conservation of Euros

[Joerg]

Spehro Pefhany wrote:

[...]

Ewww. Of course the map on the Garmin might not have been updated, so
it might not be any different an outcome. I see people get lost all
the time nearby where they recently changed from a cramped half
cloverleaf interchange to a more spacious half cloverleaf. Their GPSs
are telling them to make a right, and it's a left now.

About 10 years ago a UPS shipment didn't arrive. Got the tracking
number, entered it ... "3 failed delivery attempts" ... Hurumph! Nobody
had bothered to call me.

When I called they said my address is invalid. I informed them that this
street was on maps since the late 60's and whether they could reprogram
their time machine to the year 2000 or whatever it was. Or stop at the
local gas station and buy a non-electronic map, a real map. The package
was delivered prontissimo and this time, tada, they found our street.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

"gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.
Use another domain or send PM.

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 20 May 2010 17:48:09 -0500, "krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
<krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2010 11:37:16 -0700 (PDT), Greegor <greegor47@gmail.com> wrote:

On May 20, 12:14 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 20, 9:57 am, John Larkin wrote:

Bill Sloman wrote:
You might be better off turning the company into a cooperative. At
least that way the poeple who inherit the company will have some
understanding of how it works and why it works that way.

Ah yes, free love and drugs for everyone.

There was a fad in the '70s around here, centered in Berkeley of
course, for co-op buisnesses; I still have a couple of the books, like
"We Own It!" It was an interesting experiment. There seemed to be two
available outcomes, sad failures and hilarious failures.

A very few are still around. There's a co-op bakery on 9th avenue, not
bad stuff actually. They close down one day a week just to meet and
talk. And talk. And talk. I hear that it's painful for the majority.

I saw a cool thing on PBS just a few days ago about that era.

A fellow was explaining how he and a bunch of fellow college students
with liberal educations surged out, full of energy and socialist
utopianism.  They fled to the hills (e.g. Foxfire), to live together
in peace, equality, and free love.  A commune, where all is fair and
free.

They quickly learned just throwing seeds in the ground did not a farm
make, and that equality sucked.  The chicks split, and then the guys
soon after.

The guy winced, sheepishly, explaining/defending: they'd had their
eyes opened, only wasted two years doing it, and didn't hurt anyone in
the process...

James

These experiments resemble cults, where
they attempt to shut out REALITY and
replace it with their BELIEF!

Kinda like The Church of AGW.

The Church of Never Rely on Beta.

John

 

[Greegor]

G > In the US, your arguments and reasoning
G > are more typical of the occasional misfit
G > usually 17 or 18 years old and struggling
G > for IDENTITY, and going for shock value

Okkim Atnarivik wrote
OA > You don't seriously compare an american
OA > teenager to Sloman?

Yes, The occasional inexperienced misfit teenager.
Most of those grow out of it with experience.

OA > His points, even though I may not agree
OA > with every detail, are as a general rule
OA > very well argued.

As in a high school debate society, you mean?

Judge Roland Friesler had an impeccable legal mind.

Look up what he was famous for!

OA > I'm glad that he takes time to cast doubt
OA > on stereotypical OT nonsense which now
OA > and then appears in this group. Kids may
OA > be readlng these posts, and would take
OA > all sorts of propaganda as actual facts if
OA > nobody countered. Having said that, I'm
OA > also glad that Mr. Larkin challenges
OA > Sloman's opinions, reasonably often fact based.
OA >
OA > I said 'cast doubt' because nobody is under
OA > obligation to accept blindly any of the
OA > claims made by anybody.
OA >
OA > Now I must get back to productive work and
OA > earn some more euros to be shoveled to Greece...

From Finland?
Is that where you get your sense of humor?

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 20 May 2010 17:50:15 -0500, "krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
<krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2010 13:37:04 -0700, John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2010 10:14:00 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com
wrote:

On May 20, 9:57 am, John Larkin wrote:
Bill Sloman wrote:


You might be better off turning the company into a cooperative. At
least that way the poeple who inherit the company will have some
understanding of how it works and why it works that way.

Ah yes, free love and drugs for everyone.

There was a fad in the '70s around here, centered in Berkeley of
course, for co-op buisnesses; I still have a couple of the books, like
"We Own It!" It was an interesting experiment. There seemed to be two
available outcomes, sad failures and hilarious failures.

A very few are still around. There's a co-op bakery on 9th avenue, not
bad stuff actually. They close down one day a week just to meet and
talk. And talk. And talk. I hear that it's painful for the majority.


I saw a cool thing on PBS just a few days ago about that era.

A fellow was explaining how he and a bunch of fellow college students
with liberal educations surged out, full of energy and socialist
utopianism. They fled to the hills (e.g. Foxfire), to live together
in peace, equality, and free love. A commune, where all is fair and
free.

They quickly learned just throwing seeds in the ground did not a farm
make, and that equality sucked. The chicks split, and then the guys
soon after.

The guy winced, sheepishly, explaining/defending: they'd had their
eyes opened, only wasted two years doing it, and didn't hurt anyone in
the process...

James

I was just talking to Phil Hobbs about that recently. He pointed out
that bad management is better than no management. At least it gets
everybody pulling in the same direction.

Opposite management? It's not good going in the opposite direction as the guy
with the purse, either.

The context of the discussion is that humans evolved in tribal/family
groups that needed to be coordinated and organized for survival. So
they naturally fell into a hierarchal structure where decisions get
made quickly by one leader and everybody gets coordinated. In that
sense, any randomly chosen leader is better than none, and in fact
most people *want* a leader and really don't want to be one. It would
be difficult to settle on a chief if everybody wanted to be the chief,
so we evolved into, mostly, a race of hero worshippers and order
takers.

But there has to be a mechanism for picking a leader. People tend to
pick tall, big-headed, well-spoken, charismatic people (like Phil) to
lead them, whereas it's obvious that short, cute, round-faced people
(like me) would be the superior choice.

I figured all that out on my second glass of Ron Zacapa 23. Or maybe
the third.

John

 

[John Larkin]

On Thu, 20 May 2010 15:07:25 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
<zapwireDASHgroups@yahoo.com> wrote:

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:ngbbv5l83dca02uqc3kc13k022e86vqomf@4ax.com...
It seems simpler to me if an employer can hire and fire at will (as we
can in California) and an employee can take a job or quit as he
chooses. Let people make deals.

When you're talking skilled labors such as engineers, that makes a lot of
sense, since either party leaving has the potential to significnatly harm the
other.

With unskilled labor, it's a rather more lop-sided arrangement -- Wal*Mart
firing a cashier with no notice hurts the cashier a lot more than the cashier
leaving without notice. This is one of the original reasons unions were
formed -- mass representation, essentially the workers organizing themselves
so as to be at a lesser advantage relative to their bosses.

Of course, these days most unions seem to do rather more harm than good.

I was just about to say that. The biggest retailer on the planet,
Wal-Mart, is non-union. The steel plants are mostly gone.

And *most* employees and employers are decent human beings who don't go around
taking actions that they know will unnecessarily harm the other guy anyway.
You're pretty much guaranteed to be written up in your local newspaper as a
dick if you lay anyone office within a handful of weeks prior to Xmas, for
instance.

Small businesses are usually run by real people who know and care
about the people they work with. Big companies can be run by bean
counters who may decide on any Tuesday near the end of the quarter to
can 4000 employees because the books will look better.

So another choice the individual worker can make is to work for a
small company or a monster one. Lots of people deliberately pick the
big one... and they had better not expect a lot of touchy-feeley
individual caring if they do.

John

 

[Greegor]

JA > You don't have the first idea what's in Obama's mandatory
insurance
JA > purchase and regulation bill--you're simply regurgitating--and
neither
JA > do you know anything about American health care, so there's
really no
JA > point in debating you on this.

JA > Hey, that makes a nice acronym: MAN-datory I-nsurance PU-rchase
and
JA > regu-LATION Bill.

G > Slowman's such an inexperienced idealogue that
G > it's like arguing religion with a Moonie.
G >
G > Come on!   An over 50 NON-PRODUCER who
G > argues for socialism?

JA > Bill's 67, in the Netherlands, and an expert on
JA > all things American.  As a mere American
JA > living in America, I'm glad to have such a
JA > reliable source to redoublethink all the things
JA > I know directly and confirm daily with
JA > experience into politically correct context:
JA > Obama's a centrist, not the ultra farthest
JA > most radical left-voting member of Congress,
JA > and a brilliant Constitutional lawyer, not a
JA > former associate professor and sometime
JA > ACORN subprime-pushing counsel.
JA >
JA > Bill's said his nanny state host makes it
JA > impossible for oldsters like him to get a
JA > job--no one wants to hire 'cause then
JA > they're responsible.  Plus the state bribes
JA > companies to hire younger workers,
JA > who'd really rather take welfare anywho[sic].
JA > Or something like that.  If I've
JA > mischaracterized him I'm sure Bill will correct me.
JA >
JA > But he still likes it.  What the hell, the money's
JA > still free-living off other people is easy.  Problem
JA > is, they don't work nearly hard enough, and
JA > they whine.  Wimps.  Probably racists and
JA > Nazis, too.  You know, reactionaries.

G > It's a LOT like the old wimpy burger gag.
G > "I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today."

JA > I looked into the GRA / 401k thing.  If there's a
JA > serious attempt to grab 401ks, I didn't detect it.
JA > Not that it couldn't happen, I just didn't see it
JA > in the several articles Yahoo offered up.

G > I didn't bring up or assert such a grab for 401K's
G > but I can tell you that much like the way the
G > SOCIAL SERVICES agencies grab kids from
G > parents on a whim as ""Child Protection"",
G > they have started grabbing senior citizens on
G > a whim in the guise of ""Elder Abuse"".  Apparently,
G > following their pattern with parents and kids, they
G > don't need to actually PROVE any of their crap.
G > The one really NEW wrinkle has these statist
G > zombies drooling is that when they grab a
G > grandma or grandpa for no reason, they get
G > to grab and control or confiscate their ESTATE.
G >
G > A tendancy for them to grab seniors who have
G > considerable ESTATES has already been observed.
G >
G > Seniors with family farm empires including land
G > and considerable savings are being grabbed
G > and administered until liquidation, to pay
G > for their remaining years at a social security/
G > welfare level.
G >
G > Situations where farms should be passed on
G > to the next generation are stopped cold.
G >
G > Well off seniors are suddenly made equal with
G > other seniors living on social security/welfare.
G >
G > Families who were WELL ABLE and willing
G > to care for or contract for their elders to be
G > cared for AT HOME are finding the money
G > is seized even if the elder themself are not.
G >
G > In several cases, the mental faculties of
G > the "seized" seniors are still sharp and the
G > whole thing is a SOCIAL SERVICES nightmare
G > as absurd as most bogus ""Child Protection"" cases.

JT > What state(s) is this happening?

Iowa for a fact, though I suspect social
services throughout the country do this.

JT > Good reason to have a living will that includes
JT > financial management in case of loss
JT > of mental faculties.

Jim, Neither living wills nor
STILL HAVING YOUR MENTAL FACULTIES
will stop them. They only need their opinion.
Remember they do not have to PROVE anything.
There is nothing they won't do ""For your own good"".

 

[Joel Koltner]

"John Larkin" <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:dckbv5donm2cdbasbu88jvojcef1be7v1r@4ax.com...

On Thu, 20 May 2010 15:07:25 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
zapwireDASHgroups@yahoo.com> wrote:
Of course, these days most unions seem to do rather more harm than good.
I was just about to say that.

Yeah, I figured someone like James Arthur would have called me on it if I
hadn't mentioned it.

Small businesses are usually run by real people who know and care
about the people they work with. Big companies can be run by bean
counters who may decide on any Tuesday near the end of the quarter to
can 4000 employees because the books will look better.

I think that with small businesses there's far greater deviation in what you
get (in terms of how much the people running the joint really care about the
employees) than in big businesses, but the average is probably a bit higher.
I.e., while a big business just can't be as magnanimous as some little guys --
particularly in publicly held companies --, you also don't find the worst of
the worst scumbags in big business either.

Or at least I didn't used to think so... with some of the big
banking/investment firm scandals, you really have to wonder sometimes.

Hey, since you're a small business, perhaps you'd consider just giving the
company to your employees when you're ready to retire? A guy here in Oregon
just did that:
http://www.oregonlive.com/clackamascounty/index.ssf/2010/02/bobs_red_mill_natural_foods_ro.html .

So another choice the individual worker can make is to work for a
small company or a monster one. Lots of people deliberately pick the
big one... and they had better not expect a lot of touchy-feeley
individual caring if they do.

Agreed. For years now I've been a bit incredulous at just how attractive big
business is to would-be employees... it's certainly not my first choice.

---Joel

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Jim Thompson wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2010 16:10:17 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote:


Greegor wrote:

G > Sloman, Do you see yourself as egotistical,
G > smarter, or superior to other people?
G
G > In the US, your arguments and reasoning
G > are more typical of the occasional misfit,
G > usually 17 or 18 years old and struggling
G > for IDENTITY, and going for shock value.
G
G > Generally, these people lack real world
G > experience, and so obsess about the
G > ACADEMIC. As they get more real
G > world experience, they soon realize the
G > difference between academia and real world.
G
G > Did you think that the KOOK LEFT was
G > populated mostly by PRODUCERS?
G
G > You claim you are over 50, yet you still
G > place great stock in academic sources,
G > and you claim to be an Aussie ex pat
G > living off your wife in Netherlands, yet
G > you obsess about economics in the USA.
G
G > Your situation as you've described it
G > is a bit like a cartoon!
G > A 50+ year old misfit NON-PRODUCER
G > who lives off his wife and advocates socialism?
G
G > How amazing is that?
G
G > There are some American retirees who
G > were cold hard capitalists but lost almost
G > everything in 2008-2009 and now that
G > they see themselves as recipients of
G > socialistic handouts, they are more
G > receptive to ideas of socialism.
G
G > How amazing is that?

Cat got your tongue, Bill? LOL


If it did it would die a slow, painful death for whatever it caught
from Bill.

Mange ?

Do you think that any self respecting mange would get close to
Sloman, or his wife? The only thing willing to do that is the Black
Plague, which was carried by infected rats.

--
Anyone wanting to run for any political office in the US should have to
have a DD214, and a honorable discharge.

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Thu, 20 May 2010 18:36:44 -0700 (PDT), Greegor <greegor47@gmail.com> wrote:

krw > I was just talking to Phil Hobbs about that
krw > recently. He pointed out that bad
krw > management is better than no management.
krw > At least it gets everybody pulling in the
krw > same direction.

JL > Opposite management?  It's not good going
JL > in the opposite direction as the guy
JL > with the purse, either.

http://dictionary.infoplease.com/machiavellian

being or acting in accordance with the principles of government
analyzed in Machiavelli's The Prince, in which political expediency is
placed above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the
authority and carry out the policies of a ruler is described.

---------------------------------------

I always focused on the part about how a
bad ruler who maintains control is better
than a weak ruler who subjects his people
to the costly horrors of revolution.

Or one who screws up attributions, manually, when software will do it
correctly, free.

 

[Greegor]

krw > I was just talking to Phil Hobbs about that
krw > recently. He pointed out that bad
krw > management is better than no management.
krw > At least it gets everybody pulling in the
krw > same direction.

JL > Opposite management?  It's not good going
JL > in the opposite direction as the guy
JL > with the purse, either.

http://dictionary.infoplease.com/machiavellian

being or acting in accordance with the principles of government
analyzed in Machiavelli's The Prince, in which political expediency is
placed above morality and the use of craft and deceit to maintain the
authority and carry out the policies of a ruler is described.

---------------------------------------

I always focused on the part about how a
bad ruler who maintains control is better
than a weak ruler who subjects his people
to the costly horrors of revolution.

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Thu, 20 May 2010 13:44:25 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2010 08:24:09 +0100, Martin Brown
|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:


Equally the employer should treat employees fairly and not be entitled
to hire and fire on a whim in the way that seems so common in the USA.

Employees can walk out on zero notice, leaving projects in random
states. And they sometimes do. How about some symmetry?

No, California isn't a right to work state.

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Thu, 20 May 2010 07:51:33 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

JosephKK wrote:
On Tue, 18 May 2010 08:45:14 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

JosephKK wrote:
On Sun, 16 May 2010 21:11:54 -0700, "JosephKK"<quiettechblue@yahoo.com
wrote:

On Sun, 16 May 2010 14:13:24 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

JosephKK wrote:
On Sat, 15 May 2010 00:18:43 -0500, "krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 21:26:28 -0700, John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 22:55:23 -0500, "krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 10:08:36 -0700, John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Fri, 14 May 2010 09:17:15 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Fri, 14 May 2010 07:39:56 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
[...]

I like the sales tax, as opposed to income tax, because it puts
business on a better basis against imports, so saves jobs. And because
it would be enormously simpler and cheaper to comply with. No
accountants, no tax returns, no exemptions, no deductions, no
quarterly estimates, no loopholes... almost.

Tax consumption. Don't tax savings or investment or job creation. If a
person is rich but doesn't spend any money, nobody can reasonably be
jealous of his wealth.

A serious problem with that: It punishes frugal people who have saved
for their retirement and rewards those who squandered everything. The
money they saved _has_ already been taxed.
Simple fix: don't tax income.

Yeah, but how do you deal with income that _has_ already been taxed but
not spent yet because people saved it for their retirement? A flat
VAT-type tax is the same as confiscating xx% percent of that. Not fair
at all.
As I suggested, exempt basics, like food, reasonable rent, generic
medicines. If people can afford a yacht, they can afford to pay sales
tax on it.
The point is that that money has already been taxed. It shouldn't matter if
it is used to buy a yacht. Taxing it again is wrong (one reason I don't trust
Roth IRAs).
As I suggested, eliminate income taxes and go to sales tax. Then
things are only taxed once.
You're missing the point. Those millions of people who have saved all their
lives will be taxed a second time. They've *already* been taxed on that
money.
Not to bust your bubble, but i am already paying both taxes.
When income tax gets turned into a point-of-sale tax you'll have paid
even more (if you have saved after-tax money).
I only have a little of such, most is in other (post income tax) forms.
erp. ^^^^/pre

Don't know how old you are but if there ain't a big stash in those IRAs
and you don't have some plum pension coming your way I'd start saving
now

I figure i can only semi-retire. Maybe in 10 years. OK pension, medical
included. Not as much saving as paying off house. Well over $1000/mo
there. I have spreadsheets and can use them. The outlook is not grim
but not flush, so i go to about half time as a consultant. The
consulting pays for the cake, bread and butter will be taken care of
unless the Damnicrats deficit spend everything away.


If you can imagine comfortably making ends meet with a 50% consulting
workload then you are better off than most people. I know grown men who
are doing min-wage jobs right now just so they don't lose the family
home. And they might still lose it.

Hell, I can imagine retiring *well* on 25% consulting workload. In fact if I
thought it would last I'd still be "retired", contracting as I was doing two
years back. That would be my ideal retirement, AAMOF.

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Wed, 19 May 2010 18:05:12 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 16:34:59 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 15:23:02 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 07:50:39 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Tue, 18 May 2010 11:42:26 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2010 14:31:43 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 17, 4:05 pm, "keith...@gmail.com" <keith...@gmail.com> wrote:
On May 17, 3:53 pm, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:



On May 17, 3:41 pm, "keith...@gmail.com" <keith...@gmail.com> wrote:
[...]

Again, you're missing the point. With after-tax savings you're
*already* paying that tax. If the "Fair Tax" is implemented you get
to pay the "consumption tax" on the *AFTER-TAX* money.
I'm not missing the point, I just think you're mathematically wrong.
If the thing costs $1 today, or $0.77 plus $0.23 Fair Tax tomorrow,
what have you lost? Where have I gone wrong?
Because it cost me $1.40 yesterday (when I earned it) to have the
$1.00 today,
If you paid taxes already under the old system then you were screwed
*yesterday*. That can't be fixed-it's gone. Sorry. Me too.
No, I was playing the game by the rules yesterday. Today the government
change the rules after the game was in play. The winner is the one who spent
every dime he ever made, not the one who took care of his life.

Many of the ones who took care of their life will then move, to some
places outside the US, and escape such confiscatory "fair tax" should it
ever happen. Who knows, Baja, NZ, some island ... because then the
problem simply goes away. The consequences? Even more layoffs here.
That's fine if they don't want to take their money with them. They've already
plugged that hole.

Huh? It's just one big wire transfer.
You think you can just wire money out of the country without government
intervention? More than $10K requires all sorts of paperwork, and taxes paid.

Got any links? That would completely squish international trade. I know
people who have bought rather pricey stuff overseas, and just wired the
payment. Plus they can't make you pay taxes on already taxed money.
No, but it's been in the news lately, with Obama's attack on the Swiss banks.
Apparently if you move cash out of the country you have to pay the equivalent
of the death tax.

This cannot be the case. I have clients who buy expensive machines
overseas because they have to. They don't pay a death tax.

Corporations "living" in the US.


And proprietors living in the US. So what's the (legal, in terms of
those taxes) difference between them and John Q.Public?

Because JQP is likely to skip on his taxes.

 

[Bill Bowden]

On May 20, 5:25 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2010 15:07:25 -0700, "Joel Koltner"



zapwireDASHgro...@yahoo.com> wrote:
"John Larkin" <jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote in message
news:ngbbv5l83dca02uqc3kc13k022e86vqomf@4ax.com...
It seems simpler to me if an employer can hire and fire at will (as we
can in California) and an employee can take a job or quit as he
chooses. Let people make deals.

When you're talking skilled labors such as engineers, that makes a lot of
sense, since either party leaving has the potential to significnatly harm the
other.

With unskilled labor, it's a rather more lop-sided arrangement -- Wal*Mart
firing a cashier with no notice hurts the cashier a lot more than the cashier
leaving without notice.  This is one of the original reasons unions were
formed -- mass representation, essentially the workers organizing themselves
so as to be at a lesser advantage relative to their bosses.

Of course, these days most unions seem to do rather more harm than good.

I was just about to say that. The biggest retailer on the planet,
Wal-Mart, is non-union. The steel plants are mostly gone.



And *most* employees and employers are decent human beings who don't go around
taking actions that they know will unnecessarily harm the other guy anyway.
You're pretty much guaranteed to be written up in your local newspaper as a
dick if you lay anyone office within a handful of weeks prior to Xmas, for
instance.

Small businesses are usually run by real people who know and care
about the people they work with. Big companies can be run by bean
counters who may decide on any Tuesday near the end of the quarter to
can 4000 employees because the books will look better.

So another choice the individual worker can make is to work for a
small company or a monster one. Lots of people deliberately pick the
big one... and they had better not expect a lot of touchy-feeley
individual caring if they do.

John

All the little companies I worked for went out of business, and once I
had to go to State labor board to get my paycheck. Big corporations
are more dependable and usually make the payroll. Most small
businesses fail.

 

[Martin Brown]

On 20/05/2010 22:53, John Larkin wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2010 22:14:05 +0100, Martin Brown
|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

On 20/05/2010 21:44, John Larkin wrote:
On Thu, 20 May 2010 08:24:09 +0100, Martin Brown
|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:


Equally the employer should treat employees fairly and not be entitled
to hire and fire on a whim in the way that seems so common in the USA.

Employees can walk out on zero notice, leaving projects in random
states. And they sometimes do. How about some symmetry?

I agree. Don't you have written contracts of employment?

Our Constitution abolished slavery. I can't compel anyone to work.

In UK law you can (at least in theory) if it is written in the contact.
Or alternatively if they refuse then sue for breach of contract. Usually
a bit of horse trading goes on to try and get projects handed over
reasonably cleanly to other workers.

The employment contract is open to negotiation on both sides. I have
refused some employment contract terms in the past and had alterations
accepted by the employer (although that is unusual). I wanted to exclude
specific unrelated IP rights. In the UK the employer by default owns the
IP rights of everything invented whilst you are employed.

Contract law is dynamite stuff it allowed the guy who wrecked Royal Bank
of Scotland (Fred the Shred) to obtain a Ł650k per year pension for
totally destroying a once proud financial institution.

And
if I could, I couldn't trust their quality.

Therein lies the problem. And as I said it was standard practice if
someone was going to a competitor that their pass revoked, desk emptied
that day and they were escorted off the premises by security.

Anyone worth their salt would have grabbed whatever information they
wanted long before announcing their intention to leave. These days with
tiny multi-GB memory sticks it is impossible to stop data leakage
without locking down PCs to an unacceptable level in most organisations.

In the UK that symmetry exists at least on paper in many contracts of
employment. When I worked for a corporate I was on 3 months notice (for
either side - it might have been 6 months for the company later on) and
my boss when he decided to leave was forced to work out his notice.

How do you force someone to work? What happens if they don't? What
happens if they work very, very badly?

You get to sue for breach of contract (and vice versa if fired without
notice). My boss didn't work anything like as hard after he handed in
his notice, but he still worked better at it than his successor ;-)

It is actually pretty rare to have problems. Most decent professionals
continue to work professionally though perhaps not quite so hard after
handing in their notice to quit. YMMV

It seems simpler to me if an employer can hire and fire at will (as we
can in California) and an employee can take a job or quit as he
chooses. Let people make deals.

Employment contracts are rare here.

What a strange world you live in. Most people in the UK - except those
working for cowboy outfits have a written contract of employment.

I don't understand what I have said here to get a vitriolic personal
attack from that senile old duffer with the anal fetish Thompson.

Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 20, 3:41 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2010 02:01:52 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman



bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 20, 12:50 am, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 14:35:20 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On May 19, 3:43 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
Bill Slomanwrote:
On May 18, 5:19 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Tue, 18 May 2010 01:20:40 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman

bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

[...]

The alternative do-nothing approach, as practiced by Hoover in 1929,
leads to vast tracts of industry standing idle with 25% unemployment,
dramatically reducing production and consumption.
The argument isn't about "producing as much as you consume" - it's
about maintaining consumption and production under circumstances where
both would otherwise collapse.
Managing the transition back to balanced budgets without crimping the
level of economic activity too much isn't a trivial job, and the banks
don't help by bleating about financial responsiblity as if their US
colleagues hadn't created the problem in the first place by being
totally irresponsible.
With your understanding of dynamics, it's a good thing you don't
design electronics.

With your understanding of dynamics, it is a miracle that you can..

As you should know, I can use the Ziegler-Nichols step response test
to tune a PID controller. This is tolerably primitive (Ziegler and
Nichols published their test in 1942, the year I was born) but
adequate in a lot of practical situations. I know about more
sophisticated schemes - such as state variable control - but happily
I've yet to run into a situation where I needed to use one. And my
Ph.D. thesis was on the reaction dynamics of the thermal decompostion
of nitrosyl bromide, which involved simulating a non-linear process (a
second order rate law, perturbed by self-cooling). Your own background
is probably less sophisticated.

Here goes the bragging again.

Not exactly. The half-wit claims that because I don't share his
economic opinions, I don't have enough understanding of dynamics to
design electronics. It's very much an apples and pears comparison, but
it's also flat-out wrong, as I've gone to the trouble of pointing out..
If using objective facts to point out that John has made an idot of
himself again is "bragging", then I am stuck with bragging - I did get
the Ph.D. in that area, and I'm not going to lie about it in a effort
tp project a modest persona.

How come that John, probably not that much different in age from you,
makes tons of money designing and building electronics, right now, has
created tons of jobs, and you don't?

He's more interested in making money than I am, and his expertise does
seem to lend itself to lower value systems than I worked on.

Systems that don't sell have no value. Systems that sell thousands of
copies at 4:1 margins have value.

IBM and HP could get away with a 6:1 margin.

Quite a lot of the gear that I worked on did get sold. The electron
beam microfabricator project got canned before we'd started a single
printed circuit layout - and managements relutance to let us send out
the first circuit for layout was a clear indictator that they were
contemplating canning the project.

The electron beam tester prototype was never demonstrated to a
potential customer - the departing boss who should have been chasing
customers hid in his office and worked on his next job, while the
people who took over the task of selling the machine after he finally
resigned decided that there weren't enough potential customers without
going to the trouble of letting one of them see the machine in action,
which was probably a mistake, since the machine collected its data
impressively faster (as it has been designed to do - the whole massive
investment in digitising the data collection was justified on that
basis).

If the machine had been actively sold, it would have been worth a
bundle.

Setting
up your own company to make electron microscope or phased array
ultrasound machines probably takes more capital than even John could
have got his hands on, and was never one of my ambitions.

I started with essentially no capital. I've never believed in raising
a lot of money and then developing a complex product; that path has
about a 90% failure rate. I developed modest products, sold them, and
worked my way up. But designing megabuck instruments doesn't appeal to
me; each one will take years of development and support, and I don't
have that sort of attention span. Six or eight designs a year is more
fun.

Inadequate attention-span. Did you have ADHD as a kid? I happen to be
particularly good with complex systems, and that influences what I do
and what my employers have wanted me to do.

snip

Not trusting in reincarnation, I plan to do as many things in life as
I can. Doing things includes finishing them properly and moving on...
ideally leaving documentation for production to make copies for a
decade or two. That's not called "inadequate attention span", it's
called "productivity." Try it some time.

Nobody has ever complained about my documentation - except perhaps to
complain that I've given more detail than was absolutely necessary,
which I justify by pointing out that keeping documents intelligible
after ten or twenty years does require making explicit the thinking
behind some of the choices. I can't say I particularly enjoy writing
up stuff, but it's part of the job, and I've done more than enough of
it know that I'm good at it.

The sort of "attention span" that you might be seen as lacking isn't
so much temporal as spatial. You don't seem to have the inclination to
get your head around all the aspects of a complex system - either
elaborate scientific instruments or complex social questions.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 20, 5:25 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Thu, 20 May 2010 02:37:16 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

Few countries are unlucky enough to have their economy depend on a
single product. Australia would have to tighten its belt a lot if the
market for iron ore declined signficantly. Carrying on as if the
absence of such a single product is a sign of economic malaise is
evidence that you don't know enough about economics to make a useful
contribution to this kind of discussion.

I wonder to what extent the collapse in shipping prices contributed to
the problems there. The cost of shipping a TEU (container) from Asia
to North America was approximately zero at the beginning of the year,
rather than the usual few thousand dollars. Compare with, say, oil,
which has been relatively stable despite the near collapse in the US
financial markets.  

While Bill may think that the Greek shipping companies are a major GDP
contributor I am afraid I'll have to burst that bubble. It accounts for
a mere 5% of their already paltry GDP:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE60R2P020100401

Quote: "Shipping is one of the top contributors to Greece's 240 billion
euro ($323.7 billion) economy along with tourism and construction. It
accounted for about 5 percent of GDP in 2009."

Tourism is a major source of income there. Or to some extent, was. Folks
from Europe tell me that Greece has become quite expensive and they
prefer other areas such as Turkey. Same type of climate, more bang for
the buck or Euro. So now shipping may account for a few more percentage
points but not because of growth ...

Joerg wants to be able to identify a big single contributor to a
countries GDP before he can believe that that country is viable, when
- in fact - countries that depend on a single industry are exceedingly
vulnerable to changes in the business or technical environment. Most
countries get their income from a wide range of activities, so a 5%
contribution to GDP is big, for a single industry .

The fact that Jeorg can't be bothered working out how Greece - almost
- supports itself doesn't make them the hopeless basket case that he
claims.

Then an interesting tidbit from the above link, quote: "Greek shipping
companies have to pay a tonnage tax but are exempt from income taxes on
profits from operating Greek registered vessels." Ahm, well ...

So the owners of the Greek shipping fleet had enough money to bribe a
few legislators - US residents shouldn't find that surprising.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 20, 6:28 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@On-My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2010 08:25:46 -0700, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid
wrote:



Spehro Pefhany wrote:
On Thu, 20 May 2010 02:37:16 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman
bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

Few countries are unlucky enough to have their economy depend on a
single product. Australia would have to tighten its belt a lot if the
market for iron ore declined signficantly. Carrying on as if the
absence of such a single product is a sign of economic malaise is
evidence that you don't know enough about economics to make a useful
contribution to this kind of discussion.

I wonder to what extent the collapse in shipping prices contributed to
the problems there. The cost of shipping a TEU (container) from Asia
to North America was approximately zero at the beginning of the year,
rather than the usual few thousand dollars. Compare with, say, oil,
which has been relatively stable despite the near collapse in the US
financial markets.  

While Bill may think that the Greek shipping companies are a major GDP
contributor I am afraid I'll have to burst that bubble. It accounts for
a mere 5% of their already paltry GDP:

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSLDE60R2P020100401

Quote: "Shipping is one of the top contributors to Greece's 240 billion
euro ($323.7 billion) economy along with tourism and construction. It
accounted for about 5 percent of GDP in 2009."

Tourism is a major source of income there. Or to some extent, was. Folks
from Europe tell me that Greece has become quite expensive and they
prefer other areas such as Turkey. Same type of climate, more bang for
the buck or Euro. So now shipping may account for a few more percentage
points but not because of growth ...

Then an interesting tidbit from the above link, quote: "Greek shipping
companies have to pay a tonnage tax but are exempt from income taxes on
profits from operating Greek registered vessels." Ahm, well ...

Most of Greece's shipping "industry" is actually only registration,
not Greek companies.  But what would BS know.  "BS", what a
descriptive set of initials.

Jim - even as an ignorant American - should know better. Jack
Kennedy's widow married a large chunk of the Greek shipping industry,
and - despite its parochialism - the American press went to the
trouble of informing the American public about it at the time. Jim may
not have read those newspapers, or he may have forgotten what he was
told since then, but he really should know better.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 20, 10:10 pm, "Michael A. Terrell" <mike.terr...@earthlink.net>
wrote:

Greegor wrote:

G > Sloman, Do you see yourself as egotistical,
G > smarter, or superior to other people?
G
G > In the US, your arguments and reasoning
G > are more typical of the occasional misfit,
G > usually 17 or 18 years old and struggling
G > for IDENTITY, and going for shock value.
G
G > Generally, these people lack real world
G > experience, and so obsess about the
G > ACADEMIC.  As they get more real
G > world experience, they soon realize the
G > difference between academia and real world.
G
G > Did you think that the KOOK LEFT was
G > populated mostly by PRODUCERS?
G
G > You claim you are over 50, yet you still
G > place great stock in academic sources,
G > and you claim to be an Aussie ex pat
G > living off your wife in Netherlands, yet
G > you obsess about economics in the USA.
G
G > Your situation as you've described it
G > is a bit like a cartoon!
G > A 50+ year old misfit NON-PRODUCER
G > who lives off his wife and advocates socialism?
G
G > How amazing is that?
G
G > There are some American retirees who
G > were cold hard capitalists but lost almost
G > everything in 2008-2009 and now that
G > they see themselves as recipients of
G > socialistic handouts, they are more
G > receptive to ideas of socialism.
G
G > How amazing is that?

Cat got your tongue, Bill?   LOL

   If it did it would die a slow, painful death for whatever it caught
from Bill.

Only Mike Terrell would be stupid enough to bother reading one of
Greegor's posts.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 20, 10:22 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@On-
My-Web-Site.com> wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2010 16:10:17 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"



mike.terr...@earthlink.net> wrote:

Greegor wrote:

G > Sloman, Do you see yourself as egotistical,
G > smarter, or superior to other people?
G
G > In the US, your arguments and reasoning
G > are more typical of the occasional misfit,
G > usually 17 or 18 years old and struggling
G > for IDENTITY, and going for shock value.
G
G > Generally, these people lack real world
G > experience, and so obsess about the
G > ACADEMIC.  As they get more real
G > world experience, they soon realize the
G > difference between academia and real world.
G
G > Did you think that the KOOK LEFT was
G > populated mostly by PRODUCERS?
G
G > You claim you are over 50, yet you still
G > place great stock in academic sources,
G > and you claim to be an Aussie ex pat
G > living off your wife in Netherlands, yet
G > you obsess about economics in the USA.
G
G > Your situation as you've described it
G > is a bit like a cartoon!
G > A 50+ year old misfit NON-PRODUCER
G > who lives off his wife and advocates socialism?
G
G > How amazing is that?
G
G > There are some American retirees who
G > were cold hard capitalists but lost almost
G > everything in 2008-2009 and now that
G > they see themselves as recipients of
G > socialistic handouts, they are more
G > receptive to ideas of socialism.
G
G > How amazing is that?

Cat got your tongue, Bill?   LOL

  If it did it would die a slow, painful death for whatever it caught
from Bill.

Mange ?

Of the tongue? Jim-out-of-touch-with-reality Thompson has outdone
himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mange

It is a disease of the skin, not the mucous membranes.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen