We have been operating our ebay store for about four months, we upgraded to the feature store, and increased our listings from less than 100 to over 300. Things are picking up, sales are staying about flat, but profits are creeping to the fore.... UNTIL TODAY.

Bill Cobb President of eBay North America just sent out a letter announcing that August 22nd, they would be raising fees for the eBay Store owners.

Cobb claims that it will add about 6% to our costs, that boy can't count.

Even a dumb hillbilly like me can tell the difference.... here is the new price structure:

Store Inventory Listings
For those of you who operate an eBay Store, we're making changes to Store Inventory listing fees, as well as to the on-site exposure we provide for this listing format.

We'll begin charging variable insertion fees for Store Inventory listings, as we do for core listings. Beginning Aug. 22, eBay.com Store Inventory format insertion fees will be tiered with an item's starting price.

These Store Inventory format insertion fees take effect Aug. 22, 2006:
Starting Price New Insertion Fee Current Fee
$0.01 -- 24.99 5¢ 2¢
$25.00 and higher 10¢ 2¢

Some Store Inventory format final value fees also will also increase, effective Aug. 22, 2006:
Selling Price New Final Value Fee Current Fee
$0.01 -- 25.00 10% 8%
$25.01 -- 100.00 7% 5%
$100.01 -- 1,000.00 5% (no change) 5%
$1,000.01 and higher 3% (no change) 3%

Please note that for current listings, the new final value fees will apply only after these listings are renewed.

Big deal, what about the 6% claim? Look if I am paying 2¢ now and it goes to 5¢ for under $25 then thats 250% increase in basic listing fees not 6%. And if its over $25 is 10¢, and ole son that is a whopping 500% increase. Wake up and smell the roses.

Final Listing fees are going up too, 25% on items under $25, this is ridiculous. It seems that they are determined to drive the smaller sellers away, the ones that need the business in favor of the big sellers selling higher price items. What happened to the online garage sale and yard sale that they used to expouse?

We are going to create our own auction site for the little guy, we have a domain for it called AmericanYardSale.com it WILL be a true online yard sale. One that caters to the little guy not the large retailers who have their brick and mortar stores.

We have bent over backwards, putting up with the arbitary actions of eBay and Paypal, we have lost money because of them. Our fees between them in six of last nine weeks have been as high as our sales, no profits. now they are taking even the chance of profit by sticking us with fees that are unrealistic.

We won't have the traffic that eBay provides, but we will have the satisfaction of knowing that we are giving the little guy an even shake.

We have moved our rankings from 6 million plus to under 100,000 in last nine weeks, thanks in part to our ads on eBay, but rest assured that we will have the traffic for our customers.

Therefore we have brought back the American Yard Sale, a tradition as old as the frontier. Look for it soon www.AmericanYardSale.com.

What I need is advice on how I should do this, what would you like to see in the online American Yard Sale? Comment Now.

Ron

Ok, those last two posts, got the serious out of my system at least for this hour.

Wait! one other thing that irritates me, I use outsourcing for some of our projects on www.uslinx.com, in places like the Ukraine, India, Pakistan and Israel. For this I have been lambasted by programmers and coders in this country.

I let a project recently and received a wide range of bids, the lowest came from India and Ukraine, from reputable software houses that employed dozens of programmers, designers etc.

A firm in NY, bid on this project and bid 8 times higher than the ones in India, when I rejected his bid, he proceeded to call me un-american and worse. He hasn't checked out my WeDemocrats.com site evidently.

But I can understand his frustration, he is paying higher wages, higher rent, higher utilities etc. than his counterparts in India. Now he has to understand my position, I can't afford to spend anything really, but have to take money out of my Social Security Disability checks to have the work done. Why should I bankrupt myself by chosing him to do the work, when he won't move into lower cost areas, won't find cheaper workers, believe me we are out there, and has no desire to find lower costs so he can compete?

Why does most major companies in the USA outsource their IT to areas like India? For same reasons I do, as explained above, they also want to make a profit, but here comes the sticky part, they can afford the American wages, and still make a profit, due to in most cases the monopolies they hold in their given industry. These are the ones who are hurting the American IT industry, their greed.

I know I am greedy too, but I have built USLINX.com over last 8 years not by making money, because I haven't, but by working 16 to 18 hour days weekends included, by learning what has to be done and then teaching myself to do it, we have hundreds of thousands of dollars invested in time into the project, and yet don't make enough to pay the annual renewals on our hosting companies or our domain name renewals, that's where SS comes in, and our email Napoleon style strategy game Global Struggle (www.strugglegames.com) today I have 6 players paying $2 per week to play, thats $600+ a year that is used to pay the bills for the other 21 domains.

In short I lied, I said I was done with serious, but this is serious so, sorry, but I feel better having said it.

Ron
WeDemocrats.com
www.uslinx.com

Why is Gas so High?

Every August, some of the most powerful members of Congress pack their gear to go fishing at an exclusive resort in the Alaskan bush.

"Speaker Hastert is a great fisherman; loves fishing," says Red Cavaney, who is not in Congress, but is a regular on the trips. Senator Kit Bond, R-Mo., is a
regular, too. "He enjoys sitting out there, pole in hand, cigar in mouth and having the time of his life."

Cavaney says Trent Lott, the senator from Mississippi and former Republican majority leader, also wet a line in the Alaska waters. "In the after-fishing hours, he's a delightful person to be with," says Cavaney.

The annual fishing event has been going on for more than a decade. The lodge where the trip takes place costs almost $1,000 a night. "It's a five star resort," says Wayne Leong who was a fishing guide there for 17 years. "The guest will have Dungeness crab, oysters, white spotted shrimp, prime rib, rack of lamb, that kind of stuff."

At least nine senators have attended at various times in the past decade. So has Speaker Dennis Hastert, Republican of Illinois. Who else is on the guest
list? High-ranking executives from British Petroleum, Amoco, Marathon Oil and dozens of other firms.

And Red Cavaney. He is the President and CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry's lobbying group in Washington.

Energy industry's top-brass mingle with America's most powerful public servants at the Waterfall Resort. Senator Christopher Bond, Tricia Lott, Senator
Trent Lott, lobbyist Sam Kito, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, former Senator Phil Gramm, Nancy Murkowski and Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski.
America's most powerful public servants mix with lobbyists at the Waterfall Resort. Senator Christopher Bond, Tricia Lott, Senator Trent Lott, lobbyist Sam Kito, Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, former Senator Phil Gramm, Nancy Murkowski and Alaska Governor Frank Murkowski.

The trip is an opportunity for the energy industry's top brass to mingle with an assortment of America's most powerful public servants at one of America's most select fishing resorts: Waterfall. The fishing ranks among the best in the world. But for many lobbyists and
industry execs, a big part of the catch is face time with members of Congress.

"Our top people go," says Cavaney. "We do not send people who can't make decisions, can't speak for the organization. ... So it's really the people who can sit down and understand, talk about an issue, and if they want to give some advice, you know it is the right advice from that organization."

To avoid "a marketplace in private access," both the House and Senate banned lawmakers from accepting free trips to recreational events like this one back in 1996.

A letter from the Senate Ethics Committee to Senator Murkowski expressly forbid senators from accepting free travel or lodging to attend this event.

"There is nothing wrong with the energy industry," says Hill. "They should be allowed to lobby. But they should not be able to use a charity to have this kind of high-quality, multi-day, prolonged access to members of Congress while they are providing a vacation that members of Congress could not be able to afford on their own."

Murkowski's wife Nancy, a board member of the Waterfall Committee, said most public officials who attend the event pay their own way. But she did not
respond to questions about exactly who paid their own expenses or how much.

Senators Bond, Enzi and Gramm are not the only lawmakers who may have run afoul of congressional ethics rules. After a search of congressional and campaign records, Marketplace could find no disclosures revealing who paid the travel and lodging expenses for two of the most powerful political men in Washington: House Speaker Dennis Hastert and former Senate Majority leader Trent Lott.

The annual fishing trip is so deeply intertwined with Frank Murkowski's political fundraising committees that it is difficult, even for the Federal Elections Commission, to figure out where the charity stops and the political fundraising starts.

So I ask you again "Why is our Gas so High?".

Ron
WeDemocrats.com
www.uslinx.com

I am a bit frustrated, have been trying for sometime to get information and support from major democrats in this country, to no avail.

Contact with these guys are worse than trying to meet the President.

Howard Dean, John Kerry, John Edwards, the DNC and others have all been contacted about our WeDemocrats.com a grassroots organization that strives to place responsible leaders into political office. Not one, I repeat, NOT ONE, has even answered our emails.

We aren't radicals, we are more middle of the road, we are here to support not destroy or ignore like others are doing.

We don't barrage our visitors and friends with "We need donation" letters, even when we do need them, but everytime we send an email to any of these so called national politicians we receive a barrage of their donation request emails.

Nothing of substance, nothing on the issues except as lead in to their donation requests.

I ask you why make a donation to the national organization who then sets back in their fancy offices and dictates what advertising agency will make a commercial and where it will air. Instead use the money on a local scale to set up We Democrat Chapters in your area, to support local candidates of your choice not theirs.

If they can't worry about us peons in the trenches then what says they will worry about our sons and daughters in the trenches of Iraq.

We who do worry, (my youngest is in 25thINF and headed for Iraq within days), have had it with the attitude of G.W. and his Oil Mafia, its time for a change, Stand up for America, Stand up for Yourself, get involved.

Ron
WeDemocrats.com

Early this morning, Israeli troops crossed into southern Lebanon to carry out what the army called "restricted pinpoint attacks".

Israel attacked Lebanon after Hezbollah fighters captured two soldiers in a cross-border raid last Wednesday. The Israelis vowed when they withdrew in 2000, if they had any trouble from across the border, they would -- the others, the Lebanese would pay a high price, and its coming to pass.

But the problem for Israel is how to keep the USA and their other allies in line, while punishing those that transgressed against them.

While I agree that they usually respond with overwhelming force, it is just that reason that they have survived when a majority of the Arab world strives to eliminate them not only as a nation but as a people.

At the same time, they must understand that they have a half way friendly nation in Lebanon, the terrorists not withstanding. And the Government of new Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, has an opportunity to work with Israel to eliminate the terrorists once and for all. After all it is the obligation of a soverign nation such as Lebanon to insure that its neighbors are not molested by acts of violence as Israel has been.

The question is does Siniora have the guts to do so. Given the large Christian population of Lebanon one would think he has a strong base from which to regain control of all his nation.

If I was a betting man, I would bet that he caves in once again.

So if Israel can make everybody uncomfortable, they might get international intervention. By intervention, I mean diplomatic intervention -- pressure on Iran; pressure on Syria; pressure on the Lebanese government -- to essentially push Hezbollah back to the north of the country away from the Israeli border. This would create a buffer zone to keep incidents that started this from happening.

But happen they will, as long as Iran can continue to exert its influence in the region, and Syria does so as well.

I think, what we're seeing here, is Iran sending a message, two messages. One is that nothing in the Middle East now can happen without Iran playing a significant role. And, secondly, it's reminding the United States that, if the United States is to use force ever against Iran's nuclear program, Iran retains many different avenues for countervailing pressure.

If Bush would wake up, and sit down with Iran and have an across-the-board dialogue, dealing with Lebanon, dealing with the Hamas situation in Gaza, obviously dealing with Iran's nuclear situation, dealing also with Iraq and Afghanistan, then we might be able to bring stability to the region without more bloodshed.

Guess I won't solve this part of the world problems tonight, so since its 3:25am here I am going to bed and let things smolder some more, at least I will have something to write about in the morning.

Ron