Old time (normal) Winter

[Whiskers]

I didn't think in his case he was price gouging.He was selling the generators for $50 over his cost which didn't sound too bad considering he drove to Olathe Ks. to get them.I think they will get him for selling them without a business license,which is just a scam the city runs lol!Wolfie might have bought his from him,he was selling them in Marshfield.

[Whiskers]

Here is the story from KOLR 10

The Missouri Attorney General's office is putting the heat on people who took advantage of those without it over the past few weeks.


Farmer Gary Brooks is still trying to cleanup from the ice storm.


“That was a beautiful pecan tree that lost its limbs,” said Brooks pointing to a tree in his yard.


He also lost power for eleven days. And, he has a name for those who loaded up on cash while others’ power was down.


“I think they're low-lifes,” said Brooks.


But right now Brooks is lumped into that group.



“I don't like that at all because that's not who I am,” added Brooks.


He says he likes to help people and he’s not a scammer. He couldn’t find any generators or kerosene heaters in the Ozarks, so he drove to Olathe, Kansas to buy some alternative power.


“Once I got there and saw they had 56 generators, I thought, ‘we'll see if anyone else wants me to pick up generators while I was there,’” explained Brooks.


He was flooded with phone calls, so he made two trips to Kansas bringing back all of those generators and about fifty kerosene heaters.


“We started selling things like that,” said Brooks snapping his fingers.


He charged $50 more for the generators than he paid, and about thirty more for the kerosene heaters and five gallon buckets of kerosene.


“I was trying to cover my fuel costs,” Brooks explained.


Sales were cranked up as hot as the heaters would go until someone reported Brooks to the Marshfield police for price gouging. He says the Marshfield Police Department told him he had to quit selling the items and get off the parking lot where he was making the sales.


“I wasn’t out to make a big profit,” said Brooks.


But the Attorney General’s office says a lot of people were.


“We had a steady stream of complaints during the storm,” said Assistant Attorney General Ron Carrier.


It took 342 complaints from Southwest Missouri residents who wanted to freeze up scammers. But, that doesn’t mean every call will lead to price gouging prosecution.


“We can't look at every situation as black and white,” said Carrier.


The color green is much more important in the investigations and if some were taking advantage of consumers to get more of it.


As for Brooks, he says he had no idea his ice storm cleanup would include a mess he created.


“I wasn’t doing it to make money, I was doing it to try to help people,” said Brooks.


The Missouri Attorney General's office is currently not investigating Brooks, but it would not discuss his case. It did say that it only pursues those who had several complaints or were charging egregious amounts.



Brooks does not have a business license, which is required even if you're selling items out of your truck bed as Brooks was doing in Springfield and Marshfield. If caught doing that in Springfield, violators could face a fine of up to $1000.


The Attorney General’s office is currently investigating thirty people or businesses for price gouging in Southwest Missouri.

[donkey]

Makes me wonder if ol' donkey may be th next J.P. Morgan! Sure hope he don't buy up this burg an make me move out!

I'd letcha live there awhile.


Nice ya see ya again, Wolfie!

[Wolfman]

Thats a bunch of BS. You could'nt find a generator in marshfield to save your life the first 3 or 4 days because ALL the d@mn generators were being shipped to springfield.
50 bucks a pop on a generator is'nt bad at all. The merchants are makeing that or MORE if they sold em in the store. Id say it's more likely the city itself thats pushing things because they did'nt get their lil $100. A reg merchants license is only about 25 bucks.
Arseholes have made it so you can't even sell a load of wood inside the city limits without a $100 license. Bunch of BS.
Folks used to park in wal-marts and the grocery store parking lots and sell wood and rabbits. Were'nt hurting anyone.

They want to go after someone they need to go after the guys in springfield. Some would sign up on a reserve list for several generators they were shipping in in their emergency shipments. Buy 4 or 5 generators. Then drive down the street a couple blocks and sell em for 5-600 more then they bought them for. Some of those guys still had electric themselves and did'nt even need the generators.

Just sounds like a guy tried to help out some and make a few bucks at the same time. And the city has got a bit in it's teeth because they did'nt get their cut. $50 each is a FAIR markup on a decent generator. Even the lil ones will run you 3-400 bucks each. I seen wal-mart selling small camp style generators for 375-400 and these were 1500 and 2200 watt portables.
I got mine at my hardware store for 600. 5000 watt 6250 startup watts, briggs n straton engine, 5 gallon gas tank. My only regret is i did'nt get about an 8000 watt and 10 or 12000 startup watts.
If they were 5000 watts or so anyone complaining about a $50 markup is just CS.

I seen the prices on very similar generators vary an easy $100 between stores when and IF they got em in. Kerosene was 5.50 a gallon there the first couple of days. Why don't they go after THEM?

[Whiskers]

Yea,$50 markup wasn't bad at all on them,alot less than a retailers markup.
They should go after the ones that was gouging on the fuel,that is ridiculous taking advantage of folks like that.

[Wolfman]

Cops should of been checking out the guys selling rigs on parking lots during the storm. Like where they got em and how much they were chargeing. Checking out the retailers as well. Whole LOT of retailers that never carried a generator before all of a sudden got in on the band wagon...like wal-mart.
Like i said i seen prices vary an easy $100 between two or three stores in the same area on basicly the same generators. Sears here seemed to be a lil high on theirs.

Marshfield as a city did'nt do squat for people. No arraingements for generators, fuel nothing except some 'warming stations' and that was pretty much the chruchs doings. Cities just wanting their cut of the guys money is the only reason their going after him.
Same as they go after the wood cutters.
What does it hurt them if someone parks in a public parking lot and sells a few loads of wood? The lots there, it's usualy the empty part out by the road.
The city council if it was worth a d@mn would be asking WHY springfield got so many emergency shipments of generators(thousands), propane bottles and kerosene and marshfield and the other 'small towns' around it got squat.
Hell, the national guard was handing out generators in green county going door to door as well as heater meals and MRE's.
In marshfield 'IF' you knew abut it you had to go into one of the church warming stations or webster electric to get any.
I was in town half a dozen times, listened to the radio and even caught some news after i got my generator and did'nt know squat about the meals untill a week had gone by.
Did'nt need em but id of scarfed some up for later use though if id known...lol

Instead of harrassing individuals like brooks they need to go after the real gougers who were selling kerosene the first day at 5.50 a gallon. That and asking FEMA why their not going to pay for squat. No finacial help to county residents at all. FEMAS excuse is not enough 'uninsured' damage?? FEMA sucks and is totaly worthless.
Still have'nt seen a single national guardsman and only ONE red cross meals on wheels van.
Point here is don't expect ANY help from the fed govt if you have a disaster. You will either live or die on your own. Don't expect to be reimbursed for any emergency expenses by the emergency groups either.

The ONLY group worth a d@mn during the whole deal was the electric companies and the linemen basicly rebuilding much of the system day and night. Was'nt for them a lot more folks would of probably of frozen to death or died from CO2.
Not real hot on the red cross right now and ill NEVER donate or do a d@mn thing for FEMA EVER! FEMA needs to be eliminated as a totaly worthless money sucking useless agency.
They gave away debit cards worth $10,000 for the asking after katrina. Yeah we were only a Class 4 disaster and katrina was a class 5. Not much differance except their houses got flooded and ours got a lot of BIG tree limbs on them or the electric ripped out. It was warm there and cold as hell here.
Id think they ought to cover emergency expenses like generators to keep warm ect. $1000 a household would be fair. I know ive lost a LOT more then that in log sales in my timber. Wait 20 years for it to get big enough and good enough to selective log some of it then a lot of it's ruined.
If id still been running a bunch of cattle like i used to it would of been even worse.
Id love to give FEMA an earfull at a town meeting but i doubt we have one.

They could help the counties recoop some of their finacial losses due to the major repairs to the electrical systems to. Anyone notice their electric bills being a lot higher this month? Expect your rates to go up pretty soon.

[Whiskers]

8 degrees here this morning at 5am,looks like it's only 9 degrees out now.Makes me glad I don't have to get out in it.

You can bet if it was election time there would be alot said about the devastation this area received.Fema lost it's effectiveness after they rolled it into the homeland security.I figure they spent all their money fighting "terrorists".They've always overlooked our area after ice,tornado's,etc. not enough voters in this area for them to care.You have to be in California or Florida where there are votes to be won or lost before it's considered a "disaster".

[Wolfman]

One thing kind of puzzleing me is springfield(green county) claims 40 million in damages. But every county around is only claiming 4-8 million in damages. hell they wont even list webster county on the news, just every other county.
Im wondering what all green has lumped into their damage assessment to make it so much larger then everybody elses.
Yeah springfield took a hit but it don't seem like they had as muc or that much more dwelling damage then the other counties. fact is webster, dallas and i thin it was polk pretty well lost about 90% of their electrical system. Whereas i think they said green only lost about 50%. Maybe greens just trying to hog up any monies to be spent in SW MO over the other counties.
They got all the emergency help right from the start. Why should'nt they get the lions share of any monies spent for the disaster.

To bad they could'nt of rolled some of them generators into webster and dallas county like they did green. Would of been nice to of seen some national guard in those counties to. I think webster got a dozen or so.

And we're not even into febuary yet, the worst month of the winter. It don't bode well and im laying odd we have a snow or ice storm the first few days of march. I usualy like winter but this one has been a bit much and the cold has got real old real fast. Im ready for spring and some fishing. Walleye, sauger, spoonbill, catfish and maybe some white bass.
You get any good sauger, walleye or white bass runs there around your place whisker? Got a heater in that camper??

[Whiskers]

Last time I looked I think Springfield still had the sign that says "Home of Matt Blunt". I think that should explain it all.

I'm ready for some warmer weather myself.I've been itchin' to go fishin but cold as it is,I'm like Sinker and fishin em' out of the freezer right now.lol!

[Wolfman]

I have'nt got many if any left in the freezer. Clare tossed some the other day when she cleaned it out she thought was bad.
Aint hardly got to put any in the freezer the last two years.
Im ready for a lil fishing myself but it's to frigging cold.
-1 here this morning about 5 am. Thats real temp, not windchill. Not sure what it is right now but it's cold and supposed to get colder after the snow passes through.

What gets me is all the twits haveing problems on the road in a 1/4 and 1/2 inch of snow. What the hells up with that?? I tried to make the car slide and got maybe a foot of skid on a downhill slope on a corner.

Been fighting off a cold since the first night of the ice storm. To much time spent outside in the rain and sleet i guess. Girl kept running around with her coat open, no hat and wearing tennis shoes no matter how much i griped at her so she came down with a cold. And of course every time she comes down sick i get it 2 or 3 days later so im crooping and feeling bad(or worse). Stinking cold just makes it that much worse especialy when i have to get out and do chores. It's cold even for MO!

Mat blunt. Yeah i done figured springfield would get some kind of state and fed finacial help for the storm because of him. As usual the rest of the counties, the ones that really need the help will 3end up sucking hind teat as usual.
After them going after the guy in marshfield for selling generators their explaining away why it's costing double or more for folks to get their electric wired back in. Say it's not gougenig, it's needed and acceptable.
Lot of people not real happy with their electric bills in green county either.
Looks like there's going to be a big fight over tree trimming as well. Some folks already mad cause they have got cut crazy on some of their tree's.

[Critter]

Speaking of Blunt I seen a bumper sticker in town the other night that said "Blunt is not sharp".I hadn't seen those before.lol!

My sister has a rental house in Springfield that took a pretty hard hit in the ice,knocked the weatherhead loose and downed the lines.She had to get an electrician from Branson to come up and fix it because the ones in Springfield were so booked up they couldn't say when they could get to her.It ended up costing her a small fortune to get it fixed.They sure didn't relax any rules in that area for repairs.

[Wolfman]

Oh they did relax one rule. Used to you had to be a licensed electrician IN springfield to work in springfield. MO license was'nt good enough. Same way for plumbers.
After the storm they dropped that requirement for awhile to where all they have to be licensed in is MO. Otherwise a LOT of those electricians could'nt do the work in springfield and folks would be waiting forever to get things fixed.

I just thought it odd the electricians could charge double or more for the same job and not be considered 'gougeing.' Same for the plumbers.

I got to get over this d@mn chest cold so i can get back to cutting and hauling brush. Got to get some more seasoned wood cut up and on moms porch before long to.