Huiting Zhuang,Sell your business overseas

I do not smoke. So I never care to check cigarette tax. Yesterday, I went shopping for some cigarette for my wife as gifts. I am so surprised by the cigarette excise tax.

Well, first, I notice that RI has increased taxes for cigarette hoping to raise money for the deficit. Out of curiosity, I begin to search for cigarette tax across the whole country. Below is the link that shows cigarette tax across the country.

Cigarette tax across the country

Holy cow! I didnot know that smokers contribute to this country like crazy: more than $2/pack in excise tax in MA, CT and RI. Well, I must admit the society must pay their medical care due to health problems caused by smoking.

I didnot know that some state charges only 7 cent (SC). I wonder the general health level in South Carolina.

Virginia is only charging 30C while DC is charging 100Cent. I wonder how why would anybody buy in DC.

Hawaii, Alaska and Florida are all tourism places. How come Hawaii and Alaska are charging $2 and Florida only charges $.34?

California is in deep deficit. Why do not they increase the tax from $.87 to near $2?

I am not a Cigarette economist. So I cannot answer all the questions. But it is really interesting to see a big picture of the cigarette economy.

My wife is going on an international trip. So I have been shopping for her all day long. One sentence that I always hear today is:

The more you buy, the more you save.

I think many of you are also quite familiar with this.

• A roll of Christmas gift wrappers are now 90% off. Normal price is $4 and buy 100 roll, you can save $360.
• A box of Christmas cookie is $8 and with 90% off, you can save $7200 if buy 1000 of it.

Simple math, simple saving and I can become rich over night, right?

Any body with a positive IQ should be able to figure it out that my math is wrong. The logic is:

Just being cheap and significant reduction on price does not mean it is a good deal.

It is as simple as that but I constantly see Realtors tell the world that houses are cheap now, go buy it. That is not true. It is an over-simplification a pretty delicate problem.

1. First, just because many houses are cheap does not mean every property is cheap. There are many over-priced properties.
2. Secondly, just because a property is cheap does not mean it is a perfect buy for you. Everybody is different.
3. Thirdly, from an investment point of view, it is not how cheap a property that counts, it is how much profit that you can make that matters. Being cheap does not mean you can make a decent profit, if you are investment-minded.

I can make this list going on and on. But I would stop here. So Realtors, will you still advertise it is a good time to buy because it is cheap today?

Providence Journal today published an article that RI condo sales are down sharply.

According the journal, November condo sales down from 148 to 67. Among these 67 sales, 52 were identified as distressed sales.

Now that is a really bad sign. I know RI is among the second the worst unemployment state but still these numbers look astonishing.

The good news is that water front properties and high end properties do not hurt that much. So the demand is still there. Another good point that the Journal didnot cover is that in Rhode Island, there are few new properties. So new properties usually do not hurt that much. Those who can afford usually prefer newer properties.

More details can be found below by going to the article directly.

RI condo sales down sharply from ProJo.com

Well, life is tough. So the Forbe's 500 have decided to change their logos. Below are their new logos.

This is Bestbuy's. It sure says what they need. It is actually what every retailer needs.

The car industry is hurting. The tire giant is no exception.

Even Apple is complaining. This time it is not competitors that bite in. It is the general economy.

This is really true.

Oh yeah, food first.

A few people asked me about the green tea stuff. Today, I would write again about the best green tea brand: Dragon Well (longjing) green tea.

I do not want to make it too comlicated. So I would like to show a few pictures today only.

1, how green tea is made. (picture courtesy of wikipedia)

Workers are drying the fresh tea leaves.

2, The final green tea leaves

The tea leaves are loose leaves. Usually the yellowish, the better. Or for shorter the better.

This year. Normal Longjing green tea leaves costs about $200/lb for grade 1. I would assume prices in the States should be more expensive.

I am in short of LongJing tea and will get more by early Feb (for my personal use only). Once I got them, I will write a more detail post.

In the meantime, if you still drinking bag tea, I would suggest you to dump it. Bagged tea is a really a waste of money even if it is $1/lb. All you are drinking are some junk chemicals plus some sugar. :-)