Hiya folks! You all know (or maybe you don't know so I'm gonna tell ya) that I hail from the lovely city of Philadelphia. Some people would put sarcasm quotes around the "lovely," but I won't. Good and bad I like living here, though I often shake my head and think "Are you flippin' kidding me?" The city is constantly cash-strapped, but those of us who pay our taxes can't figure out why (other than the obvious mismanagement of funds)--they want to impose trash pick-up fees (which we pay for in our taxes already) and extra taxes on soft drinks (which I don't care about since I don't buy soda but know plenty who do so I'll be agitated for them).
So here's what's got my goat this morning. A friend of mine clued me into this, and I immediately got in touch with my old friend Google. It appears that Philly now wants to impose a $300 fee on bloggers who sell ad space on their blogs--to buy a business license! These ads bring in mere pennies, unless you're running a super-blog, so this fee seems extra exorbitant and ridiculous. Some articles say that a blog has revenue
potential, so they want to tax that. As a commenter said to this post (see below) "I have lots of potential. I should start paying on all of it." Would it really be that difficult to weed out the corruption and overspending in city government so idiotic ideas like this don't need to be proposed? I laughed as I wrote that part. I'm with
Technorati on this one. As well as
Aaron Proctor. And the
Washington Examiner. And the
Daily Caller. And
GeekSugar. And most of the comments on my own
Inquirer.
(** UPDATE: according to the Mayor they are only requesting this of people who claimed revenue on their federal income taxes, but did not report to the City.)
You may be thinking "Bee. You don't sell ad space. Get mad about something that affects you directly." OK, I will. This next part was my originally intended post--the above just seemed too timely to ignore.
For the past two years the Philadelphia Phillies have been the Major League Baseball National League Champions, and in 2008 were the world champions. While there are a lot of bandwagon fans, there are also a lot of hard-core fans. And some of these hard-core Phillies fans want diaper bags made out of Phillies fabric, yo. I ask you this seriously: do you have any idea how difficult it is to find Phillies fabric that isn't fleece? Neither did I! It is dang near impossible to find! And when you do manage to find it? CAH-RAZY expensive! I can't imagine why they wouldn't make plain cotton with team logos on it for quilts and other items, but they make fleece. I understand fleece for football, played in the colder months. I don't understand fleece for baseball, as though fans would only want a blanket in the winter instead of perhaps a quilt or something. That something being a diaper bag. This is the fabric I'm after:
I love it because it has such a classic look!
And these are the "deals:"
- 2.5 yards...for $175!!!!
- a fat eighth...for $20!!
- a 10 X 10 piece...for $10!!!
It's rare and discontinued, so I get these prices. My question is: why is it rare and discontinued? Why can you buy fleece, but not cotton? Don't they have any idea that crafters would snatch these things up to have a chance to make something for the sports fans in their lives? I would think it's a major win-win for major league baseball and crafters alike.
Now, you may be thinking, "Bee. Please get some more coffee and chillax." So I'm off to give the people what they want.
Back soon with some weekend sewing pics!
It's rare and discontinued because MLB doesn't want you to make things (and therefore profit) from their logos. They want all the profit from their logos. I would cut a Phillies P out of some red fabric and stick it on the side of a bag and be done with it... Of course, I wouldn't make a bag in the first place, so what do you expect? Hey! What do you know? I just googled Phillies Diaper Bag out of curiosity, and that's exactly what they did! It's a plain black bag with a P on it. For only $54.99!
ReplyDeleteAs for the blog thing, I heard that anyone who had a blog had to pay the tax, revenue generating or not, since it has the POTENTIAL to generate revenue. I have lots of POTENTIAL. I guess I should start paying tax on all of it.
Oh head slap!! I never even thought of the whole logo-profit thing! I was just going to get a giant iron-on patch or something.
ReplyDeleteThey'll be throwing me in tax jail...only in Philly can you tax potential.
I was going to FWD an article to you about the $300 license fee for bloggers, I found it outrageous always thought there was freedom of speech and press. I will have to talk with Mike(Mayor Nutter) in the near future.
ReplyDeleteThey call it a business license fee. My blog isn't a business-it's my public diary :)
ReplyDeleteJust like it's not a soda tax, but some nutritional something or other tax.
MLB is a tad crazy. You can get NFL cotton fabric everywhere (although it's usually just the local teams) for decent prices! I had never even thought about cotton MLB fabric until you mentioned it, and now that I think about it I haven't seen any anywhere either!
ReplyDelete