Amazon orders 100,000 electric delivery trucks,

That was part of the problem. Coin hoarders. The other problem was that bank lobbies were closed so it was hard to get coins deposited back into the banking system. I heard some locations were waiving the

A selective dinosaur. When the Osborne I portable (23 pounds) hit the stores I was on my way to Manchester to buy one. I've got a Compaq Concerto:

Then I saw a use for a smaller version of a laptop that would fit into a motorcycle saddlebag and snapped up a Eee PC:

I was a little slow with the Kindle and have a 2nd gen with the keyboard. Still works although I mostly use the PaperWhite. I forget which generation that is, and the Fire tab, of course. I also have a Nook tab since the Amazon store doesn't have every app Google Play does.

I follow the tech news and if I see a need I tend to be an early adopter. I've got a Fire TV but never had a compelling desire to say 'Alexa, play Yancey Derringer'. I don't need Ring and I definitely don't need to new Ring indoor security drone. That's a little too close to a hunter-seeker from Dune for me.

I can recognize 17 different kinds of wurst in German...

When setting up a molding press in Quebec they assigned me a keeper who spoke English. We went out for supper one evening and I saw Rognons de Veau aux Champignons on the menu and said I was going to order it. He politely questioned my French literacy and I told him I knew exactly what it was.

Kidney stew is great stuff if you don't have to cook it yourself. Grilled lamb kidneys are okay but the stew preparation fills the kitchen with the delicate odor of cow piss.

My French literacy is touch and good and my verbal fluency is nonexistent. English is bad enough but I prefer languages where the text and the pronunciation are somewhat related.

I was in Lowes this spring getting a sack of grass seed. Between the masks and the credit connection being down it was a disaster with a huge line waiting for however they were handling credit cards. I waved two twenties in the air and the clerk shunted my to the self service kiosk. I had to wait for him to wipe down the display but I was out of there in minutes.

I wasn't as lucky in Albertsons one day. The cashier had rung up my goods, I was handing him a ten, and the computer system crashed. It was about 15 minutes before it came up again. Ain't technology grand?

The supermarket has a coin machine with no fee if you get a gift card so I would lug them in and get an Amazon credit. I've been holding off although there doesn't seem to be a shortage here.

I did go to Sportsmans Warehouse to pick up some .177 pellets yesterday. I'd read about the firearm sales increase but I wasn't prepared for the bare ammunition shelves. Unless you have a shotgun you're sol. There were a lot of empty hangers for other products too. They did have merchandise in the other departments so I don't think they're getting ready to go belly up.

Weird that you don?t have a decent smartphone.

I use mine much more for the time, the weather, cooking alarms instead of a timer and stuff like that.

It would be handy for delivery monkeys if it wasn?t for the fact that they are far too easy to steal and they don?t work inside my patio doors which are the main front door.

You do have these weird hang-ups, with investments too {-(

I was forced to do french and german in school and russian in uni but about all I can do now is recognise which language it is now.

Never tried cooking it. I mum used to serve liver, kidneys, tripe very occasionally but I never have felt the need myself although I am a good cook.

Yeah, that's the big advantage with russian, its phonetic now.

You should see a Wendy's when the registers are down and the kids have to add up the order manually and count out change. The cops threatened to shut down the store because the drive through was backed up into US41. We have another one a couple miles away with old folks running it and they do fine. They know how to add and subtract with a pencil.

Ammo seems to be a roller coaster. When Obama was there, they couldn't keep ammo on the shelf either any time there was a threat to gun rights. I don't really buy ammo locally so I just know when it is getting scarce because I am not getting an AmmoMan or Cheaper Than Dirt spam every few days telling me what the deal is on a case. I am all set. I have about 10,000 rounds although most is .22rf. Some day that might be currency.

The ammo and gun shortage just started with the riots.

At the first of the year several companies were giving rebates and having sales. I think the 9 mm was around 10 cents or less per round for the full metal jacket and easy to find. It was like they could hardly give it away. Go forward a few months and the same ammo is pushing a buck a round.

I still get the CTD ads but the prices are way too high.

Are you insulting my Nokia 4.2? It does what I need and what I don't need is a $1000 phone.

If I want weather I turn on my Yaesu FT-60. It does weather radio along with the ham stuff.

What can I say?

If your phone isn't 4G it will stop working in the next year or so

I'm not there. I'm here, where a couple percent per transaction might be a small business' entire profit (depending on what I buy).

Cindy Hamilton

Coinstar. ISTR if I get it as an Amazon credit memo, Jeff Bezos picks up the fee.

Cindy Hamilton

Cards are here to stay, the business should have put that cost in the price by now. It does mean cash buyers are subsidizing card buyers tho. As I said before, handling cash isn't free unless you are nicking some off the top and not telling the tax man.

Wow! You can't seriously believe that. You're not dumb. At least I've never thought you were.

Oil exploration is a cost of doing business that generates no income and is a valid deductible business expense. Only oil drilling makes the money. And everyone needs the oil just like you do.

How do you expect to have oil products if they can't spend money to locate the stuff?

If you think the oil corporations are raking in all the money, you might want to consider investing in their stock for your retirement portfolio. You won't get high returns but it's a safe and steady bet.

Same with medicine. Companies spend much money to finally come up with something that works well. High price of prescriptions is mainly just to recover the cost of years of research and development. The actual drug costs very little to produce.

Every company does stuff that generates no income. We call it "overhead".

It's "valid" because the tax code says it is. The tax code says it is because somebody greased somebody else's palm.

They'll just have to raise the price. Then we'll see what the true cost of internal combustion really is.

I'm sure I do, through some mutual fund or another.

Or perhaps the high price of prescriptions reflect the high price of marketing. Those television ads, perks for doctors, and free samples don't pay for themselves.

Cindy Hamilton

When I buy a tomato at the greengrocer's, I'm not going to ask him to forego 1-2% just so I can use a credit card. I'm looking the owner right in the face when I hand over my cash.

Cindy Hamilton

Using cash can save me money too. A few times I had things like a plumber, window tinting, wheel repair. Paid cash and it saved me the tax. I think we both made out that way.

Small farm stand has a sign that they prefer cash to avoid fees. The owner always rounds down for cash. My $9.18 bill on the register is just $9.

Actually what would really happen is a foreign company, or a US company through an offshore subsidiary would be producing your oil. Then the US would be even more dependent on foreign oil because ours would be too expensive. In a multinational business environment lowering corporate taxes would actually repatriate more capital. Our companies hide their money offshore to dodge the taxes. GE and Apple are excellent examples.

The reality is the consumer still pays corporate taxes anyway. It is just a hidden tax that someone else collects for the IRS, just like the other half of your FICA. You still paid that to, with your labor.

If he is any kind of businessman, that 2% is already in the price of your product and the cash is a gift. That assumes he is not paying someone else to handle that cash and his time is worthless. Then it is a wash.