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Basic Math | 367 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Something fishy here
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 05:55 AM EDT
More to the point has he paid proper tax on that income?

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Nothing fishy here
Authored by: stegu on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 05:59 AM EDT
These were not second hand books, they were brand new parallel imports from
Thailand. It is not unreasonable to assume that he could have made $50 or more
from each sale, depending on which titles he selected, and from which field.

Setting up a small business with a friend or relative back home to ship a couple
of thousand books abroad over the course of several years is not a big deal. I
doubt it required more than an hour per day of his time, much less than any
other job he could have chosen to work himself through school.

$100,000 is not exactly a fortune. He probably spent it all on his education and
on living expenses, and it seems he used this side income to get by, not to make
piles of money. Besides, even if he had made a ton of cash, I would have
supported it. We are finally seeing a shift to a global world market, and we
need cases like this to make it clear that a big change is coming.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Something fishy here
Authored by: MadTom1999 on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 06:56 AM EDT
Nothing fishy at all - he spotted an imbalance in the market and exploited it.
I've been investigating solar panels - I can get exactly the same solar panels
in India at less than 1/4 the cost I can get them in the UK. I would import them
but cleverly over here they need to be 'certified' for use in grid connected
systems.
Now if the publishers had the power to get books certified for use in
courses...

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Something fishy here
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 07:51 AM EDT
I have a daughter who took several courses last semester
and is slowly working toward a degree. She had to spend
almost $500 dollars on text books. She plans on selling
them when she can. College text book prices are what should
be investigated, not the students.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Basic Math
Authored by: MDT on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 10:46 AM EDT
So, a college text can cost anywhere from $50 to $150.

Let's assume an average cost of $100.

Let's assume he was doing this over 3 years (3/4 of a 4 year
degree).

Let's assume his family was picking up the text books at 1/4
the US cost, and bulk shipping them.

Let's assume he was selling them for 40% cheaper than the
college book store.

That's : $60 (retail price) - $25 (cost of book) - $5
(shipping) = $30 profit.

$100,000 / 3 (years) = $33,000 per year.

$33,000 / $30 (profit per book) = 1,100 books / year

1,100 / 12 (months) = 92 books / month

92 / 4 (weeks) = 23 books / week

Or, about 3 books a day he had to sell over 3 years to earn
$100,000.

That doesn't seem like a huge investment of time, especially
on E-Bay or even just selling to students on campus. Bundle
up all the books once a week and drop them off at the post
office.

---
MDT

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Something fishy here
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 11:29 AM EDT
I beleive this has been mentioned elsewhere, but look up "arbitrage"
sometime. It's a way to make money without actually doing anything much.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Some people just like fear
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 01:01 PM EDT

Some are just jealous that a student is making more money then they are.

Just to be clear: I'm not saying you like fear or are jealous. I don't know you, your position, or anything else about you. I simply used those two as two of what is easily many, many reasons someone might want to think something is wrong where no wrong-doing has occurred.

There's nothing wrong with the business concept of buying something and then selling it at a higher cost to generate a profit. So you certainly can't lay claim there's something wrong with that.

And there is the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" and you must admit someone did a heck-of-a-job in trying to prove him guilty - Copyright infringement of course. They succeeded in the two lower Courts before they failed in the highest Court - so he's ultimately been proven innocent of wrong-doing with regards Copyright infringement.

And the $100,000 comes with almost no other facts. So you don't know if that's "sales", "pre tax dollars", "post tax dollars" or anything else. Would you find it just as fishy if it was clearly outlined:

    He made $100,000 in sales for a profit of $17,000 after $83,000 in costs is factored in!
???

My bottom line point: I think that since there's no other factual information then your claim "something is fishy" - there is nothing to be concerned with. I'll grant the individual "innocent until proven guilty" and accept that the Highest Court in the US has granted him innocent against the only claim raised against him so far: Copyright infringement.

RAS

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

Have you looked at the price of quality academic books recently?
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 20 2013 @ 01:25 PM EDT
Up-to-date books intended by universities and publishers to form the cores of
students' professional libraries can have eye watering prices.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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