United States Heading towards a Depression?

Nah, this is a bit different situation.. What they are saying is, your customer is charging too much each month, we don't want the business anymore because they are from another country...

This after they have been a customer for quite some time and have been regularly doing business and billing the same cc forever...

What it tells me is, the US banking industry is afraid of, and does not trust foreign banks.

And, that they don't want the business. Fine with me, just means I will get to keep that 4% from now on. CC's, while a necessary evil, are a drain on resources... 11 years in business and this is the first time I've had the merchant services bitch about a regular paying customer.

 

I've just gotten through like four paragraphs and still not a single word about snorting anything. I quit.

 

North runs a paid newsletter. The coke is complimentary to subscribers. lol

 

Well that's the real scary part of an economic hiccup. Losses are one thing, but when a credit society sees tighter lending and contraction, that's when things can start to snowball out of control.

Pessimism is just as powerful of an emotion as euphoria.

 

Good lord. You're merchant account would be canceled with such a high rate. At ~1% your processor will hold funds. At 2-3%, expect to be canceled. If I get 1 chargeback a month, I'm pissed. I've filed police reports for people who acknowledge receipt of goods then issue a chargeback. UPS and other companies are very helpful at helping you out these people. Some are unavoidable and you cannot win, but the vast majority are no problem. But 2-3%, I'd be bald.

 

You can get away with under 4% depending who your processor is. Mind you, I got out of the game before Visa and Mastercard tightened up their card not present guidelines. Maybe today 2% is the new 4%. After my first year, I never ran above 0.5%, and I probably could have fought it lower, but there was little money in fighting a customer who would never shop with me again, when I had customers waiting to be serviced...

Yeah, but how much wasted time is spent filing a police report? 12 chargebacks a year? What sort of volume is that on your sales? I'm talking 35~50 transactions a day, 365 days a year.

Like I said, you take your licks and you keep on selling. If your margins are high enough (and mine were) you can afford to take some hits, because it's more profitable to process, fill and ship 3 more orders, than waste half a day on the phone trying to fight a chargeback.

 

100-150 per day. Yep. If I get 1 in a month, I'm pretty pissed. I don't ship to NNN's though and I don't ship to certain areas where I know it's likely a fraud (much of the Bronx and freight forwarders). Most requests are people who don't remember what they ordered anyways.

Maybe. Most likely it is. I know a guy who just passed 1% and now has part of his deposits being held until he reaches some sort of threshold. Just in case.

20-30 minutes. Its worth it when UPS gives them a call to verify delivery and I get them on the phone afterwards explaining that I'll be filing a report with the police. I've gotten goods back and I've gotten them to send in checks plus money to cover the chargeback fees.

Some people are just lookin' for free shit. I understand. Too many companies shrug their shoulders and take it as a cost of doing business. It only exacerbates the problem, if you ask me.

 

The United States is already in a recession and it will be longer as well as deeper than many people expect, U.S. investor Warren Buffett said in an interview published in German magazine Der Spiegel on Saturday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080524/bs_nm/buffett_us_recession_dc

Bush has vetoed an Iraq War spending bill and the democratic controlled Senate has over-rode the veto adding

$400 million to subsidize schools in rural counties hit hard by declines in timber revenues. The bill also contained $490 million for grants to local police departments, $451 million to repair roads damaged by natural disasters, $200 million for the space shuttle program, and $400 million for National Institutes of Health research projects.

The bill also includes a measure extend jobless benefits by 13 weeks

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080523...raq_funding;_ylt=Aq5ugrDwUpCU3i7ENQtl_h.s0NUE

Bush is also set to veto a $300 billion dollar farm bill. Food prices are at record highs and the democrats are trying to subsidize millionaire farmers.

Ferd Hoefner, policy director of the Sustainable Agriculture Coalition, said that under the proposed new limits, a married couple could earn up to $2.5 million and still qualify for government farm payments.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/05/09/MN1110JA53.DTL

It's scarey to hear that banks such as JP Morgan Chase may be in trouble.

Derivatives trading is out of control. The epicenter of the financial crisis is the investment banks. There's no effective regulation even though billions of taxpayer funds are being used to bail them out.

 

You don't need regulation. You need to stop bailing them out. That's the effin regulation. They will be bust.

But all banks are part of the national cartel under the FED. They are not allowed to fail. So we give them free money, and then attempt limp wristed regulation.

It is the built in "good faith" portion of capitalism. If you run your business badly, you will go bust. Bailouts are intervention.

There are simple answers to our problems. Stop bailouts. Let the banks fail.

Guess what will happen? YOU WILL GET BETTER BANKS AND A MORE SECURE BANKING SYSTEM.

 

The bailouts are making the problem worse. That's why people like Warren Buffet predict a serve recession.

The democrats are working on a new housing bailout. The measure allows the Federal Housing Administration to back up to $300 billion in new loans for debt-ridden homeowners facing foreclosure, who would otherwise be considered too financially risky to get a fixed-rate government-insured loan.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080516/ap_on_go_co/congress_housing;_ylt=ApXONpM0edKepCDXvP65JRqyFz4D

 

Glad to know you've come around, brother.

(Flag: humor)

 

Well Buffet has made his own fortunes, the good old fashioned way. Smarts and hard work.

Guys like Obama and Bernanke have no experience in the private sphere. They are the effete aristocracy. Soft hands, and theoretical ideals.

 

Buffet prefers the Democrats and also told Hillary that she has his support. I guess Buffet is rich enough to afford the Democrats.

 

Most big time investors like Buffet, Rogers are non-partisan.

 

Bogart, knowing how Wisdom feels politically, it was a joke (meant in good spirit), although it is a fact Buffett has now formally endorsed Obama.

Guerilla is incorrect here as well. Buffett is very definitely Democratic in outlook.

- etc.

 

One can call themselves anything. Buffet is a free market capitalist. He's definitely not a democrat/socialist or even a classic hard money, small government liberal.

But then, you seem to like draping people with affiliations and perspectives, regardless of what the reality of their words and actions prove.

 

He's a big proponent of more taxes on the wealthy. That seems like a pretty liberal/socialist stance.