conservation of Euros

[JosephKK]

On Thu, 20 May 2010 12:49:32 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On May 20, 1:51 pm, Greegor <greego...@gmail.com> wrote:
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.

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

Slowman's such an inexperienced idealogue that
it's like arguing religion with a Moonie.

Come on! An over 50 NON-PRODUCER who
argues for socialism?

Bill's 67, in the Netherlands, and an expert on all things American.
As a mere American living in America, I'm glad to have such a reliable
source to redoublethink all the things I know directly and confirm
daily with experience into politically correct context: Obama's a
centrist, not the ultra farthest most radical left-voting member of
Congress, and a brilliant Constitutional lawyer, not a former
associate professor and sometime ACORN subprime-pushing counsel.

Bill's said his nanny state host makes it impossible for oldsters like
him to get a job--no one wants to hire 'cause then they're
responsible. Plus the state bribes companies to hire younger workers,
who'd really rather take welfare anywho[sic]. Or something like
that. If I've mischaracterized him I'm sure Bill will correct me.

But he still likes it. What the hell, the money's still free-living
off other people is easy. Problem is, they don't work nearly hard
enough, and they whine. Wimps. Probably racists and Nazis, too. You
know, reactionaries.

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

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

As for the GRA, you have taught me NOT to trust news articles, but to get
and read the text of the proposal. When you find a copy give us a link,
please.

 

[keithw86@gmail.com]

On May 21, 10:37 am, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@On-
My-Web-Site.com> wrote:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 08:06:13 -0700, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 10:01:04 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
speffS...@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

[1] Try this: get a good gram scale and buy 50 small bags of potato
chips. Note the specified net weight; say 3.5 grams. Weigh the
contents. You'll find weights like 3.52, 3.56, 3.54, rarely as much as
3.6. Weigh one chip; it might average, say, 0.2 grams. So how do they
manage to come so close when the quantization is so large?

I'm sure they have some kind of crumby solution...

You are partially right.

John

Small chips ?

Salt

 

[JosephKK]

On Thu, 20 May 2010 07:44:13 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 19, 9:45 am, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 18, 12:53 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

<snip>

Buildings have a high labor content, and thus a high hidden tax
content. Remove those costs, and the price of building will fall to
compensate. How much will they fall? You could reasonably expect
them to fall by nearly however much the builder's cost is reduced.


And the buyer who buys from already taxed savings gets socked. No, I am
against that.


Further, you'd be paying with money you got straight from your job,
invested for however many years, all without ever paying any tax.

c. They exempt imputed rent on old buildings yet do not at all consider
removing the de-facto double tax on savings in Roth IRAs or regular
accounts. What that does is simple: The millisecond such a flawed law
would be announced there'd be a stampede. Everybody who is smart pulls
their money out of the banks and buys real estate, any real estate. -
Financial market collapse -> major new recession.

Well, stop naysaying and fix it. That's what engineers do.


I generally do not fix things that aren't worth fixing. We can instead
simplify the income tax code. That's what would be a useful project. In
engineering it's often best not to nuke an exisiting design just to
replace it by an equally risky or more risky new one. And this one can
seriously blow up. I'd venture to say, it will.

Please help me to understand.

The tax code is badly broken (Y/N).
We have to use it as is (A), fix it (B), replace it (C), other
_______________(D); (A/B/C/D)
Please point out ways that the "Fair Tax" can blow up worse than current
tax code _____________________________________________________________.

We could simply exempt all existing taxed savings and investments, and
create accounts for those, with tax-free debit cards, or whatever.
Anything you buy with that debit card from that account either a)
isn't taxed at sale or b) you keep your statements and file for a
refund. Blah, blah, blah.

It ain't rocket science.


Yup, put them into escrow. We're the government, register them here by
Dec-31, trust us, oh yeah ...


All these considerations only apply for a transition period anyhow,
then they go away. Since you're still working you'll get years of
income-tax-free benefits from the thing, if enacted. Wouldn't that be
great?


And suddenly all the people who were diligent savers will use those
accounts to buy stuff and front-load the country with a debt that makes
our current and already bad one look like peanuts. Then we'd become
another Greece.


The alternative is this: last year Obama spent $1.60 for every $1.00
he took in. Of that $1.00, he got roughly $0.50 from income tax, and
$0.50 from SS tax. To fix that, assuming interest rates stay low
(which they won't), he'd have to raise income taxes by double just to
break even, or every other tax in the book by 50% or so, plus make up
some more.


That's one reason everyone in this here neighborhood is looking at the
November elections, at least that's what people told me

They better get in gear and campaign for the best available candidates in
the _primaries_ _coming in June in CA_. If your choice is between the
economic damage of Medfly Brown versus Meg Whitman you have foolishly
allowed your choices to be too limited. Besides there is a lot of
interesting propositions that need voted on.

And then they talk about removing compliance costs which is also flawed.
Who is going to determine how much fictitious rent tax you must
surrender? Right, an assessor. He's going to have to be paid a salary,
and he'll probably get a nice fat pension later.

There is no"fictitious" rent tax, and no assessor. You never need
assessors, since taxes are based on actual sales price--that's the
assessment.


So, how exactly do you suggest that's done when Joe Q.Public fires up
his circular saw and builds himself a nice big extra wing on his house?
Or the friend of his brother-in-law's friend builds him a granny flat?
The underground economy will become rampant because an extra 23% savings
is to be had.

Not all of that cost disappears, there is still materials costs paid at

the lumber yard etc.,. Also the labor content of buildings has been
reduced significantly by removing labor taxes.

snip

 

[JosephKK]

On Thu, 20 May 2010 07:47:38 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid>
wrote:

JosephKK wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 16:30:12 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 15:27:01 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 09:42:44 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 18, 2:46 pm, Charlie E. <edmond...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2010 14:31:43 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:
major snippage and attributions...

$1 only buys $0.77 worth of _stuff_ today, say the Fair Tax people
(AIUI). The rest goes to taxes hidden in the item's price.
If I tax-deferred the
$1.40, I could buy $1.00 worth of stuff. Any after-tax savings (that
is socked away before the change) gets hammered *twice*.
If you had tax-deferred the $1.40, you'd escape the indignities of the
old system. That's a windfall (assuming Congress allows it).
Going forward though, with income-taxed money, the $1 we have left
still buys the same with or without the Fair Tax. $1 with embedded
tax burden hidden inside it, or ($0.77 actual price + $0.23 Fair Tax)
both cost you $1 at the register. No loss of purchasing power.
That's the contention, AIUI.
The other false assumption is that the price would drop
instantaneously to $.77 as soon as the tax was passed.
I don't assume that. There are all sorts of 2nd and 3rd-order
effects.

In reality,
the price stays at $1.00, and the retailer uses this 'profit' to pay
off his loans. Now, as time goes by, prices 'might' drop, but I
wouldn't bet on it. I actually expect prices to rise.
I expect prices to fall, quickly. Like with gasoline there's a delay
for goods-in-transit, then market forces handle the rest.

Why would a Japanese car or Chinese-made flatscreen TV fall in price
quickly?
Because there is more than one manufacturer.

With consumer electronics the number of manufacturers inside the US is
often zero.
I don't see the relevance.

The relevance is this:

When a group of "experts" claims the price of goods will fall because
the income tax burden of the labor in a product will drop by 23 percent
that assumption is flawed for two reasons:

a. Most consumer products are from China and, consequently, not one iota
will change in the tax on labor. The only cost that changes is the labor
associated with the sales and distribution process but that's miniscule.

I don't think so. The final retail distribution is rather expensive and
labor cost driven. Take a look at the volume pricing at Digikey for
example.


I am looking at Walmart and Costco. There's nobody working there that'll
crack one can of pickles out of a 4-pack. You either buy the 4-pack or
you don't have pickles for lunch

You are confusing unit of issue, intentional recruiting at minimum wage,

and business designed for those conditions with price per unit and delta
price per unit versus volume.

b. The percentage of labor in the COGS even for products made in the US
is much smaller than they anticipate.

If the
government stops taking out SS and IRS taxes from my paycheck, I have
more to spend. I can then afford these now 'higher' prices of that
$1, plus $.23 fair tax, plus the sales tax of $.09, so it is now
$1.33.

As for savings, I don't sweat it as much. Yes, it makes my post-taxes
savings less valuable, but it also removes a lot of taxes on my
earnings and interest!
I'm interested in saving the time and energy I waste avoiding tax land-
mines. That's worth a lot--at least a couple weeks a year. More like
three, methinks.

There'll be new tax land-mines, like who gets to pay ficticious rent
tax, how much, and who doesn't. Et cetera.
That part still seems iffy, yes.
IMHO the whole idea is iffy. Fair means it has to be fair to just about
everyone and not just part of the population. And that's not the case.
The only hole I see in it is savings, that we both object to. I may not agree
(or understand completely) the economics of taxing large items (homes and
cars) heavily.

Much of that will depend on how property tax on homes and use tax on
vehicles gets changed. 40 years of property tax adds up.


You can bet on it that a certain kind of politician will only agree to
all that if it result in a serious net increase in taxes squeezed out of
the public.

That is all of them.

[...]

 

[Joerg]

JosephKK wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2010 07:44:13 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 19, 9:45 am, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 18, 12:53 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

snip
Buildings have a high labor content, and thus a high hidden tax
content. Remove those costs, and the price of building will fall to
compensate. How much will they fall? You could reasonably expect
them to fall by nearly however much the builder's cost is reduced.

And the buyer who buys from already taxed savings gets socked. No, I am
against that.


Further, you'd be paying with money you got straight from your job,
invested for however many years, all without ever paying any tax.

c. They exempt imputed rent on old buildings yet do not at all consider
removing the de-facto double tax on savings in Roth IRAs or regular
accounts. What that does is simple: The millisecond such a flawed law
would be announced there'd be a stampede. Everybody who is smart pulls
their money out of the banks and buys real estate, any real estate. -
Financial market collapse -> major new recession.
Well, stop naysaying and fix it. That's what engineers do.

I generally do not fix things that aren't worth fixing. We can instead
simplify the income tax code. That's what would be a useful project. In
engineering it's often best not to nuke an exisiting design just to
replace it by an equally risky or more risky new one. And this one can
seriously blow up. I'd venture to say, it will.

Please help me to understand.
The tax code is badly broken (Y/N).

Yes [X] No [ ]

We have to use it as is (A), fix it (B), replace it (C), other
_______________(D); (A/B/C/D)
Please point out ways that the "Fair Tax" can blow up worse than current
tax code _____________________________________________________________.

Ok, I do it for the umpteenth time but this is the last time cause I've
got to get some work done here:

People who have diligently saved wish not to have their nest egg taxed a
second time. So, they will try to dodge that bullet. Some will retire
outside the country and take their nest egg along. Others and I am
afraid that would be the majority will rush their money out of the banks
and into real estate so they convert it to "pre-fictitious-rent"
property. A plain old financial stampede, except that this one will be
more devastating to the financial markets than anything we have ever
seen, including the housing bubble.

Next, look at countries that have VAT which is fairly similar to what
some people call "fair tax" except that they also have an income tax.
What has that triggered? Right, a rampant underground economy. I lived
there, so I know. The governments don't even have the foggiest idea how
bad that really is. People have no qualms hollering clear across a pub
"Hey, anyone know a tile setter who'll make me a good offer if I don't
need an invoice?". That is because those countries generally also slap
VAT on services. So ...

I have never played that game but, example: Bathroom needed remodeling.
Quotes $20k and up. Yikes! So I pushed out one project that wasn't too
urgent and where the client was ok with that, bought the materials for a
few thousand bucks, rolled up the sleeves and had at it. Three weeks
later we had a beautiful new bathroom with stuff in there that was
higher class that the contractor grade stuff from the quotes. "Oh, you
want those Turkish tiles with the artwork in there? Yes, dear, no
problem". Everything perfectly legit and we saved way more than $15k. An
engineer could not possibly have made that much in three weeks. I don't
think I need to explain what that does to unemployment.

We could simply exempt all existing taxed savings and investments, and
create accounts for those, with tax-free debit cards, or whatever.
Anything you buy with that debit card from that account either a)
isn't taxed at sale or b) you keep your statements and file for a
refund. Blah, blah, blah.

It ain't rocket science.

Yup, put them into escrow. We're the government, register them here by
Dec-31, trust us, oh yeah ...


All these considerations only apply for a transition period anyhow,
then they go away. Since you're still working you'll get years of
income-tax-free benefits from the thing, if enacted. Wouldn't that be
great?

And suddenly all the people who were diligent savers will use those
accounts to buy stuff and front-load the country with a debt that makes
our current and already bad one look like peanuts. Then we'd become
another Greece.


The alternative is this: last year Obama spent $1.60 for every $1.00
he took in. Of that $1.00, he got roughly $0.50 from income tax, and
$0.50 from SS tax. To fix that, assuming interest rates stay low
(which they won't), he'd have to raise income taxes by double just to
break even, or every other tax in the book by 50% or so, plus make up
some more.

That's one reason everyone in this here neighborhood is looking at the
November elections, at least that's what people told me

They better get in gear and campaign for the best available candidates in
the _primaries_ _coming in June in CA_. If your choice is between the
economic damage of Medfly Brown versus Meg Whitman you have foolishly
allowed your choices to be too limited. Besides there is a lot of
interesting propositions that need voted on.

Believe me, everybody in this neighborhood _is_ already in gear. There's
a reason why the tea parties grow at an amazing clip.

And then they talk about removing compliance costs which is also flawed.
Who is going to determine how much fictitious rent tax you must
surrender? Right, an assessor. He's going to have to be paid a salary,
and he'll probably get a nice fat pension later.
There is no"fictitious" rent tax, and no assessor. You never need
assessors, since taxes are based on actual sales price--that's the
assessment.

So, how exactly do you suggest that's done when Joe Q.Public fires up
his circular saw and builds himself a nice big extra wing on his house?
Or the friend of his brother-in-law's friend builds him a granny flat?
The underground economy will become rampant because an extra 23% savings
is to be had.

Not all of that cost disappears, there is still materials costs paid at
the lumber yard etc.,. Also the labor content of buildings has been
reduced significantly by removing labor taxes.

Well, this was in response to James' notion that, quote "You never need
assessors, since taxes are based on actual sales price--that's the
assessment."

So let's see, since we can't have an assessor then John Q.Public must
self-file into some computer system. "Hmm, so what do we enter here for
the materials? One box of nails, a pack of drywall screws, the hot dog I
had outside Home Depot. Don't remember the rest ..."

Anyhow, tax systems get reworked or changed for one reason: To milk body
public for even more money. People don't want that.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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

 

[Joerg]

JosephKK wrote:

On Thu, 20 May 2010 07:47:38 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

JosephKK wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 16:30:12 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid
wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 15:27:01 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Wed, 19 May 2010 09:42:44 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:
On May 18, 2:46 pm, Charlie E. <edmond...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Mon, 17 May 2010 14:31:43 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com
wrote:
major snippage and attributions...

$1 only buys $0.77 worth of _stuff_ today, say the Fair Tax people
(AIUI). The rest goes to taxes hidden in the item's price.
If I tax-deferred the
$1.40, I could buy $1.00 worth of stuff. Any after-tax savings (that
is socked away before the change) gets hammered *twice*.
If you had tax-deferred the $1.40, you'd escape the indignities of the
old system. That's a windfall (assuming Congress allows it).
Going forward though, with income-taxed money, the $1 we have left
still buys the same with or without the Fair Tax. $1 with embedded
tax burden hidden inside it, or ($0.77 actual price + $0.23 Fair Tax)
both cost you $1 at the register. No loss of purchasing power.
That's the contention, AIUI.
The other false assumption is that the price would drop
instantaneously to $.77 as soon as the tax was passed.
I don't assume that. There are all sorts of 2nd and 3rd-order
effects.

In reality,
the price stays at $1.00, and the retailer uses this 'profit' to pay
off his loans. Now, as time goes by, prices 'might' drop, but I
wouldn't bet on it. I actually expect prices to rise.
I expect prices to fall, quickly. Like with gasoline there's a delay
for goods-in-transit, then market forces handle the rest.

Why would a Japanese car or Chinese-made flatscreen TV fall in price
quickly?
Because there is more than one manufacturer.

With consumer electronics the number of manufacturers inside the US is
often zero.
I don't see the relevance.
The relevance is this:

When a group of "experts" claims the price of goods will fall because
the income tax burden of the labor in a product will drop by 23 percent
that assumption is flawed for two reasons:

a. Most consumer products are from China and, consequently, not one iota
will change in the tax on labor. The only cost that changes is the labor
associated with the sales and distribution process but that's miniscule.
I don't think so. The final retail distribution is rather expensive and
labor cost driven. Take a look at the volume pricing at Digikey for
example.

I am looking at Walmart and Costco. There's nobody working there that'll
crack one can of pickles out of a 4-pack. You either buy the 4-pack or
you don't have pickles for lunch

You are confusing unit of issue, intentional recruiting at minimum wage,
and business designed for those conditions with price per unit and delta
price per unit versus volume.

What's confusing about this? Whether it's Walmart or Amazon or whatever,
competition forces such places to live on rather slim margins. The same
is true in the auto business. Yeah, the dealer/middleman might make
$1k-$2k but the other $15k go to Japan or Korea.

b. The percentage of labor in the COGS even for products made in the US
is much smaller than they anticipate.

If the
government stops taking out SS and IRS taxes from my paycheck, I have
more to spend. I can then afford these now 'higher' prices of that
$1, plus $.23 fair tax, plus the sales tax of $.09, so it is now
$1.33.

As for savings, I don't sweat it as much. Yes, it makes my post-taxes
savings less valuable, but it also removes a lot of taxes on my
earnings and interest!
I'm interested in saving the time and energy I waste avoiding tax land-
mines. That's worth a lot--at least a couple weeks a year. More like
three, methinks.

There'll be new tax land-mines, like who gets to pay ficticious rent
tax, how much, and who doesn't. Et cetera.
That part still seems iffy, yes.
IMHO the whole idea is iffy. Fair means it has to be fair to just about
everyone and not just part of the population. And that's not the case.
The only hole I see in it is savings, that we both object to. I may not agree
(or understand completely) the economics of taxing large items (homes and
cars) heavily.
Much of that will depend on how property tax on homes and use tax on
vehicles gets changed. 40 years of property tax adds up.

You can bet on it that a certain kind of politician will only agree to
all that if it result in a serious net increase in taxes squeezed out of
the public.

That is all of them.

See, now you know another reason why I am against this change



--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 21 May 2010 14:34:17 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

The facts of the case are that you don't like developing complete
systems, bcause it takes too long and ties up too much capital and
engineering effort, and you've found yourself a niche where you can
develop useful sub-systems, some of which you can sell to several
customers.

Yes. Engineering is too valuable to sell once. Production can sell
copies of engineering for decades.

Your customers would probably be happier if you took on turn-key
development contracts, but that kind of big chunk of development takes
skills that you don't seem to have - perhaps wisely.
Big projects that go wrong regularly destroy the businesses that took
them on.

I have been in the systems business, and now that I have my own
company I never want to do it again.

John

 

[John Larkin]

On Fri, 21 May 2010 15:04:11 -0700 (PDT), Bill Sloman
<bill.sloman@ieee.org> wrote:

On May 21, 6:01 pm, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 11:30:08 -0400, Spehro Pefhany



speffS...@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 08:24:16 -0700, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Tue, 11 May 2010 06:47:21 -0700, John Larkin
jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY

You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.

This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.

John

Good one:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeffrandall/7746806/Whatev...

John

Paging Dr. Schadenfreude..

Oh, the US is facing similar problems. But at least we have kids and
immigrants that we can exploit.

I'm not so much happy that europe is falling apart as I am satisfied
that I have some understanding of how economic systems actually work.
I did predict stuff like this, based on the simple concept that you
can't longterm consume more than you produce, unless you steal it.
This sort of thinking is apparently beyond what learned
macroeconomists and finance ministers can handle.

The US and Canada have, I think, better longterm prospects than
europe.

If you ignore the minor fact that the US has been running a large
balance of payments deficit since Regan was president.

That's not a big deal. The Chinese make stuff and ship it to us. We
pay them, and they buy US T-bills with the money. The arabs do similar
stuff with oil. Everybody's happy. We'll never pay all that money
back.

John's "understanding of how economic systems actually work" doesn't
seem able to integrate the consequences of this interesting fact. So
he believes right-wing pundits who tell him that Europe is falling
apart.

Umm, europe *is* falling apart. Even left-wing pundits agree.

and doesn't notice that if what they said were true, the US

would be falling apart faster, with California replacing Greece as the
horrible example of fiscal irresponsibility.

No. We have industries and we have kids. The kids seem to be, on the
whole, a pretty smart and ambitious and hard-working batch. Part of
the problem in southern europe is the astonishing extinction-level
birth rates. A smaller and smaller fraction of the population is
actually doing productive work at any given instant.

How's your productivity?

John

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Fri, 21 May 2010 08:20:20 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
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.


However, I assume you have a nice big pension coming towards you from
big blue. The vast majority of younger people have zilch in that domain
because companies have stopped that practice a long, long time ago.
Instead, the people now get to pay for super-fat plum pensions of state
workers, which is a powder keg that is going to go kablouie pretty soon
here in CA.

Not big and certainly not "super-fat plum" (works out to about 35% of my
salary for the last ten years), but yes. It's also a "fully funded"
retirement plan[*], so not a Ponzi scheme. I didn't have nearly as many 401K
years or company match years, either. Basically, the "pension" is still there
but there is more responsibility on the employee to save for his retirement.
This has the advantage of making the retirement far more secure and portable.
I know a *lot* of people who were laid off before they could get enough time
in. I was sweating it for the last couple of years (and counting days until I
was untouchable .

[*] Medical is not, so comes out of income. It's not a great plan so I don't
use it.

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Fri, 21 May 2010 09:04:00 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Martin Brown wrote:
On 21/05/2010 16:24, John Larkin wrote:
On Tue, 11 May 2010 06:47:21 -0700, John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a.hdgFGtPjbY

You can't fool Mother Nature. When a few hundred million people choose
to not work much, not breed much, and consume a lot, you just can't
spend your way out of the problem.

This is the leading edge of the European demographic crisis that's
been building for generations now. There's no quick fix.

John


Good one:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/jeffrandall/7746806/Whatever-Germany-does-the-euro-as-we-know-it-is-dead.html



It might amuse you to know that a suggested name for the replacement
currency after this one fails was suggested by a Reuters financial
commentator as the New Euro or Neuro for short.


Neuro for "Northern Euro" and Souro for "Soured Euro"?

Neuro fiddles while Soured Europe burns?

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 21, 5:16 pm, Joerg <inva...@invalid.invalid> wrote:

Bill Slomanwrote:
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.

Ah, now Bill has resorted to 3rd-person addressing ...

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, you said the Greek shipping industry is a major source of GDP.

What I actually said was "Greece has the world's largest shipping
fleet. This may not be an
industry, but it is certainly a source of revenue."

I certainly didn't claim that it was a major source of GDP - although
4.5% of GDP is quite a lot for an individual industry to contribute,
about the same as agriculture. Other - less substantial -
contributions come from food processing, tobacco, textiles, chemicals
(including refineries), pharmaceuticals, cement, glass,
telecommunication and transport equipment.

http://www.traveldocs.com/gr/economy.htm

Tourism is the biggest single contributor - as you pointed out - at
around 15% of GDP, but claiming that this is the whole of the Greek
economy is a rather drastic (and unhelpful) over-simplification of the
the situation, and that is what I actually found objectionable.

I
have shown beyond reasonable doubt (_with_ links, you didn't provide
any) that that is not the case. Simple, really.

Since I never made that particular claim in the first place, you were
wasting your time. Attacking what you would have liked me to have said
is both simple and easy, but scarcely useful.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Joerg]

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 08:20:20 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
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.

However, I assume you have a nice big pension coming towards you from
big blue. The vast majority of younger people have zilch in that domain
because companies have stopped that practice a long, long time ago.
Instead, the people now get to pay for super-fat plum pensions of state
workers, which is a powder keg that is going to go kablouie pretty soon
here in CA.

Not big and certainly not "super-fat plum" (works out to about 35% of my
salary for the last ten years), but yes. ...

35% is pretty darn good.


It's also a "fully funded"

, so not a Ponzi scheme. I didn't have nearly as many 401K
years or company match years, either. Basically, the "pension" is still there
but there is more responsibility on the employee to save for his retirement.
This has the advantage of making the retirement far more secure and portable.
I know a *lot* of people who were laid off before they could get enough time
in. I was sweating it for the last couple of years (and counting days until I
was untouchable .

I've never really understood this vesting rule for pensions. It entices
companies to fire employees "just in time". IMHO they should still get
something, at least if it was a layoff.

Medical is not, so comes out of income. It's not a great plan so I don't
use it.

I met one engineer from IBM who kept his medical plan because he was
allowed to, and declined the one at the new company (which was actually
pretty good).

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

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

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Jim Thompson wrote:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 08:06:13 -0700, John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 10:01:04 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
speffSNIP@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:


[1] Try this: get a good gram scale and buy 50 small bags of potato
chips. Note the specified net weight; say 3.5 grams. Weigh the
contents. You'll find weights like 3.52, 3.56, 3.54, rarely as much as
3.6. Weigh one chip; it might average, say, 0.2 grams. So how do they
manage to come so close when the quantization is so large?


I'm sure they have some kind of crumby solution...


You are partially right.

John

Small chips ?

Maxim rejects! ;-)


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

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 21, 3:54 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 02:26:11 -0700 (PDT),Bill Sloman



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

<snip>

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.

You're being an idiot, as usual. When we design electronics, we first
learn the user's technology. Jet engines, eximer lasers, tomographic
atom probes, electrical power systems, NMR/MRI, FTMS, ICCD cameras,
NIF fusion lasers, particle accelerators, gas pipelines, product
weighing machines [1]. It's a load of fun, It's a load of fun, and it impresses the hell
out of a customer when we understand his system at least as well as he
does. In a sense, the electronics is the easy part. We also have to
understand the customer's business and cultural needs to get and keep
the business; that can be a lot of fun too.

That's what scientific equipment development is all about. I've done
my fair share of digging in university libraries to work out what the
customer was doing, and I've done it well enough for occasional
customers to try to flatter me by claiming that I understood their
system as well
as they do, which has to be a load of rubbish, since you have to live
with a system for months to really get to grips with what it does and
how it does it.

Your experience seems to be very narrow, and pretty much powerless,
and mostly failures, so you make up things as you'd like them to be.

That's not the way I remember my own experiences. Granting your
enthusiasm for whishful thinking, you may well have been able to edit
your memories of what I've posted here to allow yourself to think that
this is true, but the reality is that most of the smaller projects I
was involved in worked out well, in significant part because I was
sufficiently good at what I did to be able to get them done my way.
The bigger projects chewed up a lot of money - lots mrore than you
seem to spend on individual projects - and several of them got canned
because the managers who set them going had managed to delude
themselves about the amount of investment that was going to be needed
to get the result they were asking for. I certainly felt powerless
when the projects were canned, but I wasn't in a position to tell the
managers which markets thay should go after, or how ambitious they
should be in setting their specifications, though I was in a postion
to tell them when they were being over-ambitious, not that they were
obliged to believe me.

Sorry, Charlie. There's nothing wrong with that, except you get
pompous about stuff you know esentially nothing about.

Since you are the poster who pontificates about stuff that he knows
little about - as I've pointed out repeatedly - it is amusing to find
you trying to pin the same label on me. It's less amusing to have you
cobbling together some lame story about a career that you've imagined
for me in order to manouvre yourself into a position where you can
recycle my criticism of your habits.

The facts of the case are that you don't like developing complete
systems, bcause it takes too long and ties up too much capital and
engineering effort, and you've found yourself a niche where you can
develop useful sub-systems, some of which you can sell to several
customers.

Your customers would probably be happier if you took on turn-key
development contracts, but that kind of big chunk of development takes
skills that you don't seem to have - perhaps wisely.
Big projects that go wrong regularly destroy the businesses that took
them on.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

"keithw86@gmail.com" wrote:

On May 21, 10:37 am, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@On-
My-Web-Site.com> wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 08:06:13 -0700, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 10:01:04 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
speffS...@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

[1] Try this: get a good gram scale and buy 50 small bags of potato
chips. Note the specified net weight; say 3.5 grams. Weigh the
contents. You'll find weights like 3.52, 3.56, 3.54, rarely as much as
3.6. Weigh one chip; it might average, say, 0.2 grams. So how do they
manage to come so close when the quantization is so large?

I'm sure they have some kind of crumby solution...

You are partially right.

John

Small chips ?

Salt

Nothing wrong with salt. I have to use five to seven times the
recommended amount to prevent pressure sores.


--
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 Fri, 21 May 2010 16:01:25 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 08:20:20 -0700, Joerg <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:

krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz wrote:
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.

However, I assume you have a nice big pension coming towards you from
big blue. The vast majority of younger people have zilch in that domain
because companies have stopped that practice a long, long time ago.
Instead, the people now get to pay for super-fat plum pensions of state
workers, which is a powder keg that is going to go kablouie pretty soon
here in CA.

Not big and certainly not "super-fat plum" (works out to about 35% of my
salary for the last ten years), but yes. ...


35% is pretty darn good.


It's also a "fully funded"
retirement plan[*], so not a Ponzi scheme. I didn't have nearly as many 401K
years or company match years, either. Basically, the "pension" is still there
but there is more responsibility on the employee to save for his retirement.
This has the advantage of making the retirement far more secure and portable.
I know a *lot* of people who were laid off before they could get enough time
in. I was sweating it for the last couple of years (and counting days until I
was untouchable .


I've never really understood this vesting rule for pensions. It entices
companies to fire employees "just in time". IMHO they should still get
something, at least if it was a layoff.

You do, just the rules change. If I was laid off before my 30th anniversary I
still would have collected just not as much, or later. There was a fairly
sharp slope for the last five years.

Medical is not, so comes out of income. It's not a great plan so I don't
use it.


I met one engineer from IBM who kept his medical plan because he was
allowed to, and declined the one at the new company (which was actually
pretty good).

There are many plans, but none are great. AIUI, they kick in about $7K/yr,
which can fund a decent individual plan but sucks for a family plan. A
middling plan would have cost us around $700/mo, IIRC. My wife has her own
insurance though her employer but it's still significantly more expensive. I
run the numbers every year.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On May 21, 4:50 pm, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@On-My-
Web-Site.com> wrote:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 07:04:16 -0700, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 09:21:49 +0100, Martin Brown
|||newspam...@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

[snip]

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.

Anal fetish??  Martin clearly doesn't understand that American slang,
"Asshole", has nothing to do with the anal orifice

Jim-out-of-touch-with-reality-Thompson will soon be telling us that
the difference between black and white has nothing to do with colour.

Being senile is like being young or being drunk. It's disinhibiting.
Without social constraints or manners, one's fundamental personality
emerges. He dislikes me, goodness knows why,

I don't dislike you.  I just find you fun to poke holes into.  You
post junk circuits, then swear by them to the death when I point out
the faults.

I have as much fun "playing" you as you do with Slowman.

and will do anything,
including insulting my wife, to offend me,

I didn't insult your wife.  When you mentioned BU I just pointed out
the realities of the locations of the BU dorm (high rise) near Storrow
Drive and the MIT frat houses on the parallel (across the Charles)
Memorial Drive.

You stated your wife waited tables.  I asked which restaurants.  You
didn't reply.  I think you made up that BS... sorry shouldn't use
Slowman's designator... bull-shit.

John does have a tendency to "understand" more than he has been told,
sometimes quite a lot more than he could deduce from the information
that he has actually got. If he wasn't quite so deeply into self-
delusion, one mght call him a liar.

even when it makes no
sense. He's a lot like Sloman, who at least doesn't insult my wife.

John

You think you annoy me.  You don't.  You just play into my hands as
Slowman does into yours.

Jim-out-of-touch-with-reality-Thompson reminds us - once again - of
his own defects in understanding.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Fri, 21 May 2010 19:35:38 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
<mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote:

"keithw86@gmail.com" wrote:

On May 21, 10:37 am, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@On-
My-Web-Site.com> wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 08:06:13 -0700, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 10:01:04 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
speffS...@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

[1] Try this: get a good gram scale and buy 50 small bags of potato
chips. Note the specified net weight; say 3.5 grams. Weigh the
contents. You'll find weights like 3.52, 3.56, 3.54, rarely as much as
3.6. Weigh one chip; it might average, say, 0.2 grams. So how do they
manage to come so close when the quantization is so large?

I'm sure they have some kind of crumby solution...

You are partially right.

John

Small chips ?

Salt


Nothing wrong with salt. I have to use five to seven times the
recommended amount to prevent pressure sores.

There is a lot wrong with salt. Some need more than others, but almost
everyone gets far more than they need. Many get dangerous levels.

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Fri, 21 May 2010 19:34:16 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
<mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 08:06:13 -0700, John Larkin
jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 10:01:04 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
speffSNIP@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:


[1] Try this: get a good gram scale and buy 50 small bags of potato
chips. Note the specified net weight; say 3.5 grams. Weigh the
contents. You'll find weights like 3.52, 3.56, 3.54, rarely as much as
3.6. Weigh one chip; it might average, say, 0.2 grams. So how do they
manage to come so close when the quantization is so large?


I'm sure they have some kind of crumby solution...


You are partially right.

John

Small chips ?


Maxim rejects! ;-)

Not possible. Gotta make chips before they can be rejected. OTOH, I reject
all Maxim chips.

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

"krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz" wrote:

On Fri, 21 May 2010 19:35:38 -0400, "Michael A. Terrell"
mike.terrell@earthlink.net> wrote:


"keithw86@gmail.com" wrote:

On May 21, 10:37 am, Jim Thompson <To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-I...@On-
My-Web-Site.com> wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 08:06:13 -0700, John Larkin



jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:
On Fri, 21 May 2010 10:01:04 -0400, Spehro Pefhany
speffS...@interlogDOTyou.knowwhat> wrote:

[1] Try this: get a good gram scale and buy 50 small bags of potato
chips. Note the specified net weight; say 3.5 grams. Weigh the
contents. You'll find weights like 3.52, 3.56, 3.54, rarely as much as
3.6. Weigh one chip; it might average, say, 0.2 grams. So how do they
manage to come so close when the quantization is so large?

I'm sure they have some kind of crumby solution...

You are partially right.

John

Small chips ?

Salt


Nothing wrong with salt. I have to use five to seven times the
recommended amount to prevent pressure sores.

There is a lot wrong with salt. Some need more than others, but almost
everyone gets far more than they need. Many get dangerous levels.

Some people think all salt is bad, but it's called 'The salt of life'
for good reason. I can post pictures of the scars all over my lower
legs, if you don't beleive me.


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