The difference between $1k+ Apple phones and Lamborghini's is that most people can afford Apple phones. Too expensive doesn't mean they cannot afford it, it means they would rather spend the money on something else. Buying a $1500 phone every other year is about $60 per month. That is far less than a standard cable bill. Compare that to a $3500 monthly Lamborghini car payment and it's clear why they are fundamentally different. I'd guess about two thirds of the US population can afford a $1k+ iPhone, considering about 70% of them can afford cable TV. Whether or not that is a good idea is another matter.
So, because people can afford cable TV, they can afford a $1,000 phone? That makes no sense, and ignores the fact to actually use your $1,000 iPhone you need a $50-100/month cellular plan on top of your "affordable" $42/month ($1,000/24 months) iPhone... But then again, people spend ("can afford") several hundred dollars a month on food, so they can obviously afford $90-140/month for a phone and phone service./SMH
There is a not insignificant proportion of the retail market that relies on transactions that can't support 3% + 30 cent transaction fees, and that's typically any enterprise that enjoys average ticket sizes of $1-10 (convenience stores, news stands, coffee shops, fast food restaurants, etc.)
If you went into McDonalds and convinced them to go "cashless", do you think business expenses, and hence their prices, would go up or down because of that decision. What happens a person steps into a "cashless" McDonalds and only wants a $1 soda? Will McD be happy to give up 33% of that sale to the credit card company? No, FIrst thing they'll do is buy a bank, to lower transaction costs, then raise soda prices to account for the new cost of business.
You don't have to worry about your employees stealing it, so you don't have to audit it to make sure tills balance out and that deposits match sales receipts.
Right, because employees never steal credit card numbers or make mistakes entering transaction amounts n credit card machines.
You don't have to train your managers to make sure they have proper cash and change on hand when the business opens daily.
You think this is an issue? You write out on a piece of paper the following: At the end of each day all cash except $400 needs to be removed from the cash drawer and deposited. The $400 in the drawer should include (if possible) 2x $20s, 5x $10, 20x $5, 50x $1, and at least one roll of each coin denomination (Penny, Nickle, Dime, Quarter) as well as whatever loose coins are in the coin drawer bins. All $100 and $50 bills are to be removed and deposited at the end of the day.
That is a one-time training exercise for your manager.
You don't have to pay employees for the overhead time of counting cash when shifts start or end.
No, you pay the manager to do it, and it takes 5 minutes per drawer.
You don't have to pay managers for making trips to banks to get change or make deposits (yes, I know, many businesses already don't pay them for their time while doing this).
If they aren't getting paid for it, it isn't an expense.
You don't have to have a special safe or procedures in place for when too much cash accumulates.
Wow. The procedure is "remove large bills when they become too numerous ($20, $50, and $100 bills) and keep a supply of smaller bills on hand to resupply depleted drawers." Keeping the cash in a lockbox in the managers office is not a big deal.
You don't have to have local bank accounts for deposit.
Having a local bank account is a problem?
You no longer have to make sure your employees can count or do simple math.
So, as a retailer I'm expected to pay a "living wage" of $15/hr for employees that can't count or perform simple math?
Sorry, counting and basic math are required skills for a clerk no matter the form of payment employed. When you go to Wendy's and order 4 cheeseburgers for your family, it would be nice if the counter clerk knew how many "4" was...
Insurance is likely cheaper since cash doesn't have to be insured and the risk of robbery is decreased.
Unless, you know, the robbers want the items you are selling. Sure, stealing a lot of cash is best, but walking out of a jewelry store with a bag full of their inventory has value too...
The truth is, businesses hate paying that 3-4% but any business that tries to charge extra is going to lose customers very quickly.
You are paying extra to use credit cards, it's factored in to the price of every item you buy at a retailer that accepts credit cards. If everyone paid with cash, prices "could" be lowered, as business expenses would be lower (by about 3%). Retailers like cash because it saves them a 3% fee per transaction, which more than covers the "expense" of handling cash.
About 7% of average business revenue is lost in theft, the majority of which is employee theft.
Sounds made-up, but OK, let's go with your numbers.
For small coffee/food shops/chains and restaurants this number is a lot higher.
What? You mean the folks behind the counter at my local non-starbucks coffee shop are eating/drinking (stealing) 7% of sales?
Going cashless prevents the majority of theft, even if they have to pay 1-2% for the credit card fees.
They pay 3%, plus 15-30 cents/transaction:
On a $1 transaction, that is as much as 33%.
On a $2 transaction, that is as much as 18%.
On a $3 transaction that is as much as 13%.
On a $4 transaction, that is as much as 11%.
On a $5 transaction, that is as much as 9%.
On a $10 transaction it is as much as 6%.
On a $20 transaction, that is as much as 4.5%.
On a $40 transaction, that is as much as 3.75%.
On a $100 transaction, that is as much as 3.3%.
There is a reason some stores refuse to accept credit card payment for tabs less than $5-6 dollars - they can't afford to lose 9% of their sale to the "convenience" of accepting credit cards.
Your math is suspect. First off, no small retailer is paying 2%. Closer to 3%. So in your example, that's $45/day.
How many transactions contribute to that $1,500 daily transaction total? In addition to the $45 in estimated fees (3%), there are "per transaction fees" of around 30 cents. Assume the retailer conducts 100 $15 average transactions/day and that increases the "cost of credit card convenience" from $45 to about $75 (100 x 30 cent fees = $30). That's $75/day - that's nearly the cost of a minimum wage worker for a full 8 hour shift.
Yeah, credit cards are cheaper - how many $1,500/day retailers can afford to spend $75/day just to avoid "dealing" with cash?
On the other hand, there are customers that walk around "cashless", and can only make purchases with their credit/debit cards - and they probably out-number "bankless" patrons (6.5% of US households have no bank account).
Your one-third of US adults not having a bank account is not an accurate number - it can't be. It's non-sensical.
The FDIC puts the number at less than 7% in 2017:
Estimates from the 2017 survey indicate that 6.5 percent of households in the United States were unbanked in 2017. This proportion represents approximately 8.4 million households.An additional 18.7 percent of U.S. households (24.2 million) were underbanked, meaning that the household had a checking or savings account but also obtained financial products and services outside of the banking system.
Did you even think about the reality of your claim that 1/3rd of US adults only have the cash in their pockets, pay fees to cash government aid/payroll checks, and settle all their debts in cash/money orders?
What they are doing is transferring the cost/effort of a small transaction to the customer
EVERY cost of doing business is passed on to the customer - businesses don't last if they sell their goods and services below cost... Unless you are a ecommerce company and the "magical internet" allows you to offer services for free and sell items at a loss, as long as the stock valuation keeps going up.
Pro tip for the IRS. If you see a gas station that charges less for cash transactions, you can bet that you will find some fishy things on those books.
Said the/.'er that is too young to remember when every major gasoline chain offered cash discounts.
Refusing cash may seem like it saves money, but that's only because you under-estimate the cost of accepting credit cards and over-estimate the costs associates with accepting cash.
Accepting credit cards imposes transaction fees and percentage of transaction charges, and forces you to wait until the credit card company chooses to reimburse you for purchases processed (15-30 wait?).
I've worked in retail, and honestly the "expense" of accepting cash is minimal - "closing out the drawer" takes less than 10 minutes (count the cash, remove all but the amount needed to start the next business day), write up a deposit slip, drop it off at the bank. Retail employees are some of the lowest-paid workers in the country, it would be surprising if "accepting cash" added up to a half-hour's worth of work per day. Of course, scale this up to a busy Walmart or grocery store, and the costs increase, but not linearly with the increased revenues.
For every example of a clerk getting bogged down with handling cash transactions, I can point to an equal number of credit card transactions that are declined or cards that won't swipe/allow their chip to be read that creates a similar delay.
There's a reason retailers put "minimum charge" signs up in their stores, at a certain point (typically transactions under a couple dollars), the retailer starts to lose money on a credit card transaction that exceeds any possible profit on the sale. For example, PayPal charges a 2.9% fee on payment total + 30 cents per transaction, so buying a $1.50 candy bar with plastic costs the retailer about 35 cents (30 cents plus 2.9% of $1.50) - how much profit do you imagine there is in a $1.50 candy bar that it is "cheaper" for the store owner to give the credit card company 35 cents for the convenience of accepting a credit card payment?
The problem with this is that credit cards charge a percentage fee for foreign currency transactions and some have a minimum on this fee which can make it really expensive for small value transactions.
You are being selective in your outrage.
You claim the issue is that "credit cards charge a percentage fee for foreign currency transactions," yet you ignore that the currency exchange also charged you a percentage to convert (presumably) US dollars into Swedish Krona... unless of course, your employer handed you a stack of Swedish play money to cover your living expenses while attending the conference.
There's a good chance that the $100 printer, the $300 wide-screen monitor, or the $170 router you recently bought from Amazon weren't supplied to the e-commerce giant by their original manufacturers. In fact, the order may have been fulfilled by someone like Casey Parris, who resells items that customers previously returned to retailers.
What? Define "good chance" - is the author claiming that more than 50% of all $100 printers, $300 wide-screen monitors, and $170 routers were previously returned? Are individuals like Casey Parris really responsible for about half of all such sales?
Of course not.
Amazon will likely sell several hundred if not a few thousand $300 wide-screen monitors, and only a very, very small percentage of them will ever be returned, and only a fraction of those returned will. be resold, and an even smaller fraction of those resold will be resold as "new" - the vast majority of returns are in fact sold as returns.
That some returned electronics are re-sold as new, that doesn't meet the standard of "a good chance" the item you thought was new was in fact returned.
Cars are "new" if they haven't been titled yet - meaning a customer has not taken possession of it.
A customer that pays full retail for a car with "a couple hundred miles on it" is not being taken advantage of, the dealer will, by law, disclose the odometer reading at the time of the sale, and the warranty starts from that point. The last time I bought a new car, there was a completely separate piece of paper I needed to sign that served no purpose other than to have me acknowledge that the odometer had 56 miles on it (understandable, since it was driven from a neighboring dealer's lot to be sold to me).
1) Amazon offers quality products at reduced prices and delivers customer-focused service - these are the reasons they have been so successful - why shouldn't the federal government consider purchasing goods and services from Amazon, just as countless millions of Americans do?
2) If the woman from Amazon was highly-regarded for revolutionizing government procurement under Obama administration, why does she instantly turn evil when she steps into Amazon?
3) Since when is seeking/accepting advice from industry experts (in this case the woman that used to head this up this department under the previous administration) BEFORE passing legislation considered a bad thing? Better government officials should refuse to speak with industry experts before passing legislation?
It is amazing how a simple story can be twisted to try and attack this administration. At it's roots, this story is very simple:
"Before drafting legislation that will change/revolutionize the way the federal government spends an estimated $53BN/yr on various office supplies, the current administration consulted with the highly regarded woman that previously was credited with revolutionizing government spending."
Yeah, imagine, someone in the Trump administration working with experts from the previous administration to address issues in gov't spending. - those corrupt bastards!
Showering money on poor communities is not the answer. It would be great if it was, but it isn't.
When money is poured into education, it goes towards salaries, health benefits and pensions, none of which actually helps poor inner-city children learn better/succeed. It may land a slightly better qualified teacher in the front of the classroom, but that doesn't change anything holding those children back.
If you want to know why a Safeway or a Kroger won't be built in a poor neighborhood anytime soon, asked Safeway or Kroger - they'll tell you about Muliti-million dollar investments, razor-thin margins, high-crime rates and other issues. The company that seems to have figured out is Aldi Markets - smaller footprint, smaller selection of goods.
You made that up - gov't made cheap money available to buyers, and builders like Levit (Levittown) we're happy to drop thousands of nearly identical econo-boxes up to meet the demand. Nowadays, zoning regulation make it very hard to profit from low-end housing - tax subsidies and zoning requirements are the only reason any are built, at a loss, which is made up by the healthy margins McMansions give builders.
The only reason a high tech company has to open an office in Silicon Valley is to snipe employees from competitors, The vast majority could do their job from almost anywhere in America and live like kings, instead of salving away to pay exhorbitant rent and taxes in Silicon Valley.
Shy do you assume they are stray/rescue dogs? The article is silent on that.
Every dog she 'rescues' by stuffing them in her 'dark trailer' is a dog that can't be rescued by a family in a traditional home with children that will play with them and likely have s yard for the dogs to play in.
We should make the dial tone be a voice that says 'press 1 if you are not suicidal', that way all a suicidal person need do is pick up the phone and wait to be connected to a suicide prevention line...
Amazon is all about subscriptions, auto-refill orders, and those little WiFi-enabled buttons that order refills with a simple press of a button... the issue is that there is very low repeat business for 'do-it-yourself suicide kits'.
Slashdot Mirror
The difference between $1k+ Apple phones and Lamborghini's is that most people can afford Apple phones. Too expensive doesn't mean they cannot afford it, it means they would rather spend the money on something else. Buying a $1500 phone every other year is about $60 per month. That is far less than a standard cable bill. Compare that to a $3500 monthly Lamborghini car payment and it's clear why they are fundamentally different. I'd guess about two thirds of the US population can afford a $1k+ iPhone, considering about 70% of them can afford cable TV. Whether or not that is a good idea is another matter.
So, because people can afford cable TV, they can afford a $1,000 phone? That makes no sense, and ignores the fact to actually use your $1,000 iPhone you need a $50-100/month cellular plan on top of your "affordable" $42/month ($1,000/24 months) iPhone... But then again, people spend ("can afford") several hundred dollars a month on food, so they can obviously afford $90-140/month for a phone and phone service. /SMH
There is a not insignificant proportion of the retail market that relies on transactions that can't support 3% + 30 cent transaction fees, and that's typically any enterprise that enjoys average ticket sizes of $1-10 (convenience stores, news stands, coffee shops, fast food restaurants, etc.)
If you went into McDonalds and convinced them to go "cashless", do you think business expenses, and hence their prices, would go up or down because of that decision. What happens a person steps into a "cashless" McDonalds and only wants a $1 soda? Will McD be happy to give up 33% of that sale to the credit card company? No, FIrst thing they'll do is buy a bank, to lower transaction costs, then raise soda prices to account for the new cost of business.
You don't have to worry about your employees stealing it, so you don't have to audit it to make sure tills balance out and that deposits match sales receipts.
Right, because employees never steal credit card numbers or make mistakes entering transaction amounts n credit card machines.
You don't have to train your managers to make sure they have proper cash and change on hand when the business opens daily.
You think this is an issue? You write out on a piece of paper the following:
At the end of each day all cash except $400 needs to be removed from the cash drawer and deposited.
The $400 in the drawer should include (if possible) 2x $20s, 5x $10, 20x $5, 50x $1, and at least one roll of each coin denomination (Penny, Nickle, Dime, Quarter) as well as whatever loose coins are in the coin drawer bins.
All $100 and $50 bills are to be removed and deposited at the end of the day.
That is a one-time training exercise for your manager.
You don't have to pay employees for the overhead time of counting cash when shifts start or end.
No, you pay the manager to do it, and it takes 5 minutes per drawer.
You don't have to pay managers for making trips to banks to get change or make deposits (yes, I know, many businesses already don't pay them for their time while doing this).
If they aren't getting paid for it, it isn't an expense.
You don't have to have a special safe or procedures in place for when too much cash accumulates.
Wow. The procedure is "remove large bills when they become too numerous ($20, $50, and $100 bills) and keep a supply of smaller bills on hand to resupply depleted drawers." Keeping the cash in a lockbox in the managers office is not a big deal.
You don't have to have local bank accounts for deposit.
Having a local bank account is a problem?
You no longer have to make sure your employees can count or do simple math.
So, as a retailer I'm expected to pay a "living wage" of $15/hr for employees that can't count or perform simple math?
Sorry, counting and basic math are required skills for a clerk no matter the form of payment employed. When you go to Wendy's and order 4 cheeseburgers for your family, it would be nice if the counter clerk knew how many "4" was...
Insurance is likely cheaper since cash doesn't have to be insured and the risk of robbery is decreased.
Unless, you know, the robbers want the items you are selling. Sure, stealing a lot of cash is best, but walking out of a jewelry store with a bag full of their inventory has value too...
The truth is, businesses hate paying that 3-4% but any business that tries to charge extra is going to lose customers very quickly.
You are paying extra to use credit cards, it's factored in to the price of every item you buy at a retailer that accepts credit cards. If everyone paid with cash, prices "could" be lowered, as business expenses would be lower (by about 3%). Retailers like cash because it saves them a 3% fee per transaction, which more than covers the "expense" of handling cash.
About 7% of average business revenue is lost in theft, the majority of which is employee theft.
Sounds made-up, but OK, let's go with your numbers.
For small coffee/food shops/chains and restaurants this number is a lot higher.
What? You mean the folks behind the counter at my local non-starbucks coffee shop are eating/drinking (stealing) 7% of sales?
Going cashless prevents the majority of theft, even if they have to pay 1-2% for the credit card fees.
They pay 3%, plus 15-30 cents/transaction:
There is a reason some stores refuse to accept credit card payment for tabs less than $5-6 dollars - they can't afford to lose 9% of their sale to the "convenience" of accepting credit cards.
Your math is suspect. First off, no small retailer is paying 2%. Closer to 3%. So in your example, that's $45/day.
How many transactions contribute to that $1,500 daily transaction total? In addition to the $45 in estimated fees (3%), there are "per transaction fees" of around 30 cents. Assume the retailer conducts 100 $15 average transactions/day and that increases the "cost of credit card convenience" from $45 to about $75 (100 x 30 cent fees = $30). That's $75/day - that's nearly the cost of a minimum wage worker for a full 8 hour shift.
Yeah, credit cards are cheaper - how many $1,500/day retailers can afford to spend $75/day just to avoid "dealing" with cash?
On the other hand, there are customers that walk around "cashless", and can only make purchases with their credit/debit cards - and they probably out-number "bankless" patrons (6.5% of US households have no bank account).
Your one-third of US adults not having a bank account is not an accurate number - it can't be. It's non-sensical.
The FDIC puts the number at less than 7% in 2017:
Estimates from the 2017 survey indicate that 6.5 percent of households in the United States were unbanked in 2017. This proportion represents approximately 8.4 million households. An additional 18.7 percent of U.S. households (24.2 million) were underbanked, meaning that the household had a checking or savings account but also obtained financial products and services outside of the banking system.
Source: FDIC Survey
Did you even think about the reality of your claim that 1/3rd of US adults only have the cash in their pockets, pay fees to cash government aid/payroll checks, and settle all their debts in cash/money orders?
What they are doing is transferring the cost/effort of a small transaction to the customer
EVERY cost of doing business is passed on to the customer - businesses don't last if they sell their goods and services below cost... Unless you are a ecommerce company and the "magical internet" allows you to offer services for free and sell items at a loss, as long as the stock valuation keeps going up.
Pro tip for the IRS. If you see a gas station that charges less for cash transactions, you can bet that you will find some fishy things on those books.
Said the /.'er that is too young to remember when every major gasoline chain offered cash discounts.
Refusing cash may seem like it saves money, but that's only because you under-estimate the cost of accepting credit cards and over-estimate the costs associates with accepting cash.
Accepting credit cards imposes transaction fees and percentage of transaction charges, and forces you to wait until the credit card company chooses to reimburse you for purchases processed (15-30 wait?).
I've worked in retail, and honestly the "expense" of accepting cash is minimal - "closing out the drawer" takes less than 10 minutes (count the cash, remove all but the amount needed to start the next business day), write up a deposit slip, drop it off at the bank. Retail employees are some of the lowest-paid workers in the country, it would be surprising if "accepting cash" added up to a half-hour's worth of work per day. Of course, scale this up to a busy Walmart or grocery store, and the costs increase, but not linearly with the increased revenues.
For every example of a clerk getting bogged down with handling cash transactions, I can point to an equal number of credit card transactions that are declined or cards that won't swipe/allow their chip to be read that creates a similar delay.
There's a reason retailers put "minimum charge" signs up in their stores, at a certain point (typically transactions under a couple dollars), the retailer starts to lose money on a credit card transaction that exceeds any possible profit on the sale. For example, PayPal charges a 2.9% fee on payment total + 30 cents per transaction, so buying a $1.50 candy bar with plastic costs the retailer about 35 cents (30 cents plus 2.9% of $1.50) - how much profit do you imagine there is in a $1.50 candy bar that it is "cheaper" for the store owner to give the credit card company 35 cents for the convenience of accepting a credit card payment?
The problem with this is that credit cards charge a percentage fee for foreign currency transactions and some have a minimum on this fee which can make it really expensive for small value transactions.
You are being selective in your outrage.
You claim the issue is that "credit cards charge a percentage fee for foreign currency transactions," yet you ignore that the currency exchange also charged you a percentage to convert (presumably) US dollars into Swedish Krona... unless of course, your employer handed you a stack of Swedish play money to cover your living expenses while attending the conference.
Couldn't someone take the $40 cash and put the charge on their credit card? Is this really a problem the clerks couldn't figure out?
I think this "story" speaks more to the clerks/manager in the store than the store policy - their inability to think outside the box.
There's a good chance that the $100 printer, the $300 wide-screen monitor, or the $170 router you recently bought from Amazon weren't supplied to the e-commerce giant by their original manufacturers. In fact, the order may have been fulfilled by someone like Casey Parris, who resells items that customers previously returned to retailers.
What? Define "good chance" - is the author claiming that more than 50% of all $100 printers, $300 wide-screen monitors, and $170 routers were previously returned? Are individuals like Casey Parris really responsible for about half of all such sales?
Of course not.
Amazon will likely sell several hundred if not a few thousand $300 wide-screen monitors, and only a very, very small percentage of them will ever be returned, and only a fraction of those returned will. be resold, and an even smaller fraction of those resold will be resold as "new" - the vast majority of returns are in fact sold as returns.
That some returned electronics are re-sold as new, that doesn't meet the standard of "a good chance" the item you thought was new was in fact returned.
Cars are "new" if they haven't been titled yet - meaning a customer has not taken possession of it.
A customer that pays full retail for a car with "a couple hundred miles on it" is not being taken advantage of, the dealer will, by law, disclose the odometer reading at the time of the sale, and the warranty starts from that point. The last time I bought a new car, there was a completely separate piece of paper I needed to sign that served no purpose other than to have me acknowledge that the odometer had 56 miles on it (understandable, since it was driven from a neighboring dealer's lot to be sold to me).
1) Amazon offers quality products at reduced prices and delivers customer-focused service - these are the reasons they have been so successful - why shouldn't the federal government consider purchasing goods and services from Amazon, just as countless millions of Americans do?
2) If the woman from Amazon was highly-regarded for revolutionizing government procurement under Obama administration, why does she instantly turn evil when she steps into Amazon?
3) Since when is seeking/accepting advice from industry experts (in this case the woman that used to head this up this department under the previous administration) BEFORE passing legislation considered a bad thing? Better government officials should refuse to speak with industry experts before passing legislation?
It is amazing how a simple story can be twisted to try and attack this administration. At it's roots, this story is very simple:
"Before drafting legislation that will change/revolutionize the way the federal government spends an estimated $53BN/yr on various office supplies, the current administration consulted with the highly regarded woman that previously was credited with revolutionizing government spending."
Yeah, imagine, someone in the Trump administration working with experts from the previous administration to address issues in gov't spending. - those corrupt bastards!
Showering money on poor communities is not the answer. It would be great if it was, but it isn't.
When money is poured into education, it goes towards salaries, health benefits and pensions, none of which actually helps poor inner-city children learn better/succeed. It may land a slightly better qualified teacher in the front of the classroom, but that doesn't change anything holding those children back.
If you want to know why a Safeway or a Kroger won't be built in a poor neighborhood anytime soon, asked Safeway or Kroger - they'll tell you about Muliti-million dollar investments, razor-thin margins, high-crime rates and other issues. The company that seems to have figured out is Aldi Markets - smaller footprint, smaller selection of goods.
Housing homeless people in a stadium? Have you been watching Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome again?
Trying to bring back the Roman coliseum?
They relocate to places where state and local gov't give them $48K per worker in tax savings... Amazon HQ2.
A person with skills doesn't have to pay $4K/month for a tiny apt in a certain zip code - they can MOVE.
Horseshit.
You made that up - gov't made cheap money available to buyers, and builders like Levit (Levittown) we're happy to drop thousands of nearly identical econo-boxes up to meet the demand. Nowadays, zoning regulation make it very hard to profit from low-end housing - tax subsidies and zoning requirements are the only reason any are built, at a loss, which is made up by the healthy margins McMansions give builders.
The only reason a high tech company has to open an office in Silicon Valley is to snipe employees from competitors, The vast majority could do their job from almost anywhere in America and live like kings, instead of salving away to pay exhorbitant rent and taxes in Silicon Valley.
Her RV holds all her possessions, and likely has wheels on it... what she needs is to rent a uhaul vehicle with a trailer hitch.
What about her floor-to-ceiling bags of clothes, are we going to pretend they all came from goodwill?
Doesn't this woman know about the rest of America, where her skills could probably provide her (and her 7 dogs) a more conventional lifestyle?
Shy do you assume they are stray/rescue dogs? The article is silent on that.
Every dog she 'rescues' by stuffing them in her 'dark trailer' is a dog that can't be rescued by a family in a traditional home with children that will play with them and likely have s yard for the dogs to play in.
We should make the dial tone be a voice that says 'press 1 if you are not suicidal', that way all a suicidal person need do is pick up the phone and wait to be connected to a suicide prevention line...
Amazon is all about subscriptions, auto-refill orders, and those little WiFi-enabled buttons that order refills with a simple press of a button... the issue is that there is very low repeat business for 'do-it-yourself suicide kits'.