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Business, Economics, and Taxes: Capitalism. Yay? >=(

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Happy Belated Birthday, Ned Beatty!

From Network (1976):

Arthur Jensen: "You have meddled with the primal forces of nature, Mr. Beale, and I won't have it! Is that clear? You think you've merely stopped a business deal. That is not the case! The Arabs have taken billions of dollars out of this country, and now they must put it back! It is ebb and flow, tidal gravity! It is ecological balance! You are an old man who thinks in terms of nations and peoples. There are no nations. There are no peoples. There are no Russians. There are no Arabs. There are no third worlds. There is no West. There is only one holistic system of systems, one vast and immane, interwoven, interacting, multivariate, multinational dominion of dollars. Petro-dollars, electro-dollars, multi-dollars, reichmarks, rins, rubles, pounds, and shekels. It is the international system of currency which determines the totality of life on this planet. That is the natural order of things today. That is the atomic and subatomic and galactic structure of things today! And YOU have meddled with the primal forces of nature, and YOU... WILL... ATONE! Am I getting through to you, Mr. Beale? You get up on your little twenty-one inch screen and howl about America and democracy. There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM, and ITT, and AT&T, and DuPont, Dow, Union Carbide, and Exxon. Those are the nations of the world today. What do you think the Russians talk about in their councils of state, Karl Marx? They get out their linear programming charts, statistical decision theories, minimax solutions, and compute the price-cost probabilities of their transactions and investments, just like we do. We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The world is a college of corporations, inexorably determined by the immutable bylaws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale. It has been since man crawled out of the slime. And our children will live, Mr. Beale, to see that... perfect world... in which there's no war or famine, oppression or brutality. One vast and ecumenical holding company, for whom all men will work to serve a common profit, in which all men will hold a share of stock. All necessities provided, all anxieties tranquilized, all boredom amused. And I have chosen you, Mr. Beale, to preach this evangel."
Howard Beale: "Why me?"
Arthur Jensen: "Because you're on television, dummy. Sixty million people watch you every night of the week, Monday through Friday."
Howard Beale: "I have seen the face of God."
Arthur Jensen: "You just might be right, Mr. Beale."
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That's literally what she said. The falling prices are a gamble by the "small, independently owned 'mom-n-pop' gas stations. It's a struggle for all of them."
 
aparch said:
That's literally what she said. The falling prices are a gamble by the "small, independently owned 'mom-n-pop' gas stations. It's a struggle for all of them."
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Might she have been (poorly) referring to the gamble small stations make when they call to have their underground tanks filled: Get them filled today and if the wholesale price drops a dime tomorrow (and competitor across street fills at lower price) the mom and pop are left to match the competitor's lower retail price and to eat that dime difference.
 
Big pumpers get gas every day, Sams club might get gas as many as 3 times a day. Small mom and might go a week. Some small mom and pops try to guess the price of their next load and order accordingly. 4 cents on 10,000 gallons can be good or bad for the wallet. Margins in Maine sucked in May, margins right now are excellent. Credit card fees right now are making credit card networks rich. Most gas stations don't like running out of product. Its bad for business.
 
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