Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!think!bbn!aoa!mbr
From: mbr@aoa.UUCP (Mark Rosenthal)
Newsgroups: comp.dcom.modems
Subject: Re: EASYMONEYII (READ THIS ONE)
Message-ID: <1045@aoa.UUCP>
Date: 27 Nov 89 21:45:26 GMT
References: <18570@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu>
Reply-To: mbr@aoa (Mark Rosenthal)
Organization: Adaptive Optics assoc., Cambridge, Ma
Lines: 46

In article <18570@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu> KUDLACEK@kuhub.cc.ukans.edu posts a chain
letter disguised as a mailing list business.  He also says:

>       NOTE: Make sure you retain EVERY Name and Address sent
>             to you, either on computer or hard copy, but do not
>             discard the names and notes they send you.  This is
>             PROOF that you are truely providing a service and
>             should the IRS or some other Government Agency
>             question you, you can provide them with this PROOF!

Forget, for the moment, the questionable legality of the endeavor and its
dubious chances for success.  Simply, consider how long it would take you
to file 50,000 pieces of correspondence and how much space it would take up
to store the letters.

Of course, if you want to convince a government agency that you are really
assembling and selling a mailing list rather than running an illegal chain
letter scam, it probably would not be too convincing if you just stored the
names in hard copy and did nothing with them.  So you'll have to key them
in to your computer.  How long would it take to type in 50,000 names and
addresses?  A typical database record would be:

	First_name Last_name
	No. Street_name Street
	City, State Zip

That's eight words.  A competent typist typically types at a rate of about
60 words per minute.  So that's 8/60 minutes or about 8 seconds per record.
Let's assume (optimistically) that it takes about 5 seconds to open the next
envelope and refind home position on the keyboard to type in the next address.
That's 13 seconds per record.  So 50,000 would take 650,000 seconds to enter
into the database.  650,000 seconds is approximately 22.5 workdays (at 8 hours
per day).  The average workmonth is 21.7 workdays, so this is just about one
typical workmonth just to do the bookkeeping!  And I haven't even included
the time necessary to count the cash, endorse the checks, and make the deposits.

Now, $50,000 for 1 month of work is not too shabby.  Just don't get the
impression that you're doing no work at all.  If you later find out that the
IRS has decided you have to keep some additional information on each item,
you could suddenly find yourself required to do several additional months of
work.

The point is that 50,000 times a very small time increment can add up to A LOT!
-- 
	Mark of the Valley of Roses
	...!bbn.com!aoa!mbr


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com