into one's hands and certainly not to kill innocent family members.

In reading his manifesto, you see a man consumed with hatred and how important the honor of his name is.
HELL, my name has been dragged through the mud by many after false accusations were leveled at me and after my wife suffered severe postpartum depression many years ago.
BUT again, normal persons do not take the actions this man has taken, nor worship individuals such as Barack Obama.
As for me, I know my name is written in the Book of Life by Jesus/God and that is all that matters.

This brings me to the point that the Democratic Party, led the the "Lord Barack Obama" (as many have anointed him, see Reference [1]) and news media, and their attempt to define terms of what is left or right, good & evil, and just who commits most large scale atrocities.

The left in this country has always attempted to make the Tea Party and the right in general look like Nazis, but is this really correct??? Other than the extreme right wing nut-job Timothy McVeigh, who actually is far right of just about any Republican, although I would dare say I have met some rather wacky far right Libertarians

HERE ARE SOME FACTS:

The Nazi Party (Nationalist Socialist Worker’s Party) was leftist. Granted, it was to the right of Communism.
The Nazis were Socialists. Which after all, is part of the acronym.
Unlike the Soviets, they were National Socialists, but socialists they were. They, like the Soviets, were also Fascists, as socialism is a subset of fascism.
Hitler and Stalin were only a few degrees from each other, but they were both still on the left. A fascist is a socialist is a communist and they are all decidedly different forms of left wing governments.

MOST SIMPLY PUT (as per economic control):

*When we politically refer to Right and left in the USA; this refers solely to the control of the economy.

*The extreme left (Communism) believes in complete government control of the means of production.

*While the extreme right (Capitalism in its most pure form) believes in complete private control of the means of production.

*In the middle, but most certainly closer to the left side of the spectrum is the type of Fascism practiced by the Nazis (Hitler) and Mussolini. In which economic production was ostensibly in private hands, however it WAS/IS subject to strong government regulation, control, and direction.
Point in fact, is that while you still may own the factory, this does NOT make it a “right-wing” government if the government says who you can hire, who you must hire, what you must produce, etc.
This is the direction of today's Democrats and Obama in particular with their "Nanny State" philosophy!!
As an example telling auto makers what they must build.

As a small business owner, this sad and frankly disgusting FACT has shown itself to be true.

*In the USA our axis swings more between anarchy and tyranny where “right” falls closer to the anarchy end and “left” falls on the tyranny end. Under no circumstances can you call a fascist government like the one the Nazis had a limited government, limited control, maximal individual freedom government (which IS the definition of the right).
The far "right" falls close to an anarchy without actually being one. This is where true American Libertarians would be, with many American conservatives often not far to the left of them).

*While in Europe, “right” and “left” on the political spectrum mean quite a bit different things than they do here in the United States.
“Right” and “left” were used in European politics to distinguish communism from fascism. The two ideologies are both collectivist and understood as leftist ideologies in America because they both lead in the end to tyranny and total government control.
In Europe that is how the axis shifts, between government control of one type or another.

In summary, the further you go to the right the more the state disappears!!
EXTREME rightism is Anarchy, or NO state control, and every man for himself.

FROM ADOLF HITLER:

“The party takes over the function of what has been society—that is what I wanted them to understand. The party is all-embracing. It rules our lives in all their breadth and depth. We must therefore develop branches of the party in which the whole of individual life will be reflected. Each activity and each need of the individual will thereby be regulated by the party as the representative of the general good. There will be no licence, no free space, in which the individual belongs to himself.
This is Socialism—not such trifles as the private possession of the means of production. Of what importance is that if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them then own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the party, is supreme over them, regardless whether they are owners or workers. All that, you see, is unessential. Our Socialism goes far deeper. It does not alter external conditions; no, it establishes the relation of the individual to the State, the national community. It does this with the help of one party, or perhaps I should say of one order.”

AND

“The day of individual happiness has passed,” Hitler returned. “Instead, we shall feel a collective happiness.”

Hitler's plan for post war Europe was for it to be a Union of SOCIALIST Nation States controlled both Financially and Politically by GERMANY.
For those on the left who refuse to still understand history beyond what a few so-called intellectual socialist nerds might have taught them in High School or College, let me point us this fact too;
What far RIGHT Dictator would promote and commission a motor vehicle and call it a VOLKSWAGEN literally a PEOPLES CAR!!!!!
Any honest person obviously knows the answer.

The left, in particular the media and our lying leadership on the left such as Senator Harry Reid and Vice President Biden are simply afraid of facing the reality that the three greatest MASS MURDERERS of the 20th Century HITLER, MAO, POL POT, and STALIN were all LEFT WINGERS.

This of coarse does NOT mean the media, or Democratic leaders such as Reid, Pelosi, Obama, etc. are such; BUT ultimate control starts with an over reaching government.
As well, the events at Benghazi, along with the lies and cover up (more so by the news media) should give any honest, God fearing person pause.

I will also state as a personal opinion, I do believe in Government, which includes some honest regulations, as while I believe in Capitalism, that does not mean all businesses are virtuous, far from it; example Google (See Reference [4]).

I will also state as per the "far right", while I certainly respect many Libertarians views, I do not agree with some extremist Libertarians far right views and especially that of a few I have known over the years such as the view "ALL government is evil".
In fact I personally find the "Truther" movement much more despicable than I even find Sen. Reid, Obama or others on the left (in part as per the Bible; to call Good evil, IS EVIL; as many 'Truthers' have done. See Reference [5])

References:

[1]Inauguration Poster Likens Obama to Jesus

[2]The Truth About Dorner: Leftism Is Violence

[3]Hitler Speaks: A Series of Political Conversations With Adolf

[4]What is a True Conservative; Conservatism versus Capitalism

[5]Isaiah 5:20

Google Search, DMOZ, Aquarium Lighting

 


I am returning to a common blog post theme here and that is Google. More specifically here; "Google Search" and how their more and more spammy search results are now allowing "black hat SEO" tricks spam their algorithm.
Participating in this ruse is DMOZ (the Open Directory Project).

If you were to type in: "Aquarium Lighting Information", the first result is: http://www.aquarium-lighting-guide.com/

This website is nothing more than Adsense bait website with non-information that has NO REAL information about this subject.
The so called "information" found there in has no real value, basically it is smarmy 1 or 2 sentence information one might expect from a child who is doing cut and paste homework.
Even then what little "meat" found in this article is very outdated. So basically reading this article is like a journey back to the 1990's reading a brief middle school kids one day homework about the subject of "aquarium lighting"

BUT IT GETS WORSE!!!!

This same website is practicing "black hat SEO" by having multiple website domains (URLs) with the SAME exact content!
See this URL for one example: http://www.aquariumlightingguide.com/

Worse yet is DMOZ (the "Open Directory Project"), which claims to have human editors has allowed this spam website into their directory
See:
http://www.dmoz.org/Recreation/Pets/Fish_and_Aquaria/Do-It-Yourself/

Sadly DMOZ has never allowed good content websites such as "Aquarium Lighting; Information" or "Aquarium Answers" into their directory after 8 years of requests for these and other quality aquarium/pond websites based on decades of experience and 1000s of hours of research.
As well, dishonest websites/forums such as "SEO Chat" will defend DMOZ with vile "straw man" arguments and personal attacks.

In summary, it amazes me that Google Search, as well as DMOZ have ANY credibility whatsoever!!

But then when has the news media EVER performed ANY responsible journalism about their "darlings" and Google is certainly one of their "darlings".

Before I single out the left-wing dishonest news media for irresponsibility in reporting Google's dishonesty in Search, Adsense, Plagiarism and more; I also have to call out Rush Limbaugh (whom I otherwise generally respect) for his constant use of the term "Googled".
See here for an example:
What Happened When Rush Googled
I have to ask when even those who claim on the "right" to be for the "little guy" or small business, such as Rush Limbaugh, then turn around and use terms such as "Googled" that infer credibility to Google and their terrible and dishonest algorithm;
How is integrity EVER GOING TO WIN OUT?????

Please also read:

*Google IS Evil, Content Plagiarism
* Google Lies, Dishonesty, Plagiarism; Adsense, Adwords
* Testing Google's Penguin & Panda, Farmer Algorithm; Verdict,FAIL
* List of Media Lies/Dishonesty & Failures
*http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/aquarium_lighting.html

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