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Ask Slashdot: Will You Shop Local Like President Obama, Or Online?
theodp writes "President Obama and his daughters headed to an indie bookstore last Saturday to promote shopping local. The White House did not disclose which books were bought, but author Lauren Oliver tweeted her delight after a White House photo showed her books Delirium and Pandemonium were among the 15 children's books purchased by the Obama family for Christmas gift-giving. While it made for a nice Small Business Saturday photo op, do you suppose the President paid much more for the books at the small indie bookshop than he might have at an online retailer like Amazon, where the hardcopy edition of Pandemonium is $10.15 (44% off the $17.99 list price) and the hardcopy edition of Delirium can be had for $10.47 (42% off the $17.99 list price)? Kindle Editions of the books are also available for $7.99. And with both titles eligible for free Amazon Prime shipping, the President could've saved on gasoline and Secret Service costs, too! So, will you be following the President's lead and shop local this holiday season, or is the siren song of online shopping convenience and savings too hard to resist?"
Except that the money to pay for those public "servants" is first taken under the threat of violence and imprisonment from people. My company doesn't send people to jail for not spending their money with us.
My gawd, did they kick you out of the dram club for making everyone else look incompetent or something so you came here?
How in the world did everyone survive before 1970 when the EPA started regulating things? I mean it's completely impossible for private enterprise to regulate itself right, and we had no real environmental regulations until after we caught that river in Ohio on fire. 200 year of the US and everyone was dead. Oh wait, what's that? Those businesses found out that if they didn't shit all over the place, The workers wouldn't die and they could keep the company open and make money instead of having no one willing to work for them? Say it aint so.
Here is a hint. The vast majority of business does not want to pollute, they just don't realize how badly they are doing it. Most of the Superfund sites I helped clean up wasn't created because some evil company was dumping toxic chemicals illegally, they were created because burying drums of crap was an accepted and proper way of disposing of things when it was done. When rivers started catching on fire companies were the first to react and assess ways of disposing of their wastes before any laws required it. Turned out there was a secondary market for most of it which other chemicals could be made from.
I seriously couldn't get through half of what you posted before reality was kicking my head in and yelling what the fuck is this guy thinking. Keep your Captain planet drama in the cartoons.
When did the federal government pass mandatory auto insurance? I must have missed that.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison