UPDATE ON OUR OPERATION. WE HAVE REDUCED OUR CHARGES. NO MORE 1.25% FOR ORDERS UNDER $25,000, BUT NOW A FLAT 1% FOR ORDERS UNDER $50,000. AS BEFORE, 3/4% BETWEEN $50,000 AND $100,000, AND .5% OVER $100,000. WE CAN’T CHANGE THE $25 SMALL ORDER CHARGE, AS IT IS LEVIED BY OUR SUPPLIER, NOT US. ALSO, WE NO LONGER KEEP CUSTOMER RECORDS. THE ATf HAS BEEN SEIZING CUSTOMER RECORDS IN GUN SHOPS. WE ARE DESTROYING OR RETURNING OUR CARDS, AND WILL NO LONGER HAVE ANY CUSTOMER RECORDS WHICH COULD BE SEIZED!
I am certain you remember the old parable about the ant and the grasshopper. A client sent me the updated version, of which I am certain you will see the difference. First of all, the original, if you have forgotten or never heard it.
Original Version
The Ant works hard in the withering heat all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the ant is a fool, and laughs and dances, playiong the summer away. Come winter, the Ant is warm and well fed. The Grasshopper has no food or shelter, so he dies out in the cold. Moral: Be responsible for yourself.
Modern Version
The Ant works hard in the withering heat and rain all summer long, building his house and laying up supplies for the winter. The Grasshopper thinks the Ant is a fool and laughs, dances, and plays the summer away. Come winter, the shivering Grasshopper calls a press conference and demands to know why the ant should be warm and well fed, while he is cold and starving. CBS, NBC, PBS, CNN, and ABC show up to provide pictures of the shivering Grasshopper next to the Ant in his comfortable home, with a table filled with food. America is stunned by the sharp contrast. How can this be, in a nation of such wealth, that the poor Grasshopper is allowed to suffer so? Kermit the Frog appears on Oprah with the Grasshopper, and everyone cries when they sing, “It’s not easy being green.” “Occupy The Anthill,” stages a demonstration in front of the Ant’s house, and the news stations film the SEIU group singing “We Shall Overcome.” Then, Rev. Al Sharpton’s assistant has the group kneel down to pry for the Grasshopper while he damns the Ant. The Reverend Sharpton cannot attend, as he has contractual commitments to appear on his MSNBC show for which he is paid over two million dollars a year to complain that rich people do not care. President Obama condemns the Ant and blames Bush 43, Bush 41, Reagan, Christopher Columbus, and the Pope for the Grasshopper’s plight. Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid exclaim in an interview on The View, that the Ant has gotten rich off of the back of the Grasshopper, and both call for an immediate tax hike on Ants, to make him pay their fair share. Finally, the EEOC drafts the “Economic Equity & Anti-Grasshopper Act,” retroactive to the beginning of the summer. The Ant is fined for failing to catch a proportionate number of green bugs to eat. Having nothing left to pay his retroactive taxes, his home is confiscated by the Government Green Czar, and given to the Grasshopper. The story ends as we see the Grasshopper and his free-loading friends finishing up the last bits of the Ant’s food, while the government’s house he is in, which as you recall, was the Ant’s old house, crumbles around them because the Grasshopper doesn’t maintain it. The Ant has disappeared in the snow, never to be seen again. The Grasshopper is found dead in a drug related incident, and the house, now abandoned, is taken over by a gang of spiders who terrorize the ramshackle, once prosperous and peaceful neighborhood.
Getting back to oldies in my collection:
On the TV show “20/20” on February 17, 1999, the Los Angeles welfare system was exposed as having dispensed literally hundreds of millions of dollars to people who fraudulently applied for, and received welfare. If one claims to have four children, benefits of over $1,000 per month in cash could be obtained, (more now!) plus food stamps, housing, and the best medical care. Some welfare recipients, lived in swank mansions with marble bathrooms, drove expensive autos, and owned fine jewelry stores and other businesses. Some received hundreds of thousands of dollars in welfare checks over the years, and had never been checked. The checks just kept coming, month after month. Some recipients, who were obviously wealthy when approached by the TV crews, and wouldn’t talk. A Los Angeles welfare employee, said they took the word of applicants as to their straits, and couldn’t check the applications as to their honesty or accuracy. “20/20” went to another city, and found out that before a signle check was issued, a case worker checked the residence of the applicant and interviewed and checked the facts.
P.S. I am so tired hearing about flight 370! It’s been going on for two weeks now. There are a hundred theories, and who cares? Some say it’s in Hindustan, and being re-fitted. Wherever it is, all the passengers have been shot or drowned, so let’s forget it. Or do you think outter space aliens took it? Give me a break!