California provides us with yet another example of legislative shenanigans.
On Thursday the California Assembly passed a bill that would require customers to request a paper receipt before they can be given one ... Starting in 2022, AB 161 would forbid businesses from providing customers with a traditional paper receipt unless they ask for one. Beginning in 2024, businesses would also be required to provide digital proof of purchase should a customer so request.
. . .
Should you be caught printing up receipts in violation of the law, you'll get two warnings, after which you could be fined up to $300 a year.
To make the environmental case against receipts, Ting's bill relies on Green America, a D.C.-based group whose "Skip the Slip" report says that receipts produce about 150,000 tons of waste each year.
The chairman of Green America's Board of Directors is Jeff Marcous. Marcous also serves as CEO of Dharma Merchant Services, which sells digital point-of-sale technology—the kind that Ting's bill would require stores to adopt.
There's more at the link. Bold, underlined text is my emphasis.
Would someone please tell me why, under any normal ethical standard, Mr. Marcous isn't under investigation on charges of (at the very least) corruption? I wonder how many "favors" were done, and how many contributions were made to "re-election campaigns", and how many arms were twisted ("You do me this favor, and I'll do you a favor in future"), to get this bill passed?
One hopes that the bill will be derailed before it's signed into law . . . but this is California. Such behind-the-scenes skullduggery appears to be the norm there, rather than the exception - much like Washington, D.C., I daresay.
Peter
What amazes me about this silliness is that you would have to print thousands of receipts to use the same amount of paper as a single newspaper. Until the talk about banning newspapers, all of this is just corruption.
ReplyDeleteDon't worry, newspapers are doing that all by themselves. Newspapers are read mainly by older folks, the "cool kids" get their news from the internet, and the generations in between got it from tv. So, as the older generations die off, there are fewer people buying the paper. Most of the advertising $ went to other media as well, sucking the profit out of the business.
DeleteTo make it worse, the newspaper journalists are fiercely progressive in their reporting, which annoys the heck out of those older readers they need so much. A dying media platform that goes out of its way to alienate its most loyal customers won't be around much longer.
...receipts produce about 150,000 tons of waste each year.
ReplyDeleteWhich amounts to something approaching 0.00% of waste. Anyone familiar with the concept of significant digits and the estimates here will understand.
The State of CA would have us believe that the citizens VOTED FOR:
ReplyDelete*)a law forbidding grocery stores from giving away a shopping bag, but allowing them to charge ten cents a pop for them.
*) a ban on smoking everywhere.
*)No cut their gas tax.
*)"legalizing" marijuana at a tax rate that has thrown most users back into the black market.
You would have to believe that everyone in CA wanted this stuff.
No. and Hell no.
Not all vote fraud involves putting the wrong crook in office.
JWM
Why are you surprised that no investigation into corruption is going on?
ReplyDeleteIt's...
CALIFORNIA!!!!!
'Nuff said.
I think I might, repeat might, be surprised if they did full Aztec sacrifices on the steps of the California Capital building.
Might. Way things are going, might not be surprised at all.
...receipts produce about 150,000 tons of waste each year.
ReplyDeleteFor paper getting buried in a landfill, the modern terminology is no longer "waste", it's "carbon sequestration".
Regrettably, this kind of conflict of interest is the new normal.
ReplyDeleteDon in Oregon