Tag Archives: commerce

The problem with shopping small…

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Social media is full of posts about how we all need to carry our commerce out with small businesses, that they’re very important, and that they support the local community. All those things are possibly true, but at the same time I’ve been doing my level best to hire various small, local plumbing outfits for a job for the last six weeks. Some don’t pick up their phone. Others don’t return calls once they’ve talked to you or just don’t show up when they’re scheduled. One even when so far as drawing up the plans and then disappeared. 

By comparison, I called one of the big regional plumbing operations at 9:00 this morning and at approximately 10:45 I had in my hand three separate proposed set ups, had made a selection, confirmed the parts order, and scheduled the installation time for next week.

Look, I’m not saying you shouldn’t support small business. Where you spend your money is a deeply personal decision. That said, I’m absolutely finished bending over backwards and practically begging them to take my money. If getting a decent level of service means dealing strictly with the big players – and paying the corresponding premium – that’s what it’s going to have to be from here on out.

My apologies to small business owners out there, who I’m sure work very hard, but honestly getting quality work done in a timely manner is far more important to me than either where the guy who owns the company lives or getting the rock bottom price. That won’t win me any friends from the Main Street Business Association, but I’m over here trying to run a household. I have neither the time not inclination to go on playing championship phone tag with companies that don’t seem to want to be bothered. 

A taxing case of hypotheticals…

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I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a fan of tax-free shopping on the internet. Of course I know that theoretically I’m supposed to self-report and pay Maryland state sales taxes due on the items I purchase, but… Yeah. I’m going to invoke the 5th Amendment and not discuss the particulars of what I may or may not do.

As a Republican, I should probably be up in arms about this “new” tax, but as a Constitutionalist, it’s pretty well established (i.e. expressly written) that the Congress has every right to fiddle with interstate commerce as it sees fit. As much as I wish it otherwise, my reading of the tea leaves is that the collection of state income taxes by internet retailers is going to become a fact of life sooner rather than later. Do I like it? No, of course not. Am I going to gird myself for battle against it? No, not so much. I’ve got limited brain power and limited time to dedicate to causes and this isn’t going to become part of the long list of the windmills I enjoy tilting at from time to time.

If I were a good patriot who disagrees with state and federal tax policy, I’d hypothetically vote with my dollars – and have as many hypothetical major purchases as possible shipped for in store pickup in Delaware, where at least for the time being can hypothetically continue to avoid onerous state sales taxes and excessive commercial regulation. Of course if I were really to take by business out of state, I’d obviously file the appropriate quarterly tax forms with the Comptroller of Maryland in accordance with whatever batshit crazy laws the legislature has passed.

Go global…

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Say what you want about the evils of the global economy, but I’m an unabashed fan. Sure, it means we have to compete with countries that can manufacture just about everything cheaper than we can, but I think that misses the up side… Like being able to order something from Europe last night at 9:30 and having it sitting in Philadelphia 18 hours later waiting to clear Customs and get delivered to your door. I mean isn’t a little friendly competition a small price to pay for that kind of luxury and convenience?

I’ve traveled enough to know that the world’s too small a place to pretend that we can raise the drawbridge and keep everything out. By all means, we should regulate it, set the conditions under which it happens, and fight hard in those areas where we have a comparative advantage, but we can’t roll back the clock on international commerce any more than we can command the tides to go in or out. We need to encourage the kind of world where we can order anything, from anywhere and have it delivered in a day or two. It’s good for us as consumers, it’s good for them as merchants and manufacturers, and it forces us to take a realistic look at the kinds of things our own economy should be doing in the future. If going global isn’t a win-win scenario, I don’t know what is.