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#327 Dec 18 2012 at 3:36 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
Charging tax on food stamp items is just taking money out of the food stamp program and moving it into other programs while losing a percentage of it due to overhead in tax collection.


Not charging tax (assuming taxes would normally be charged for the purchase) is just taking money out of the other programs and using it to offset the cost of the food stamp program. Tomayto, Tomahto.

Oh. I'd also argue that there's more tax overhead doing it this way, since now every business that accepts EBT will have to handle the exception for charging tax on those purchases. There's no change to the existing management of sales tax if you just charge purchases with the cards the same as cash from any other customer. So, not seeing the benefit here.

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Most government purchases are tax exempt (I'd say all but maybe there's some outlier) because it'd make no sense to spend an extra 7% out of the school desk budget on sales tax just to have 0.03% of that come back around into the school desk budget.


If it's the government actually buying it for government use, that makes sense. But in this case, the government is handing money to consumers and having them buy products with it in the market. That's not remotely the same thing. When the government hands out a $5000 tax credit to someone who buys an electric car, that's the full amount you get back after you pay the full price for the car. You pay taxes on the full price of the car, not the cost minus $5000. Now, the government can also provide a deduction for the sales tax (and did in the recovery act), but that's a separate part of the deduction and it still comes out of the budget for the program. They don't just declare that part of the cost tax free and make the state take a hit on the tax on the sale. You pay the sales tax, that money goes into whatever taxes on cars goes to. Done. Then the government hands you money back, allocated and authorized for that particular purpose.


By doing this differently with a food stamp program, they are basically taking money from those other programs and shifting it into the food stamp program, just as I said. It's deceptive at the very least. Obviously, the state is free to shuffle funds around as they wish, but it does seem like an odd way to go about it. Also, I think it creates a problem in terms of relative perceived cost to those on the program versus those not. It just seems like they went out of their way to do this in a way that creates more problems and doesn't seem to have any redeeming feature other than being able to respond to critics of the program by showing how little it costs, or how efficient it is, or whatever. So... intent to deceive seems to be the motivation.

I could certainly be missing something, so feel free to educate me if I am.
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#328 Dec 18 2012 at 3:39 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Charging tax on food stamp items is just taking money out of the food stamp program and moving it into other programs while losing a percentage of it due to overhead in tax collection.
Not charging tax (assuming taxes would normally be charged for the purchase) is just taking money out of the other programs and using it to offset the cost of the food stamp program. Tomayto, Tomahto.

But that money has already been allocated as such. Your way requires the continual collection and allocation of funds that had already been allocated for food purchasing. Seems even more inefficient than usual and for no benefit.

That said, I don't really give a shit.
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#329 Dec 18 2012 at 4:04 PM Rating: Good
Papa Johns claims that it uses better ingredients. I won't say that they do or they don't, but their pizza certainly doesn't taste better than Pizza Hut or Domino's. I prefer Domino's to Papa John's, and Pizza Hut would be better too if their food wasn't so damn greasy. The local places to eat are way better than all three.
#330 Dec 18 2012 at 4:40 PM Rating: Default
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
Charging tax on food stamp items is just taking money out of the food stamp program and moving it into other programs while losing a percentage of it due to overhead in tax collection.
Not charging tax (assuming taxes would normally be charged for the purchase) is just taking money out of the other programs and using it to offset the cost of the food stamp program. Tomayto, Tomahto.

But that money has already been allocated as such.


It's allocated out of the sales taxes that are collected. You do understand that many funding bills include the method of generating the revenue to pay for them, right? So if the state increases the sales tax by .25% for 10 years in order to pay for highway improvements, that money is gathered from the increase in sales tax and allocated to highway improvements. Coming along with a food stamp program that now reduces the amount of sales tax collected affects the funding of that other program. So now you have to use some other allocation behind the scenes to shift the money back.

It would be vastly simpler to just allocate funding for the food stamp program based on the normal cost of food. If that includes a sales tax, then it includes that sales tax. That way you aren't forced to make adjustments to what could be several other programs, recalculate their cost versus revenue, etc.

Quote:
Your way requires the continual collection and allocation of funds that had already been allocated for food purchasing. Seems even more inefficient than usual and for no benefit.


Nope. Your way (ok, the way chosen by the state in question) does. It vastly over complicates things for no gain other than making it seem like buying a weeks worth of groceries costs less when you pay for it with EBT than with cash.

My way requires no more funding shuffling than already exists. We already collect sales tax. We already disburse that money to the various programs it's funding. Replacing cash with EBT cards and paying the same sales tax means you have to make absolutely zero adjustments to any other programs in any way.


It's a terrible terrible way to do this. And again, I can't see any benefit at all except to make the cost of the food stamp program appear artificially lower than it would to buy that food with cash. That's it. Lots of negatives, and only what I see as a deceptive positive. Anyone is free to come up with a reason you'd do this other than to be deceptive about the cost, but I'm not seeing one.
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#331 Dec 18 2012 at 5:32 PM Rating: Excellent
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I thought Papa Johns selling point was refusing to give his workers health insurance.

Freedom Pizza!
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#332 Dec 18 2012 at 5:44 PM Rating: Good
Well there's that too. It just gave me another reason to not buy his pizza, although down here I couldn't buy it if I wanted to, since we don't have a PJ's store.
#333 Dec 18 2012 at 5:52 PM Rating: Good
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Papa John's was OK to me until they stated charging 50¢ for crushed red pepper packets.
#334 Dec 18 2012 at 6:37 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
I thought Papa Johns selling point was refusing to give his workers health insurance.

Freedom Pizza!


Gosh. If only there had been a group of people warning the public about how businesses would respond to the requirements in Obamacare this might have been avoided. Oh wait! There were plenty of us. Sucks that college students will now make even less money because Obamacare has made it too expensive for employers to give them more hours. Should of thought of that before passing the law in the first place (or listened to those of us who did).
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#335 Dec 18 2012 at 6:44 PM Rating: Good
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gbaji wrote:
Jophiel wrote:
I thought Papa Johns selling point was refusing to give his workers health insurance.

Freedom Pizza!


Gosh. If only there had been a group of people warning the public about how businesses would respond to the requirements in Obamacare this might have been avoided. Oh wait! There were plenty of us. Sucks that college students will now make even less money because Obamacare has made it too expensive for employers to give them more hours. Should of thought of that before passing the law in the first place (or listened to those of us who did).


Not really any evidence of it really being the cause though... regardless of the true effects, they can just do exactly what they say would happen and then just say "See, I was right!"

Open that door, I won't be able to afford to hire a person tomorrow.
*Opens door.*
See? Now I can't hire a person tomorrow.
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#336 Dec 18 2012 at 6:44 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
Gosh. If only there had been a group of people warning the public about how businesses would respond to the requirements in Obamacare this might have been avoided.
It couldn't POSSIBLY be the two million free pizzas per football season and subpar pizza.
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#337 Dec 18 2012 at 7:11 PM Rating: Excellent
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If I thought for a moment that Papa John's response was primarily economically directed other than politically, I'd cry burning, bitter tears.
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#338 Dec 18 2012 at 8:18 PM Rating: Decent
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TirithRR wrote:
gbaji wrote:
Gosh. If only there had been a group of people warning the public about how businesses would respond to the requirements in Obamacare this might have been avoided. Oh wait! There were plenty of us. Sucks that college students will now make even less money because Obamacare has made it too expensive for employers to give them more hours. Should of thought of that before passing the law in the first place (or listened to those of us who did).


Not really any evidence of it really being the cause though...


Really? You can't see how a law that says that any employee who works 30 or more hours a week on average must either be provided with health care meeting all the requirements of the law *or* pay a $3000/year fine would result in companies limiting the hours their employees work so as to minimize that cost? That's well beyond mere "evidence".

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regardless of the true effects, they can just do exactly what they say would happen and then just say "See, I was right!"


Sure. They can. But given the absolute obviousness of the reaction to the law as written, it's a bit of a stretch. If we passed a law that said that if you wear green, you'll get slapped with a fine, and people said "Hey. If you do that people will stop wearing green", it's a good bet that when people stop wearing green that it's because of the fine and not some need to be proven right.
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#339 Dec 18 2012 at 9:10 PM Rating: Good
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Spoonless wrote:
Papa John's was OK to me until they stated charging 50¢ for crushed red pepper packets.

They're 25 cents now.
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#340 Dec 18 2012 at 9:57 PM Rating: Default
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Gbaji,

I'm about to go on my CHRISTmas break, so I will not be able to entertain your circular dismissal of logic and common sense. However, what I will do for you is recap my point to address your remaining posts. I'll drop in and respond to some posts, but let me know if there is something skipped that you want an answer to.

With that being said......

There are three types of costs:

1. The worth of the meal: The actual nickles and dimes it takes to make a meal.

2. The value: The price decided by the employer to sell the meal based on the worth of the meal and what the consumers are willing to pay for.

3. The total cost: The summary of all prices of the factors (variables and constants) involved in the consumer buying the meal.

Your argument is that employers would have to increase the prices of the meals if forced to pay their employees like the rest of the country. I will counter this in every aspect.

When you start a business, it's an investment. You put down a large sum of money (either earned or borrowed) to pay for ALL of the finances in the first few months. The goal is to be successful to the point where you have earned back the money that you have invested and that your business is paying for itself with enough profit to live off of.

Being an intelligent business person, you realize that Business 101, math and common sense says that 500 sales of $1 products is better than 50 sales of $3 products. Therefore, you realize that the goal isn't to sell a product at the maximum price that a customer will pay, but at a price that the customer thinks is fair which still yields you profit (i.e. the value price). That value price is not the max price nor does it include unknown variables that can affect a customer's purchase (the total cost). Not only are there simply too many variables to account for, they are not controllable at an employer's level (,i.e. the cost of gas, unemployment rate, tax rate, etc.)

Once you have reached that level of success where your business is paying for it's self, THEN AND ONLY THEN do you invest in things such as TV's, wi-fi, cable, elegant decor, etc. You don't start off with them (unless that's the center focus of your business) and even worse, attempt to calculate those additional prices into your once valued price of meals.

Now, for the scenario where you need to raise more money, drop in sales, or in this case having to pay employees like the rest of the nation, there are several ways to accomplish this. Your last resort should be to raise the prices of the value meals.

Your first choice should be something along the lines of advertisement. Restaurants, especially fast food, love to reinvent the wheel on food. They will create a sandwich (created mostly from already existing ingredients) and promote it, take it away and bring it back through out the years. There are several other ways to accomplish this task, but I don't want to make this post any longer than it needs to be.

In any case, increasing the price of your meal will decrease your sales. This is because customers pay for meals based on the value. Your confusion is stuck on the total cost. The total cost is obviously a factor, but it isn't a deterrent for someone (who manages their money well) to pay for a meal that they intended to pay for at a valued price.

For example, I like to order the biggest T-bone or Porter House steak on the menu. From my experience, I know that the price range for such said food is $20-$30 +/- a few dollars. So, if I want to eat a steak, I'm not going to go out with an "absolute budget" under that range. Also, I realize that it may cost a few dollars more. At some point, I will say "that's too much", not because of tax/tip, but because I know that I can get the same food at a better value price. Until I hit that point, I will not allow a few dollars be a deterrent for paying for that meal because I know how to budget money.

If my "eat out" budget is $50 a month and my entertainment budget is $50 a month, I can spend $60 on food and $40 on entertainment and still keep my overall budget balanced. There are several options available.

Employers realize this fact and that is why they focus on the value price and not the total cost. Not only are the variables in the total cost unknown, people buy within ranges of value their price. So, this fallacy that you would have to increase the price of the meal if you have to pay your waitstaff more is just that, a fallacy. Under your assumption, workers pay is affected during promotions. We all know that isn't true. Workers don't get paid less during lunch specials or happy hours. Those times exist to bring in more customers, because people like to feel like that they are getting a good deal even if that means spending more money (i.e. the total cost).



#341 Dec 18 2012 at 10:59 PM Rating: Decent
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Alma, I'm not going to quote you cause I'm honestly trying to dial down this particular conversation, but I will just say one thing. It's the total cost that is used when determining demand for a product at a given price. Period. You can sit around and insist that it isn't, and that no price other than that printed on the actual menu matters, but you're just plain dead wrong. I don't know how more clearly I can say that. At this point, I'm not even trying to convince you of this, but just hoping that anyone reading this who might not be sure which price matters will not fall into the same mental trap you seem to be in. So in that spirit, I'll present one more argument:

Imagine two identical restaurants. One is 2 miles away from your house and one is 20 miles away. Which one do you go to eat at? The one that's closest, right? That's because the time and gas you spend getting to the restaurant is also one of the factors included in total cost. It's not printed on the menu, but you're going to take it into account when deciding where to go to eat (and where to go to eat is exactly what the restaurant owner cares about).

If the restaurant 20 miles away wants to get your business, he will have to either improve the quality of his food/service *or* decrease the price, so that the extra time and money you spend getting there is worth it. That's really all I've been saying here.

Now imagine two identical restaurants. In this case, instead of one being farther away from you, one pays its servers a higher base salary, which it passes along as a higher menu price (say $5 on any given entree), but otherwise the food, decor, service, distance, and expectation of tip is identical. Which one would you go to? The one with the lower price, right? Just as with the extra cost involved with the greater distance, this extra cost will be taken into account as well. Because of this, some other factor has to be better at the higher cost restaurant for you to choose to go there.

Now imagine two identical restaurants. In this case, instead of one paying a higher salary than the other, they both pay the same base wage (which is based on the "normal" minimum wage as you insist they should), but now one expects you to tip and the other does not allow you to do so (don't worry about how this happens, just pretend that this is the case). Let's also assume that the average total cost for a meal results in a $5 average tip, but all other factors are identical (food, decor, service, distance, etc). Which one will you go to? The one that costs $5 less right? Just like in the example above. It's the same cost difference, so it will have the same effect on the relative demand at one restaurant versus another.



This is why I keep saying that the tip counts against the employer just as though he'd increased the price of the meal on the menu. It's absolutely no different to a consumer when making a decision. The fact that waitstaff are tipped absolutely does affect consumption demand for the product being served. It has to. How this affects the employers business decisions can vary wildly, but your insistence that the tip just plain doesn't factor in is just plain wrong. It must factor in. If it didn't, then none of those other things would either. But we know that they do. You wont travel farther to eat the same food, and you wont pay more for the same food. Paying more is no different if the menu price is higher or there's a tip required at one place but not at the other. It's all about the total cost to the consumer. That's what affects consumer demand.
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#342 Dec 19 2012 at 6:35 AM Rating: Default
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Well, we just have to agree to disagree because I'm not going to spend this amount of time during my up coming break.

But to address your issues, 20 miles v 2 miles is a unrealistic and dumb comparison because it takes nearly $10 on a meal to see a $1 difference in tax. Yet, one gallon of gas is over $3 and the amount of gas that you use varies on your vehicle, traffic, speed and other factors. So many factors that it is IMPOSSIBLE for an employer to calculate those things in their selling price. How does an employer know that you live 20 miles away? The answer is, he doesn't, therefore he sells based on value.

I'm referencing to 1.3 miles vs 1.5 miles. No normal person will calculate the gas difference of .2 miles. Just like no normal person calculates the gas/power used at home to bake, fry or refrigerate their food nor the gas used to drive to the grocery store.

There are simply too many variables involved in order for you to be able to accurately describe them.

As for your other two scenarios, you are basing them on the fallacy of the necessity of raising menu prices to make up for higher waiter wages. That is completely not necessary and I already proved that wrong in the previous post.

Gbaji wrote:
but your insistence that the tip just plain doesn't factor in is just plain wrong. It must factor in


The fact that you continue to misquote my argument after this much time only explains how you simply don't understand.

-----------------
In any case. I proved you wrong in the previous post. You did not counter a single aspect of my point, only to misquote it yet again as above.

People choose to eat based on the value price of the food...I'm not sure what fantasy island you live on, but that's reality.
#343 Dec 19 2012 at 7:43 AM Rating: Excellent
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Quote:
People choose to eat based on the value price of the food


No we don't. Ha, I win.
#344 Dec 19 2012 at 8:05 AM Rating: Good
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Nadenu wrote:
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People choose to eat based on the value price of the food


No we don't. Ha, I win.

Cuz sometimes you feel like a nut, sometimes you don't.

(Eske already won this thread back on page 3).
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#345 Dec 19 2012 at 9:52 AM Rating: Excellent
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Nadenu wrote:
Quote:
People choose to eat based on the value price of the food


No we don't. Ha, I win.


I eat what the wife makes for dinner. Except for the nights I make dinner, and nights like last night when we were both really tired so we picked up a take-n-bake pizza from Safeway.

We tend to buy things that are on sale and that we have a coupon for. Does that count?
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#346 Dec 19 2012 at 11:19 AM Rating: Default
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someproteinguy wrote:
Nadenu wrote:
Quote:
People choose to eat based on the value price of the food


No we don't. Ha, I win.


I eat what the wife makes for dinner. Except for the nights I make dinner, and nights like last night when we were both really tired so we picked up a take-n-bake pizza from Safeway.

We tend to buy things that are on sale and that we have a coupon for. Does that count?


. Time has proven that people will spend more money on things if they believe that they are getting a deal. Buy two and get one free. Do I need two, no, but if I buy two I get one free.

My argument wasn't that people NEVER in any circumstance think of any variables outside of the value, but that those variables (in this case, taxes and tips) are NOT deterrents for the average person to buy the meal of their choice if the meal is at a good value.

If they act as deterrents, then you have no concept of managing money. Simple as that.

"Oh.. 20 oz steak, two sides, appetizer, drink and a dessert for $15? My budget was $15.00, the tax and tip will put me over!"... That contradicts all sales logic which is "people seek deals"
#347 Dec 19 2012 at 11:31 AM Rating: Excellent
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Sounds accurate.

Smiley: jester
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#348 Dec 19 2012 at 6:09 PM Rating: Decent
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Wow. It's like depleted uranium for a skull. Way to completely miss the point of the examples Alma.

If it costs $5 more to travel to one restaurant than another, it will affect your choice exactly the same as if the menu price is $5 higher, or the requirement for a tip increases the cost by $5. It's the same amount of money. It does not matter what the difference in total cost is exactly. That's not the point at all. It's just an arbitrary number to make the point that people make choices based on relative total cost versus perceived value.

You're arguing exceptions instead of the rule. The rule is that people take into account the total cost of two things when comparing their costs to other factors. You can contrive cases where the difference is so small that most people wont care, but that is just sidestepping the issue. Just because saving a buck isn't super important to you, doesn't mean that saving money isn't important to you. It's just a matter of how much.
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#349 Dec 19 2012 at 6:14 PM Rating: Excellent
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gbaji wrote:
If it costs $5 more to travel to one restaurant than another, it will affect your choice exactly the same as if the menu price is $5 higher, or the requirement for a tip increases the cost by $5.

Not at all?
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#350 Dec 19 2012 at 6:44 PM Rating: Decent
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Jophiel wrote:
gbaji wrote:
If it costs $5 more to travel to one restaurant than another, it will affect your choice exactly the same as if the menu price is $5 higher, or the requirement for a tip increases the cost by $5.

Not at all?


For some it may be not at all. For others, it might be the deciding factor. But a business must take this into account, since some percentage of potential customers will take whatever the cost difference is into effect and that'll affect total sales. Again, this is the basic demand function at work. It's not a mystery, nor is it some crazy theory. Everything else staying the same, if you increase the price of something, you will decrease the demand. Arguing over degrees really does miss the whole point.
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#351 Dec 19 2012 at 6:48 PM Rating: Excellent
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You meant "not at all" Smiley: laugh
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