Monopolies

Where do you get your eyeglasses made?...from your eye doc?...or do you go to a place like Lenscrafters?...Pearle Vision?...where do you get your sunglasses?...Sunglass Hut?...well, kids, you are buying from a conglomerate...probably...as the company, Luxottica...has pretty much bought up MOST of the distributors in the ah hem, WORLD!...they own like 80% of the market...can you say MONOPOLY?...that's why you pay so much for them...Ray Ban...Persol...Oakley...and on and on...

You can get much cheaper priced ones at Costco, Walmart, or online...CUZ they are not owned by THE company...and if you would ask one of the owned sites, they would say you would be getting inferior products...not so, my friends...do your homework and get your money's worth...

It wasn't that long ago that At & t got blown apart by the gov't...you know, a monopoly...and then it opened up a bunch of options for the rest of us...not sure it saved us any money, but it did give us our own way of persevering...

You wonder about laptops?...hmmm...most of them are made by the same company in Korea...Quanta...who builds both sides of the Apple/Microsoft worlds...yup, they are made by the SAME company...

I guess my point is that there are underlying reasons for some very high prices in very wanted merchandise...and we are pawns, my friends...

Lordy, I just got some new sport shoes...and the prices are sky high!...needed some stability type...pronation problems...ha ha...and studied what I needed...had a list  to go by...and went down to Dick's...these shoes are made all over the Far East...wonder what the mark up is?...has to be fantastic...and got some great ones...Brooks "Beast"...I'm not kidding...made in China...

OK...the sports world...

The passing of Tony Gwynn...at the age of 54...oh my...much too young...throat cancer...it is said that there was no connection to his penchant to chewing tobacco...yea right...anyway, he was a legend down here...great guy, with countless MLB records...

The US soccer team beat Ghana...I watched this...just to see if I could...the production of the match was great...which made the viewing much better...World Cup...I'm ok with the people getting in to it...just not my thang....

The Bads did it again...lost...to one of their old castoffs...aging Chris Young...of the Mariners...who mowed us down like everyone else who chucks at us, er by us...5-1...and the cry for change gets louder...

There is more talk about fixing the Miami Heat than glorifying the San Antonio Spurs...first, the Floridians need a real coach...just saying...and they can't have Pop...

LPGA playing on the same course as the blokes...Pinehurst No. 2...a few days after the guys have finished up...too bad, they couldn't let the course breathe a bit...

And...

What is wrong with my idea of encouraging the split of Iraq?...North and South Iraq?...