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Impending CA Sales Tax Sparks Amazon Buying Frenzy
New submitter payola writes "On September 15, Amazon will begin adding in sales tax for purchases made in California. This is sparking a buying frenzy among California residents who are rushing to buy consumer electronics and other expensive items on the site before the deadline. Of course, consumers are supposed to pay sales taxes on their online purchases anyway, but few actually do. 'Amazon is not the only Internet merchant affected by the new law. But as the nation's largest online retailer, it has been the main target. More than 200 other out-of-state companies with major business in California may also be on the hook to collect sales taxes on items shipped to the state. The tax revenue from these online sales is being lauded as a win for the debt-ridden state, which estimates it will see an additional $317 million annually as a result; more than $83 million of that is expected to come from Amazon alone.'"
Am I really the only person in the country who doesn't evade taxes?
which estimates it will see an additional $317 million annually as a result
And will be instantly pissed away on corruption and bullshit and the bond payments for the initial funding for that idiotic "high speed" train which is really just a welfare project for high paid political cronies to sit around on boards and committees.
Do the government officials in California truly believe that the larger retailers (Amazon) won't find a way to circumvent this legislation, just as they avoid paying federal taxes? Microsoft pays a very small fraction of the state taxes they technically should owe the state of Washington, for example, as Apple does in California. Granted, they aren't retailers in the same sense as Amazon et al, but they do have a good percentage of online retail income.
There are states that do not have sales tax. I believe that Alaska is one of them. So what would happen if someone in Alaska would purchase an item and than give that item to someone in a state that did have a sales tax? With automobiles it is easy since that automobile must be registered in the state of residency the sales tax is collected when registering that automobile. I recently purchased a used car and I had to pay sales tax on it. I payed $10,000 for a car that was sold for $16,000 so the state received $960 from the original owner plus $600 from me. Depending on how many times the car is sold the state could get more from taxes than the original sales price. Now with items that are not registered, if someone would purchase a expensive television who lived in Alaska and had it shipped to someone in Michigan, that someone would not have to pay the 6% sales tax in Michigan. So someone could establish in Alaska to purchase expensive items in Alaska and have them shipped to an address in Michigan and charge 2% and both would profit from it. What is needed is a common sales tax for every state.
Any tax money amazon gets, they'd get anyway. If $9 more breaks the bank on a $100 purchase then you shouldn't be spend the $100 anyway.
Amazon response to grt is http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-08-10/ebay-and-amazon-eye-same-day-delivery
It may not change much. If Amazon is opening more warehouses in California, it can offset the negative perception from taxes by making it easier to get free or at least fast shipping. In the former case, it cuts Amazon's shipping costs so they can offer up more things for free. In the latter case, people are very happy to get things next- or second-day when they paid for longer delivery times. This was originally a major reason for me to start buying from NewEgg as a lot of the Southern California area gets items the next day from the warehouse in Industry, near Los Angeles.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
And I'll be buying from someone other than amazon from now on, unless amazon lowers their prices by 9% to suit.
I suspect you'll just buy from whoever has the lower total price, just like 99.99% of customers. In some cases Amazon would still win even at +9% because of their aggressive discounting.
And all that will get pissed away, or affect the economy to the point where revenues actually decrease.
Notice how any criticism of the California government is modded down now?
The's another dynamic here. Imagine if you're a brick and mortar store trying to compete with amazon. Not only do they have low overhead, high volumes, etc, but they have a 10% price break from no sales taxes. How can you compete with that? this levels the playing field a little bit. Inb4 brick and mortar is a fail: remember that they provide al people jobs in California, so if we can make brick and mortar more competitive with online (at least by removing artificial barriers) then it is good for the state.
B&M stores can't compete anyhow. If I want something, chances are I'd have to go to five stores to find it, and it'd be 20% more than I could buy the item for online. After I spent $5 worth of gas looking for it. Once again, no thanks.
Why level the playing field? Amazon has a very good business going that employs a lot of people. B&M stores that only stock a slice of what I want are yesterdays old moldy news.
You have seen the story about how amazon intends to deliver about 50-70% of their items the same day as ordered? They're already working with a van service here in the southwest and I've been happy with their deliveries so far.
Oh, and all of the grocery stores near me will pull and deliver an order for free. One did it so the rest had to follow suit.
Seems like the wave is moving away from lots of stores that don't have what I want to a bunch of giant warehouses and guys that bring the stuff to my house. But lets fark that up by 'leveling the playing field', which in my experience means cutting the legs out of someone doing a good job and handing them to someone that wants to screw those legs to the top of their head.
Any tax money amazon gets, they'd get anyway. If $9 more breaks the bank on a $100 purchase then you shouldn't be spend the $100 anyway.
You're starting to sound like my wife.
Frankly, I buy 10% more than I would if I were universally taxed. What do you think does more for the economy...me and a brazillion other people spending a little extra to build and deliver things, or giving that money to the California legislators to build that high speed rail that starts near nothing and ends near nothing and that almost nobody will ever ride?
And the reason why those avoidance strategies for the rich are "legal" is because some rich contingent paid off a lobbyist who in turn wrote some ridiculous exclusion into the tax code who then handed that pre-written "law" to a politician who was given a piece of the lobbyist's cut to attach that "law" as a ridiculous addendum to a an unrelated bill that got passed by other corrupt politicians who also sipped from the same money well. But sure, it's legal.
Actually, someone else who does not apply CA tax, will get the business. If I get a $700 laptop, the tax would be 70 dollars (Recycling tax+tax in my county is 9.25%). I would rather buy it from one of the other online retailers.
And I'll be buying from someone other than amazon from now on, unless amazon lowers their prices by 9% to suit.
I suspect you'll just buy from whoever has the lower total price, just like 99.99% of customers. In some cases Amazon would still win even at +9% because of their aggressive discounting.
You underestimate how much I enjoy not giving my money to California.
I was thinking a similar thing. You can get standard shipping free normally, but maybe offer a free Amazon Prime-like account to states that demand the sales tax with free two day shipping.
On the other hand, I tend to get things from Amazon in a couple days even with standard free ("super saver") shipping anyway.
Every tax-free online store is now going to advertise this fact.
Don't need BACON?
Wrong bunny.
They get out of collecting taxes for the Federal and State governments. Why should retailers be forced to take the scorn over the tax system?
Business pays no tax, ever. They collect it. Those good at not collecting it somehow are guilty of something, not sure what.
It is called indirect taxation and if Americans truly understood how much that really costs them those jerks in government, the true one percents, would be out of a job.
Instead they are masters of misdirection, vilifying businesses for not collecting taxes on their behalf. Be up front and honest about, take the true cost of government from every citizen just so they know how badly they are getting soaked.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
how many millions has California spent (in manpower, in legal bills, etc) to 'win' this money? how many years of this will it take to break even?
and now that things will cost more, how much less will California consumers spend (both with Amazon and from local stores)
Ding Ding Ding, we have another winnar!
They'll get almost nothing. Most of it will go to two towns where amazon is building warehouses, and those towns are giving amazon most of the money to get them to build there.
So we the people will have a lot of their tax money spent collecting and redistributing the tax income, but very little of that will actually go to the state level. So they spent all of that (our) money getting next to nothing, and amazon and those two towns are smarter than Jerry and the CA legislation. Of course, the latter don't really care, as long as money is pouring over the sides of the ship and they can spend like drunken sailors.
Hey, the boom economy never ended here in CA. Ask our politicians, who have steadily increased spending on more and more stupid things as the economy has sagged.
Honestly, when VA starts collecting sales tax from Amazon it will have zero impact on my buying decisions from them.
I buy from Amazon because it is easy and convenient. With Prime, things are delivered right to the door within a day or two. When same day shipping is there, there will be virtually no where else I'll need to shop.
Sales tax? BFD.
When the government passes a law that says, "you must hit yourself in the head until you get a good headache", and the people don't obey, don't blame the people.
I'm not a radical libertarian who believes the government should just curl up and die; but there's smart government and there's stupid government. Requiring customers to tax themselves after the point of sale, and expecting anything other than massive non-compliance is stupid government par excellance.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
does it really matter. it will just be spent on high class hookers and cars, you will not see a dime and they will still say they have no money.
Easy. Amazon has no presence in california, so they never had to collect sales tax. California passed legislation that made affiliates (people who list amazon products on their personal site, often with reviews and 'how-to's and received payment for a click through) were employees, so amazon had employees in the state and had to collect tax.
So amazon 'fired' all of their affiliates, many of which set up fronts in Oregon or other states and continued as before, but many also threw in the towel, costing california jobs and job income.
Then the state said they'd pass endless streams of legislation until amazon bowed. We've spent millions on this crap.
So amazon got two towns to agree to hand over most of the sales tax revenue which will come their way, and is building warehouses there. Sales tax revenue goes mostly to the physical place where the transaction occurred, which is the warehouse town in this instance. So after spending millions and tying up legislature time pursuing the matter, the state will receive maybe 20-30mil of that 300-something discussed in the original article. At least the rest will go to jobs in those two towns, mostly poor hispanic people.
But then quite a few of the people in surrounding states that work at warehouses that amazon only set up to ship quickly into california will lose their jobs. Won't be needed anymore.
So some benefit to california, at the cost of its neighbors. Nearly zero budget relief. This is what I've come to expect from our state political machine...a lot of noise, a lot of movement...but nothing much happens at the end.
I'm sorry, on reflection I could have been more succinct.
California extorted Amazon into entering into a taxation agreement.
Just like they're going to do to the voters later this year.
So why would it make any difference if Amazon lowered their prices? California would still be getting its cut.
California double taxes us anyway. 10% state income tax and 10% sales tax. Assholes. (Yes I realize one is federal one is state. Not the point.)
Guess you could try to get it right. State income tax goes to the state, There is a fixed state sales tax that goes to the state and some counties and cities also add some sales tax to sales in their counties. I lived there for most of my life and glad to not live there anymore.
But it's the Constitution, nobody uses that anymore.
This is the beginning of the end for sales-tax evading commerce of all kinds, e-commerce, telephone ordering, and order by mail. It is the beginning of the end for the small and mid size non-store commerce businesses.
As every state, county, and other municipalities pile on to demanding these non-store merchants collect their sales taxes, the merchants are going to be faced with a very difficult task: keeping track of the tax rate where the purchase is delivered, and then remitting those funds to the appropriate government agency. Consider a city dwelling consumer, who is liable for city, county, and state sales taxes. The merchant must know how much to collect from each customer based on the delivery address, and will need to maintain separate accounting for every district that they must remit the collected taxes to.
This is going to be very expensive, and guess who pays? Mr. Customer. It will also be very damaging to small and medium size non-store retailers, who will not be able to afford the systems to administer collecting for tens of thousands of different tax regions.
There needs to be a better solution, one that can scale, one that is acceptable to both the merchants and the tax-collecting government.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Here's the thing: if you live in California and purchase something for which there is no sales tax charged to you, you still must pay Use Tax on your yearly tax return.
At any time the California FTB could go after Amazon's sales record for California customers and take all the customers to court for unpaid Use Taxes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Use_tax
Honest politicians can't get into office because the corporate run media won't let them get their faces in front of the voters.
The flaw in your logic is thinking that sales tax is a tax on goods. It is not. It is a tax on transactions. You don't owe tax because you bought a book, you owe tax because you spent $15.
And that is where I will be shipping large Amazon purchases after September 15th...
Not only do they have low overhead, high volumes, etc, but they have a 10% price break from no sales taxes. How can you compete with that? this levels the playing field a little bit.
Sure, lets artificially make less efficient businesses more competitive.
This is why I inserted time-wasting OS calls into my qsort() function. I want bubble sort to be able to compete with more efficient sorting algorithms, so I make sure that bubble is artificially more competitive.
I also installed the battery from the old dumb phone into my new smart phone, because it just was not right that the new phone lasted longer on a charge than the old one did.
Are you picking up what I am putting down? Maybe you should have someone else help you pick that up, even though you are perfectly capable of doing it on your own. We wouldn't want people incapable of picking it up by themselves to feel less competitive.
"His name was James Damore."
It frustrates me seeing legislators attempting to further sales tax even though it does more harm than good, as far as I can tell. It hurts those with little money by giving them less buying power, especially in those states where food is subject to sales tax, though even past that it makes things harder.
Sure it rewards you for saving (though, I thought we were trying to encourage consumerism to keep the economy healthy, but that's something else...), but those that can afford to save can afford to pay a little more taxes, so it's a bit of a non sequitur as far as I can tell.
It's not that I don't want to pay taxes.. I'm perfectly fine with paying income tax, and having to pay based on my ability, it's that sales tax messes that up, such that the poor, who have no option to spend most or all of their income (assuming they want to eat and stay healthy, anyway), end up being taxed more than is helpful or fair.
Can anyone provide a legitimate reasoning for the existence of general sales tax?
What will the result be?
Amazon will fade as all those consumers move to sites where they don't have to pay California's already ridiculous sales tax. Eventually the rest of the states will demand amazon pay up... and they will fade into obscurity. At least, up until now, they were collecting taxes from amazons earnings. In the end California will collect NOTHING as the company people place their orders with will be in Canada, Mexico, or somewhere else.
giant pudding-filled swimming pools
That sounds really cool. I would definately vote for that!
Because Amazon will ship same day and have to pay taxes anyways, they are a stone throw away from opening up their own B&M store. Might as well at this point. Imagine all the Best Buy's and Walmarts having some serious competition from that new Amazon flagship store down the road housing all the popular items for impulse shoppers.
Life is not for the lazy.
Harrison Bergeron FTW!
http://www.tnellen.com/cybereng/harrison.html
no, I'm not trying to be a socialist marxist democrat. the playing field is currently slanted in favor of amazon, to the detriment of B&M. why do you want to artificially prop up one group over another? fact: if I buy a tv at best buy, I pay 10% tax. if I buy a TV at amazon, I do not pay 10% tax. why should tax law favor one merchant over another? the margins on tvs are so razor thin that best buy can't overcome this setback - they can't price their tvs 10% under amazon to make up for the tax benefits. all i'm saying is, all merchants pay sales tax. level playing field. there's no way you can disagree with that. otherwise, you want to prop up somebody artifically and cut the legs out of someone else. how can you argue otherwise?
let's have a conversation! let me know what you think.
the only artifical thing is that one merchant gets a 10% tax break that another merchant doesn't get. when a market like TVs runs on razor thin margins, why should the government decide who wins and who loses. level the playing field - all merchants pay the same sales tax, and the government doesn't annoint a "favorite boy". how can you disagree with me?
let's have a conversation! let me know what you think.
There will always be a place for bubblesort. It actually works quite well for very small lists or on lists that are somewhat sorted already.
Likewise, there will always be a place for brick-and-morter stores.
So I agree ... we need to let the B&M compete where they work best, and let online stores compete where they work best.
So why would it make any difference if Amazon lowered their prices? California would still be getting its cut.
You haven't been doing your reading. California is getting almost nothing from this. The tax money is collected by the state, most of that is earmarked by law to go to the point of origination of the sale, which is two towns in california that have agreed to give almost all of the collected sales tax back to amazon in exchange for amazon building distribution centers in their towns and employing a lot of poor hispanic people who live in those towns.
We will however spend a ton of money collecting and redistributing those funds, as we've spent a ton of money extorting amazon to collect the sales tax, even though they have no legal profile in the state that would require collection.
So the genesis is:
- State too stupid to spend less than they take in
- State prefers to spend money on boondoggles and pork
- State looks for more money to spend
- Amazon doesn't collect sales tax, and legally doesn't have to
- State extorts amazon by threatening endless lawsuits if they don't capitulate
- California loses millions when Amazon yanks its affiliate program and the affiliates 'move' their business to other states
- Amazon and two smart california towns agree, and then structure it so amazon gets back all the money
- Workers in states surrounding california lose their jobs to people in the new california distribution centers, since amazons business is a zero sum game
The two towns in california win, because they get jobs. Its bad for amazon, because they'll lose some business that won't pay the tax. Its bad for the state, because they already spent more money than they're going to get, trying to get the money. Its bad for amazon workers in peripheral states.
In short, its the same result you get when any government entity tries to manipulate a situation to their advantage. Since most government workers aren't the cream of the crop, someone else with a better brain has their way with them, then the government entity declares victory (mission accomplished!) and moves on to the next sad target.
I avoid paying anything to the state of California, whenever possible. They only waste the money on pork and stuff nobody needs.
They also apparently haven't been paying attention to how all of this is going to shake out. Two towns in California are going to get huge amazon warehouses, and those two towns are getting the balance of the sales tax revenue, and they're giving most of it back to Amazon.
So California, amazon and those two towns will spend millions to collect next to nothing.
And I'll be buying from someone other than amazon from now on, unless amazon lowers their prices by 9% to suit.
Really? Rated 'troll'?
LOL
I thought a troll was telling a falsehood intended to unnecessarily inflame people. I didn't realize you got that label when you told the truth. Are we employing state workers to moderate the forum these days?
Well somebody has to pay for all of these illegal immigrants.
no, I'm not trying to be a socialist marxist democrat. the playing field is currently slanted in favor of amazon, to the detriment of B&M. why do you want to artificially prop up one group over another? fact: if I buy a tv at best buy, I pay 10% tax. if I buy a TV at amazon, I do not pay 10% tax. why should tax law favor one merchant over another? the margins on tvs are so razor thin that best buy can't overcome this setback - they can't price their tvs 10% under amazon to make up for the tax benefits. all i'm saying is, all merchants pay sales tax. level playing field. there's no way you can disagree with that. otherwise, you want to prop up somebody artifically and cut the legs out of someone else. how can you argue otherwise?
I guess when you consider that amazons prices with shipping are about 10-20% higher than a b&m that doesn't have to ship to someones door, the little tax thing did level the playing field. When I can find an item at a B&M store (good luck) and its actually in stock and on the shelf (you'll need even better luck on that one), its generally cheaper...even with tax...than amazon is. In fact, you can do a one stop check on this, pick any item on amazon sold by multiple sellers and you'll see that all that charge for shipping have a much lower item cost, many of those are b&m stores, and you can get the same price by walking in the door. What amazon did is stock everything, make it easy to buy, and they eliminated the efficiency problem of finding something at a local b&m. If they'd been charging me tax the last ten years...I'd have probably bought from them 10-20 times instead of 1000-2000 times. So I think the playing field was already level. My local B&M stores 'competed' by not carrying plastic swimming pools (for my dogs) in an area that averages 95-105 degree highs for 5 months out of the year. When I went to buy an anchor for my boat, there was an empty spot on the shelf. When I wanted to get some decaf iced tea mix, none of the 10 grocery stores carried it, preferring 12 varieties of caffeinated tea. The B&M stores farked themselves by not carrying what their customers want, not effectively stocking their shelves or maintaining inventory, doing 'product placement' where they take items from where shoppers are used to finding them and sprinkling them around the store in an effort to make a "hunt" out of shopping but which really makes it hard to shop in a timely manner, and by littering their aisles with products on boxes, hanging from the doors of the freezers, etc. Amazon has to own buildings, they pay employees to handle everything, AND they pay to ship everything to me in 2 days for $79 a year, which includes as much free video streaming as netflix. How again are the B&M stores at a disadvantage? Seems to me amazon is a superior retailer in most every way, and we just cut the legs out from under them by unleveling the playing field.
Because Amazon will ship same day and have to pay taxes anyways, they are a stone throw away from opening up their own B&M store. Might as well at this point. Imagine all the Best Buy's and Walmarts having some serious competition from that new Amazon flagship store down the road housing all the popular items for impulse shoppers.
I think the only problem with that is that every online store thats opened a b&m presence has generally regretted it. Apple stores sort of work, but only because they overcharge for every single product, usually by adding a zero or at least doubling the price of something. Try buying an ipad charger in the apple store vs getting one online...
I also don't think amazon customers want to drive somewhere to look at something. Why? You have 30 days to return the item, at amazons cost if there was something wrong with it or it didn't match with the description. In fact, if you buy a lot from them, they'll pretty much do anything you want. I've had them take back stuff past 30 days, give me half the purchase price back because the condition was a little off, discount items heavily to make up for shipping issues, etc. Why would I want to spend $5 worth of gas to motor somewhere, fight a crowd...just to look at something? I'd much rather read 500 reviews, look at a dozen photos, and be able to send it back for free if it stinks.
I think its more likely that a single central courier service comes up (I don't think its UPS or Fedex or the USPS, who cant seem to find their own ass with both hands and a 180 degree swivel waist) and a set of services like amazon and grocery delivery.
I've completely stopped shopping at grocery stores. I found they're either intentionally pricing items as sale items that ring up at full price or they're grossly incompetent, since every time I buy groceries there are 2-3 price errors, never in my favor. So I buy a big box of locally raised, grass fed meat for a slight increase in cost vs the supermarkets from a local farm consortium, and a nice group of organic farmers delivers me a big box of locally raised, absolutely delicious fruits and vegetable, also for a slight premium vs the supermarket. Then I buy online and have delivered any other items I need, because the damn price on their web site is firm, I can easily comparison shop between 5 stores and get the best price, and I don't have to dodge customers and product tents in the middle of the aisles or look through the whole store to see where the hell they put the toilet paper this week.
I think it'll go the other way....depots and local delivery, no more b&m.
this hasn't been my experience at all. in my experience, amazon is always lower than b&m, especially on expensive stuff. also, shipping is free over $25. except for buying a single book or single CD, it's easy to do $25. Also, Amazon has an app where you can compare prices in real time in a store. It's called "showrooming." Also, it sounds like you're being inconsistent. you're saying that amazon is often more expensive than b&m, so they need a tax break to "level the playing field." don't you think that's a bit hypocritical?
let's have a conversation! let me know what you think.
this hasn't been my experience at all. in my experience, amazon is always lower than b&m, especially on expensive stuff. also, shipping is free over $25. except for buying a single book or single CD, it's easy to do $25. Also, Amazon has an app where you can compare prices in real time in a store. It's called "showrooming."
Also, it sounds like you're being inconsistent. you're saying that amazon is often more expensive than b&m, so they need a tax break to "level the playing field." don't you think that's a bit hypocritical?
You need to do a little more price comparison work.
And I don't think its a bit hypocritical, since people moan about b&m's having to maintain a store and so forth, while amazon has additional overhead and costs the b&m's dont.
We restricted the internet sales tax stuff for a reason, but now the b&m stores have pumped enough money into the political system to get them to put the arm on amazon. I predict no significant benefit for the state, and a big hole in the side of a very successful business.
Lets remember, the bottom line is that the US constitution gives power to states to do what they will within their own borders, and its not legal for a state to try to charge taxes on something made, sold and shipped in another state. Our rights along with amazons rights were trampled in this case, purely to squeeze more money into the state budget so we aren't extorted into paying more in taxes, which will happen anyhow.
Are we seeing the hypocrisy yet?
I can't comment on the charger, but I just purchased a new battery for my late 2008 MacBook 13" unit. The price for the battery was exactly the same online as it was at the Highland Village location here in Houston, TX. Tax and all. They don't even use registers, just iPhones to process payment right there on the floor. I was in and out in a flash. Amazing.
Life is not for the lazy.
Well sure, apple gets $125 for the apple branded battery in their stores, and people who paid what they paid for a macbook will probably just cough it up.
$25 online at amazon.
But my original point is that online etailers who open stores, with the exception of apple and its artificial pricing, aren't money makers.
what are you talking about constitutional rights? apply a sales tax to all goods purchased and delivered in the state. why is that weird? it's specifically constrained to the state. i think you should chillax, get off your high horse, get your head out of your ass, and go back to your fanntasy love affair with amazon. zOMG did you see the new KINDLES!!!! They are freaking awesome!!! I fanboi'd my shortz!!!!
let's have a conversation! let me know what you think.
what are you talking about constitutional rights? apply a sales tax to all goods purchased and delivered in the state. why is that weird? it's specifically constrained to the state. i think you should chillax, get off your high horse, get your head out of your ass, and go back to your fanntasy love affair with amazon. zOMG did you see the new KINDLES!!!! They are freaking awesome!!! I fanboi'd my shortz!!!!
My mistake, I thought you were a sentient being.
I'm sorry. I assumed you had some intellectual honesty. You should join the republicans if you're not there already. You'll be in fine company.
let's have a conversation! let me know what you think.
Not to nit-pick, but there's a lot of pirated batteries online. They're often passed off as the "official" version when in fact the label is honest-to-god pirated fake. This goes for both cell phones and computers. At most, the battery doesn't contain anywhere near the life you would expect. At worst (and it's rare), the batteries get really hot, smoke, and started venting violently.
It's a gamble. Some get the real deal on the cheap. But most people get the fake pirated 5$ Droid cellphone battery thinking it's real.
Life is not for the lazy.