"rbowman" wrote in message
...
On 11/09/2019 08:39 PM, Ray wrote:


"Clare Snyder" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 15:53:32 -0500, Wade Garrett
wrote:

On 11/9/19 4:27 AM, Roscoe wrote:
Bernie or Liz I think asked that and it got me thinking. A billion
is a thousand thousands. Does anyone really need to be a billionaire?

If the rich didn't create all that wealth-- who would the liberals take
it from?
It is inaccurate to say the rich "create" wealth. They "accumulate"
wealth

Some like Gates and Bezos do create wealth by
producing what some choose to use or consume.

With the exception of some of the Amazon sponsored shows, Bezos doesn't
produce a damn thing.

He did produce a very viable market place that many choose to use.

Don't get me wrong -- Amazon is my go-to source for many things but they
are just a highly efficient retailer.

They are in fact much more than just that with their third party stuff.

Even AWS doesn't add anything to the mix other than a service.

That’s not true of kindles and ebooks alone.

Yeah, I'm a dinosaur and I never quite got the whole service economy
thing.

It is in fact the vast bulk of modern first world economies.

Gates, or I should say Microsoft, does create software.

And some hardware. So has amazon.

Even that is very intangible.

No more intangible than a book or movie or doco.
Or music in the case of the Beatles or Beethoven etc.

I've been in the software game for about 40 years and I'm not sure
anything I've done was all that necessary or even had a positive effect.

You say the same thing about all entertainment, books,
movies, docos, music or pictures or sculpture or sports.

"rbowman" wrote in message
...
On 11/09/2019 10:47 PM, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Sun, 10 Nov 2019 14:39:43 +1100, "Ray" wrote:



"Clare Snyder" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 15:53:32 -0500, Wade Garrett
wrote:

On 11/9/19 4:27 AM, Roscoe wrote:
Bernie or Liz I think asked that and it got me thinking. A
billion
is a thousand thousands. Does anyone really need to be a
billionaire?

If the rich didn't create all that wealth-- who would the liberals
take
it from?
It is inaccurate to say the rich "create" wealth. They "accumulate"
wealth

Some like Gates and Bezos do create wealth by
producing what some choose to use or consume.
And they are the minority. Gates is also in the minority in how he
uses his wealth.


I don't know if a lot of Mom & Pop operations would say Bezos is creating
much wealth.

Those that use amazon for their marketplace should do even if they don’t.

Same with plenty of authors who would otherwise not get published.

On Sun, 10 Nov 2019 13:52:12 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


But clearly McDs does

In auto-contradicting mode again, senile auto-contradictor? LOL

FLUSH the rest unread as usual

--
Marland answering senile Rodent's statement, "I don't leak":
"That¢s because so much **** and ****e emanates from your gob that there is
nothing left to exit normally, your arsehole has clammed shut through disuse
and the end of prick is only clear because you are such a ******."
Message-ID:

On Sun, 10 Nov 2019 16:39:14 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:


Gates did with Microsoft.

Nope.

LOL

--
Kerr-Mudd,John addressing senile Rot:
"Auto-contradictor Rod is back! (in the KF)"
MID:

On Sun, 10 Nov 2019 14:39:43 +1100, Ray, better known as cantankerous
trolling senile geezer Rodent Speed, wrote:


It is inaccurate to say the rich "create" wealth. They "accumulate"
wealth

Some like Gates and Bezos do create wealth by
producing what some choose to use or consume.

They still accumulate it, auto-contradicting senile Ozzie cretin!

--
Senile Rodent about himself:
"I was involved in the design of a computer OS"
MID:

On Sun, 10 Nov 2019 17:31:29 +1100, Ray, better known as cantankerous
trolling senile geezer Rodent Speed, wrote:


And they are the minority.

Yes, billionaires will always be a tiny minority.

FLUSH troll****

Whose killfile are you now trying to avoid with your latest nym-change, you
abnormal trolling senile pest?

--
FredXX to Rot Speed:
"You are still an idiot and an embarrassment to your country. No wonder
we shipped the likes of you out of the British Isles. Perhaps stupidity
and criminality is inherited after all?"
Message-ID:

On Sun, 10 Nov 2019 19:24:10 +1100, Ray, better known as cantankerous
trolling senile geezer Rodent Speed, wrote:


I don't know if a lot of Mom & Pop operations would say Bezos is creating
much wealth.

Those that use amazon for their marketplace should do even if they don¢t.

Same with plenty of authors who would otherwise not get published.

Guess how long it will take the Yanks on ahr to find out who's behind your
latest nym, senile Rodent! LOL

--
Website (from 2007) dedicated to the 85-year-old trolling senile
cretin from Oz:
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/r...d-faq.2973853/

On Sun, 10 Nov 2019 19:22:16 +1100, Ray, better known as cantankerous
trolling senile geezer Rodent Speed, wrote:


With the exception of some of the Amazon sponsored shows, Bezos doesn't
produce a damn thing.

He did produce a very viable market place that many choose to use.

A marketplace is not a product. And many would NOT choose it, if they had
another option, senile idiot! Of course this doesn't apply to a senile M$,
Google, Apple and Amazon adorer like you!

--
The Natural Philosopher about senile Rot:
"Rod speed is not a Brexiteer. He is an Australian troll and arsehole."
Message-ID:

On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 23:40:37 -0700, rbowman wrote:



Yeah, I'm a dinosaur and I never quite got the whole service economy
thing. Gates, or I should say Microsoft, does create software. Even that
is very intangible. I've been in the software game for about 40 years
and I'm not sure anything I've done was all that necessary or even had a
positive effect.

I spent 30 years writing code. I doubt there's a line of it in use today.
A bricklayer's work lasts for generations. But I didn't want to be a bricklayer.

On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 03:27:23 -0600, Roscoe
wrote:

Bernie or Liz I think asked that and it got me thinking. A billion
is a thousand thousands. Does anyone really need to be a billionaire?

No, a billion is a thousand millions. A million is a thousand
thousands.
Yes, sociopaths NEED to be billionaires. To compensate for
their tiny dicks.
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

On 11/10/2019 1:26 AM, rbowman wrote:
On 11/09/2019 07:27 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

It means my 401k is looking good today.Â* Could turn to crap tomorrow
though.

Back before the dotcom bubble burst I had a friend who was checking his
401 about every hour and rubbing his hands. He told me I was stupid to
have a stodgy old traditional IRA. I didn't even have to tell him to
STFU when the roller coaster started down. I didn't lose a dime.

Fact is I've never paid to much attention to money matters.

I'm about the same way. Most of my 401k was in fixed fund. I tell
people that I worried about making my money but don't want to worry
about keeping it.

On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 1:26:49 AM UTC-5, rbowman wrote:
On 11/09/2019 07:27 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

It means my 401k is looking good today. Could turn to crap tomorrow though.

Back before the dotcom bubble burst I had a friend who was checking his
401 about every hour and rubbing his hands. He told me I was stupid to
have a stodgy old traditional IRA. I didn't even have to tell him to
STFU when the roller coaster started down. I didn't lose a dime.

Fact is I've never paid to much attention to money matters.

What's the difference between a 401 and a "stodgy old traditional IRA"?
I've got both, and they're both in a diverse mix of mutual funds.

Was your buddy day-trading individual stocks in his 401? That's
just dumb.

Cindy Hamilton

On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 5:23:34 AM UTC-5, Vic Smith wrote:
On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 23:40:37 -0700, rbowman wrote:



Yeah, I'm a dinosaur and I never quite got the whole service economy
thing. Gates, or I should say Microsoft, does create software. Even that
is very intangible. I've been in the software game for about 40 years
and I'm not sure anything I've done was all that necessary or even had a
positive effect.

I spent 30 years writing code. I doubt there's a line of it in use today.

You might have been writing the wrong sort of code. I know some aircraft
companies still using 30-year-old Fortran code (or older). If it ain't
broke....

Cindy Hamilton

On 11/10/2019 7:12 AM, Shadow wrote:
On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 03:27:23 -0600, Roscoe
wrote:

Bernie or Liz I think asked that and it got me thinking. A billion
is a thousand thousands. Does anyone really need to be a billionaire?

No, a billion is a thousand millions. A million is a thousand
thousands.
Yes, sociopaths NEED to be billionaires. To compensate for
their tiny dicks.
[]'s


So if you won a billion in the lottery, how much would you donate to
poor welfarecrats? 999,000,000?

On Saturday, November 9, 2019 at 6:44:23 PM UTC-5, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,
says...
Not too many billions were earned totally ethically. More were
basically "stolen" - one way or the other.

Cite for us the many examples of American billionaires where they stole it.




Gates did with Microsoft.

He sold IBM on a system that he did not really have.

He markeded his system for $ 49.99 or so and Digital Research was about
$ 150.

So it's now a crime to offer a better or similar product at a lower price
than a competitor? WTF?




He proceeded to almost steal much other softwear.

Show us the examples.





Walmart is doing similar things. They will make a contract with a
company to buy much more than the company can produce. The company
borrows money to expand. The next time Walmart cuts the price of the
contract. The company has to take that reduced price as they have to
pay back a big load.

Sounds like more sour grapes and attempts to rewrite history. More likely
Walmart gave them a big deal, they expanded, more competition showed up,
so Walmart like most other businesses could obtain the product at lower
prices. If company A wanted a long term commitment from Walmart, then
they should have required that in the contract or not taken the new business.
But again, if you have specific examples, I'd like to look at them.





If you look at the history of the 'giants' around the start of the
century you can see how they sort of stole the millions then which would
convet to billions now.

That's more BS. Were guys like Rockefeller and Carnegie tough competitors
who built huge businesses? Yes. But they also built the US oil and
steel industries and like Gates put out great products at low prices
that helped advance and transform America. And they did it within the
laws at the time. Since then the laws have changed and some of what
they did would now be illegal, but that's a long way from stealing.
They were smart, shrewd entrepreneurs.

On 11/9/2019 9:59 PM, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 15:53:32 -0500, Wade Garrett
wrote:

On 11/9/19 4:27 AM, Roscoe wrote:
Â* Bernie or Liz I think asked that and it got me thinking.Â* A billion
is a thousand thousands.Â* Does anyone really need to be a billionaire?

If the rich didnt create all that wealth-€“ who would the liberals take
it from?
It is inaccurate to say the rich "create" wealth. They "accumulate"
wealth


Working people trade their labor for money.

The stupid ones waste their money on booze, drugs, cigarettes etc.
The intelligent ones invest which creates wealth for themselves.

On Saturday, November 9, 2019 at 9:52:26 PM UTC-5, Rod Speed wrote:
"rbowman" wrote in message
...
On 11/09/2019 04:44 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
Walmart is doing similar things. They will make a contract with a
company to buy much more than the company can produce. The company
borrows money to expand. The next time Walmart cuts the price of the
contract. The company has to take that reduced price as they have to
pay back a big load.

I worked for a trucking company that hauled freight for Walmart. Walmart
has its own fleet but they have to bid against outside carriers and the
cheapest one wins. The company eventually lost the contracts. It didn't
matter how well you performed just how cheaply you would work.

In another context, I worked for a company that supplied the styrofoam
clamshells to McDonalds. If the price of crystal styrene dropped a penny a
pound, MickeyD was on the phone looking for a price cut.

But clearly McDs does provide lots of jobs and lots choose to
buy what they produce. In fact you can even make a case that
it does make sense to continue to be able to provide all those
jobs even if the Styrofoam operation does lose some to some
other operation which gets to produce the Styrofoam clamshells
instead and provides those jobs there instead.

And it's not like M is doing extremely well. They are struggling today
in a crowded field of competitors. With govt in various states and
cities raising the minimum wage, almost doubling it, to $15 an hour.
It shouldn't surprise anyone that they are trying to squeeze pennies
out of volume commodities wherever they can. One cent a package doesn't
sound like much until you multiply it by the volume that M pushes.

On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 12:47:54 AM UTC-5, Clare Snyder wrote:
On Sun, 10 Nov 2019 14:39:43 +1100, "Ray" wrote:



"Clare Snyder" wrote in message
.. .
On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 15:53:32 -0500, Wade Garrett
wrote:

On 11/9/19 4:27 AM, Roscoe wrote:
Bernie or Liz I think asked that and it got me thinking. A billion
is a thousand thousands. Does anyone really need to be a billionaire?

If the rich didn't create all that wealth-- who would the liberals take
it from?
It is inaccurate to say the rich "create" wealth. They "accumulate"
wealth

Some like Gates and Bezos do create wealth by
producing what some choose to use or consume.
And they are the minority. Gates is also in the minority in how he
uses his wealth.

What complete BS. There are rich people all the way from Bezos down to
the local auto dealer or supermarket owner that have created a tremendous
number of jobs. And even the rich who inherited it and just sit on it,
where is it "sitting'? Typically in stocks and that capital is helping
to create more jobs. You sound like a bitter old fool who's envious
of other people's success. And Gates isn't the only billionaire that
has contributed a lot to charities, most have. Even the ruthless turn
of the century titans like Rockefeller, Carnegie, Mellon contributed
enormous amounts to charity.

On Saturday, November 9, 2019 at 9:15:39 PM UTC-5, rbowman wrote:
On 11/09/2019 01:53 PM, Wade Garrett wrote:
On 11/9/19 4:27 AM, Roscoe wrote:
Bernie or Liz I think asked that and it got me thinking. A billion
is a thousand thousands. Does anyone really need to be a billionaire?

If the rich didnt create all that wealth-€“ who would the liberals take
it from?


If the wealth is derived from trading in repos, where did it come from?

From performing an economic service.


If the wealth came from manufacturing and selling umbrellas, where did
it come from?

You can't be that stupid.



If a person made a billion selling umbrellas, maybe the
umbrellas are a little overpriced?

If they are overpriced then people would be buying the competitors
umbrellas. Free markets see to that.

On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 8:07:30 AM UTC-5, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 1:26:49 AM UTC-5, rbowman wrote:
On 11/09/2019 07:27 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

It means my 401k is looking good today. Could turn to crap tomorrow though.

Back before the dotcom bubble burst I had a friend who was checking his
401 about every hour and rubbing his hands. He told me I was stupid to
have a stodgy old traditional IRA. I didn't even have to tell him to
STFU when the roller coaster started down. I didn't lose a dime.

Fact is I've never paid to much attention to money matters.

What's the difference between a 401 and a "stodgy old traditional IRA"?
I've got both, and they're both in a diverse mix of mutual funds.

Was your buddy day-trading individual stocks in his 401? That's
just dumb.

Cindy Hamilton

+1

Most traditional IRAs are in stocks.

On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 1:26:49 AM UTC-5, rbowman wrote:
On 11/09/2019 07:27 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

It means my 401k is looking good today. Could turn to crap tomorrow though.

Back before the dotcom bubble burst I had a friend who was checking his
401 about every hour and rubbing his hands. He told me I was stupid to
have a stodgy old traditional IRA. I didn't even have to tell him to
STFU when the roller coaster started down. I didn't lose a dime.

Fact is I've never paid to much attention to money matters.

You're confused again. A traditional IRA can be invested in stocks too
and most are. One poor period doesn't negate the fact that the stock
market has returned about 8% over the long term, which is what people
should be looking at for an IRA. What's the alternative? Put it into
a bank or bonds earning 3%?

On Saturday, November 9, 2019 at 9:11:30 PM UTC-5, rbowman wrote:
On 11/09/2019 01:14 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/9/2019 2:04 PM, rbowman wrote:
On 11/09/2019 07:05 AM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
It takes a lot of work to become a billionaire and along the way most
have created jobs, invested in the start up of other companies and kept
the economy in good shape. Nothing is stopping you and I from doing the
same if we have the ability and courage to do so.

Some have, and some have destroyed jobs in the US by moving
manufacturing plants and outsourcing jobs. Do you think those that got
rich in the shaky financial manipulations that almost brought down the
economy were beneficial? Do you think wealthy patent trolls are a good
thing?

Your point? There are criminals and unethical people everywhere but
that should not stop the rest of the population from success. Take away
the billions and they would still be nast.

So have 'most' created jobs and kept the economy in good shape?

Absolutely, what an absurd question.


What
were they doing when the Fed had to bail out Wall Street? That is as
accurate as saying most Irishmen are drunks.

Actually, as I recall, some companies were taken over by other companies
back in 2008 when they failed. Do small businesses come to the aid of
their competitors or any other business for that matter? The local
baker is failing, does the auto dealer come help him?




At one point, maybe in the last century, I would agree with you. However
currently the money is in the FIRE sector, most of which is unproductive
churning. The DOW sets new record; what does that mean?

It means that stock buyers are more aggressive than the sellers, that they
believe in the companies they are buying. And overwhelmingly they are
right and have been right, through most of history. The economy is growing,
GDP is growing, corp profits are growing. What planet are you on?

On 11/10/2019 9:31 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 8:07:30 AM UTC-5, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 1:26:49 AM UTC-5, rbowman wrote:
On 11/09/2019 07:27 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

It means my 401k is looking good today. Could turn to crap tomorrow though.

Back before the dotcom bubble burst I had a friend who was checking his
401 about every hour and rubbing his hands. He told me I was stupid to
have a stodgy old traditional IRA. I didn't even have to tell him to
STFU when the roller coaster started down. I didn't lose a dime.

Fact is I've never paid to much attention to money matters.

What's the difference between a 401 and a "stodgy old traditional IRA"?
I've got both, and they're both in a diverse mix of mutual funds.

Was your buddy day-trading individual stocks in his 401? That's
just dumb.

Cindy Hamilton

+1

Most traditional IRAs are in stocks.


A few years ago I shifted to bonds. I'm more concerned about avoiding
steep loss than the benefits of a big gain.

On 11/10/2019 8:11 AM, devnull wrote:
On 11/10/2019 7:12 AM, Shadow wrote:
On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 03:27:23 -0600, Roscoe
wrote:

Â*Â* Bernie or Liz I think asked that and it got me thinking.Â* A billion
is a thousand thousands.Â* Does anyone really need to be a billionaire?

Â*Â*Â*Â*No, a billion is a thousand millions. A million is a thousand
thousands.
Â*Â*Â*Â*Yes, sociopaths NEED to be billionaires. To compensate for
their tiny dicks.
Â*Â*Â*Â*[]'s


So if you won a billion in the lottery, how much would you donate to
poor welfarecrats?Â* 999,000,000?

Good question. I'd take care of my family, but I could never spend that
much money. It would be fun to give it away and do some good. The hard
part would be sifting the needy from the fraudsters.

In article ,
says...

If you look at the history of the 'giants' around the start
of the century you can see how they sort of stole the
millions then which would convet to billions now.

Even the most flagrant monopolistic practices arent really stealing.




If the following hapened to you would you call it stealing or just good
business practice.


I keep harping on this.

I worked for a large company. The Kochs bought it. Changed the
retirement. When I first started , the retirement rule was you could
retire anytime after 55 years old. The company would pay 80 % of your
insurance and you would get 100 % of your retirement.

Koch bought it. Recended the 55 age, you had to be 62 to start getting
your reirement money and no medical insurance. Another company bought
the company. The then proceeded to change the retirement and cut out 2
weeks of vacation for those that had been there over 20 years and had
been getting 6 weeks of vacation. In all, I had to work an extra 2
years from my planning and even at that it cost me $ 500 a month in
retirement money.

I say they stole 2 years of my life and $ 500 a month.

On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 10:07:32 AM UTC-5, Ed Pawlowski wrote:
On 11/10/2019 9:31 AM, trader_4 wrote:
On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 8:07:30 AM UTC-5, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 1:26:49 AM UTC-5, rbowman wrote:
On 11/09/2019 07:27 PM, Ed Pawlowski wrote:

It means my 401k is looking good today. Could turn to crap tomorrow though.

Back before the dotcom bubble burst I had a friend who was checking his
401 about every hour and rubbing his hands. He told me I was stupid to
have a stodgy old traditional IRA. I didn't even have to tell him to
STFU when the roller coaster started down. I didn't lose a dime.

Fact is I've never paid to much attention to money matters.

What's the difference between a 401 and a "stodgy old traditional IRA"?
I've got both, and they're both in a diverse mix of mutual funds.

Was your buddy day-trading individual stocks in his 401? That's
just dumb.

Cindy Hamilton

+1

Most traditional IRAs are in stocks.


A few years ago I shifted to bonds. I'm more concerned about avoiding
steep loss than the benefits of a big gain.

Sure, that's typical too, you're retired. But over a worker's lifetime
the logical choice for most of the working years is to be in stocks.
And there are a lot more people working than retired.

On 11/10/2019 10:29 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,
says...

If you look at the history of the 'giants' around the start
of the century you can see how they sort of stole the
millions then which would convet to billions now.

Even the most flagrant monopolistic practices arent really stealing.




If the following hapened to you would you call it stealing or just good
business practice.


I keep harping on this.

I worked for a large company. The Kochs bought it. Changed the
retirement. When I first started , the retirement rule was you could
retire anytime after 55 years old. The company would pay 80 % of your
insurance and you would get 100 % of your retirement.

Koch bought it. Recended the 55 age, you had to be 62 to start getting
your reirement money and no medical insurance. Another company bought
the company. The then proceeded to change the retirement and cut out 2
weeks of vacation for those that had been there over 20 years and had
been getting 6 weeks of vacation. In all, I had to work an extra 2
years from my planning and even at that it cost me $ 500 a month in
retirement money.

I say they stole 2 years of my life and $ 500 a month.


There are villains of the corporate world. I had to retire early when
the company started going down the drain. Got reduced pension with
medical insurance but later they made us retirees pay half of any
increase. Retirement papers guaranteed pension but had no mention of
health care. A lot of employers have done this and been sued but win.

If you work and retire from the company now there is no pension and no
health insurance. I think you are better off because more is put in
your 401k and when you are retired you alone are responsible for your
welfare. Problem would be people that spend these savings before they
retire.

In article , "frank says...

If you work and retire from the company now there is no pension and no
health insurance. I think you are better off because more is put in
your 401k and when you are retired you alone are responsible for your
welfare. Problem would be people that spend these savings before they
retire.



I think the main thing about a 401k is that if a company matches some of
the money you put into it, it gives a good reason to do so.

Had the company I worked for not started the 401k , I doubt that I would
have put anyting in on my own. I was almost 40 years old at the time. I
was so strapped for money at the time it started up, I only put in the
minimum ammount we had to to get it started. About 6 months later we
got a raise and I put that into the 401k to max it out.

I hit it lucky and 2 times when the stock market started down, I moved
the money to a money market type of account. Then as it started back up
I went back to stock, which in the 401k was sort of a mutual fund.
Worked out very well. The third time the market dipped, I had so much
on my mind that I let it slip by. The money dropped to almost half,but
in a few years, it came back up and more. Lost a lot in the last dip ,
but it is now more than it ever was. You just have to have a way to
ride things out for about 2 years if the market does go south.

Being retired I plan on staying in stock of some kind. I will probably
keep about half of the RMD for a year in cash/money market just incase
the marked does tank for a year or so.

As I told the man that handles my IRA, I have enough pension and SS that
I can get by. I may have to eat beans instead of steak for a year, but
can get by just fine as all is paid for.

Ralph Mowery wrote
Rod Speed wrote

If you look at the history of the 'giants' around the start
of the century you can see how they sort of stole the
millions then which would convet to billions now.

Even the most flagrant monopolistic
practices arent really stealing.

If the following hapened to you would you
call it stealing or just good business practice.

I keep harping on this.

I worked for a large company. The Kochs bought it. Changed the
retirement. When I first started , the retirement rule was you could
retire anytime after 55 years old. The company would pay 80 % of
your insurance and you would get 100 % of your retirement.

Not exactly a great way to run a business.

Koch bought it. Recended the 55 age, you had to be 62 to
start getting your reirement money and no medical insurance.

Arguably a sensible approach if the competitors in
that industry had a similar deal with their employees.

Another company bought the company. They then
proceeded to change the retirement and cut out 2
weeks of vacation for those that had been there over
20 years and had been getting 6 weeks of vacation.

Clearly the original employment conditions were overly generous.

We'd need to know why that was so and whether it was done
at a time when those employees were hard to find and if that
later changed significantly so there was no longer any need
to offer such attractive working conditions to attract enough
good enough employees and to get them to stay.

In all, I had to work an extra 2 years from
my planning and even at that it cost me
$ 500 a month in retirement money.

Clearly not theft, you were free to work for someone else who
offered better wages and conditions if you could find one.
And a lot better than losing your job entirely because it
was a dying industry like with newspapers etc currently.

And better than the entire operation going bust because like
GM they had been stupid enough to agree to unaffordable
benefits in retirement for so many of their employees.

I say they stole 2 years of my life and $ 500 a month.

You'd be wrong when you say that.

In article ,
says...

Clearly the original employment conditions were overly generous.

We'd need to know why that was so and whether it was done
at a time when those employees were hard to find and if that
later changed significantly so there was no longer any need
to offer such attractive working conditions to attract enough
good enough employees and to get them to stay.



They had to offer good wages and benefits to get workers to stay.

The jobs was easy and clean for the most part. It was the hours that
made for a large turn over. The plant had to run 24 hours a day and no
shutdowns for anything 365 days a year.

Most of the jobs were on rotating 8 hour shifts. You worked 7 of the 3
rd shift off two, worked 7 of the 2nd , off 2, worked 7 of the 1st and
off 4 days, and repeated. There was a preferred crew that worked Mon,
Tue, wed on 2 nd and Fri, Sat on the 1 st to take up the slack in the
hours.

That went on from around 1965 to the big change in the 80's or so.
There were plenty of jobs in the area up to that time . They did not
pay nearly as much. The company went out of business about a year ago.

It made polyester material from the raw chemicals. Made 3 products.
One looked like a bale of cotton. ONe looked like an unbraded string
that mainly went into tire cord. The third and smallest was called
chip. Pieces of plastic that were about 1/4 inches long and 1/8 inch
square that things like the 2 liter soft drink bottles are made of.
That is right, the same thing the drink bottles are made of is 99.5% of
what people wear is made from.

Stuff went mainly overseas.


Even with some some of the better pay in the area, for many years they
would bring in about 20 new workers almost every month and be lucky to
have 5 of them to stay over a month and even some of those would leave
in less than a year.

There were about 2500 hourly workers and another 500 salaried of which
about half of them worked a regular day shift.

On 11/10/2019 01:22 AM, Ray wrote:
Even AWS doesn't add anything to the mix other than a service.

That’s not true of kindles and ebooks alone.

To be accurate, Foxconn manufactures the kindles, along with some of the
competing devices. Amazon designs and distributes them. Ever hear of
Gregg Zehr? He cut his teeth at Palm and runs Lab126, where the Kindle
family originated. For his 10th anniversary with the company Amazon gave
him a special employee badge with a red border. I doubt he has seen his
first million.

I would imagine the Amazon Basics line also enriches the economy of China.


Gates, or I should say Microsoft, does create software.

And some hardware. So has amazon.

Hardware for MS has been a mixed bag. Apple's walled garden has done
much better. Speaking of Foxcomm...

On Sun, 10 Nov 2019 06:03:23 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote:

On Saturday, November 9, 2019 at 6:44:23 PM UTC-5, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,
says...
Not too many billions were earned totally ethically. More were
basically "stolen" - one way or the other.

Cite for us the many examples of American billionaires where they stole it.

Gates did with Microsoft.

He sold IBM on a system that he did not really have.

He markeded his system for $ 49.99 or so and Digital Research was about
$ 150.

So it's now a crime to offer a better or similar product at a lower price
than a competitor? WTF?

He STOLE the code from the competitor, and sold it to IBM.
After he made hundreds of millions, he settled for a fraction of what
he made (he settled out of court)..
http://www.digitalresearch.biz/CPM.HTM
Ancient history.
Gate was never a competent coder. He could barely write BASIC.
Just another "They trust me, stupid fscks"
The original author of DOS died from head injuries. They are
still looking for the murderer. Does Gates own a hammer?
[]'s
--
Don't be evil - Google 2004
We have a new policy - Google 2012

"trader_4" wrote in message
...
On Saturday, November 9, 2019 at 9:15:39 PM UTC-5, rbowman wrote:
On 11/09/2019 01:53 PM, Wade Garrett wrote:
On 11/9/19 4:27 AM, Roscoe wrote:
Bernie or Liz I think asked that and it got me thinking. A billion
is a thousand thousands. Does anyone really need to be a billionaire?

If the rich didnt create all that wealth-€“ who would the liberals take
it from?


If the wealth is derived from trading in repos, where did it come from?

From performing an economic service.


If the wealth came from manufacturing and selling umbrellas, where did
it come from?

You can't be that stupid.



If a person made a billion selling umbrellas, maybe the
umbrellas are a little overpriced?

If they are overpriced then people would be buying the competitors
umbrellas. Free markets see to that.

Its more complicated than that with the produce of a simple product
like that being able to produce a billionaire in the hands of some with
their competitors not able to achieve that sort of result. Quite a bit of
the time its as simple as producing a better product that appeals to
more than their competitors were able to do. Most obviously with
Coca Cola and Pepsi etc compared with the vast number of others
who also produced similar products. Same with McDs and Walmart,
all of which did better than the competition in very competitive industrys.

On 11/10/2019 10:29 AM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article ,
says...

If you look at the history of the 'giants' around the start
of the century you can see how they sort of stole the
millions then which would convet to billions now.

Even the most flagrant monopolistic practices arent really stealing.




If the following hapened to you would you call it stealing or just good
business practice.


I keep harping on this.

I worked for a large company. The Kochs bought it. Changed the
retirement. When I first started , the retirement rule was you could
retire anytime after 55 years old. The company would pay 80 % of your
insurance and you would get 100 % of your retirement.

Koch bought it. Recended the 55 age, you had to be 62 to start getting
your reirement money and no medical insurance. Another company bought
the company. The then proceeded to change the retirement and cut out 2
weeks of vacation for those that had been there over 20 years and had
been getting 6 weeks of vacation. In all, I had to work an extra 2
years from my planning and even at that it cost me $ 500 a month in
retirement money.

I say they stole 2 years of my life and $ 500 a month.


You may be 100% right. Or not. What we don't know is what would happen
if the company was not sold? If the plan and benefits you had were
sustainable for years, then yes, you got screwed. OTOH, if the company
would have incurred a lot of loss and potentially went out of business,
they you got some partial salvation.

On 11/10/2019 03:23 AM, Vic Smith wrote:
On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 23:40:37 -0700, rbowman wrote:



Yeah, I'm a dinosaur and I never quite got the whole service economy
thing. Gates, or I should say Microsoft, does create software. Even that
is very intangible. I've been in the software game for about 40 years
and I'm not sure anything I've done was all that necessary or even had a
positive effect.

I spent 30 years writing code. I doubt there's a line of it in use today.
A bricklayer's work lasts for generations. But I didn't want to be a bricklayer.


I semi-retired when I was about 40 and spent a year as a Forest Service
volunteer at a ranger station that was the home of the Northern Region's
pack stock. I designed a couple of self cleaning irrigation diversion
dams, helped to build a couple of mountain bike trails, worked on a
nature trail, and the educational trail at the visitors center. The guys
I worked with are retired or dead but I still go out and wander around.
Some of the signage has been replaced as it deteriorated in the last 30
years, but the stock tanks, ditches, and so forth are still there.

I found it very satisfying. In my present job, the code I wrote twenty
years ago is still in use. For better or worse. It's embarrassing when a
support person asks you about a configuration option you added in 2002
and you draw a blank...

That's an anomaly for me. The code I wrote in the 70's and 80's is
definitely gone since the companies I wrote it for are gone.

Ralph Mowery wrote
Rod Speed wrote

Clearly the original employment conditions were overly generous.

We'd need to know why that was so and whether it was done
at a time when those employees were hard to find and if that
later changed significantly so there was no longer any need
to offer such attractive working conditions to attract enough
good enough employees and to get them to stay.

They had to offer good wages and benefits to get workers to stay.

But that isnt necessarily so true later.

The jobs was easy and clean for the most part. It was the hours
that made for a large turn over. The plant had to run 24 hours
a day and no shutdowns for anything 365 days a year.

But generous benefits arent the only way to make an operation like that
viable.

Most of the jobs were on rotating 8 hour shifts. You worked
7 of the 3 rd shift off two, worked 7 of the 2nd , off 2, worked
7 of the 1st and off 4 days, and repeated. There was a preferred
crew that worked Mon, Tue, wed on 2 nd and Fri, Sat on the 1 st
to take up the slack in the hours.

That went on from around 1965 to the big change in
the 80's or so. There were plenty of jobs in the area
up to that time . They did not pay nearly as much.
The company went out of business about a year ago.

Because that industry changed over time with most of
it now happening in china where they don't need to
offer anything like the same very generous benefits.

That's why apple doesn't even make any hardware in the USA anymore.

It made polyester material from the raw chemicals. Made 3 products.
One looked like a bale of cotton. ONe looked like an unbraded string
that mainly went into tire cord. The third and smallest was called
chip. Pieces of plastic that were about 1/4 inches long and 1/8 inch
square that things like the 2 liter soft drink bottles are made of.
That is right, the same thing the drink bottles are made of is 99.5% of
what people wear is made from.

Nothing like that percentage of what people wear is polyester.

Stuff went mainly overseas.

And now mostly comes from china.

Even with some some of the better pay in the area, for many
years they would bring in about 20 new workers almost every
month and be lucky to have 5 of them to stay over a month
and even some of those would leave in less than a year.

For better benefits or because they didn't like the work ?

There were about 2500 hourly workers and another 500
salaried of which about half of them worked a regular day shift.

And now its mostly done in china and the consumers get much
cheaper products and the US economy still works very well indeed.

On Mon, 11 Nov 2019 05:03:25 +1100, cantankerous trolling geezer Rodent
Speed, the auto-contradicting senile sociopath, blabbered, again:

Not

LOL

Arguably

LOL

Let's see how long it will take THAT one to realize what's the matter with
you, you lonesome, auto-contradicting, senile troll! ;-)

--
Website (from 2007) dedicated to the 85-year-old trolling senile
cretin from Oz:
https://www.pcreview.co.uk/threads/r...d-faq.2973853/

On 11/10/2019 06:10 AM, Cindy Hamilton wrote:
On Sunday, November 10, 2019 at 5:23:34 AM UTC-5, Vic Smith wrote:
On Sat, 9 Nov 2019 23:40:37 -0700, rbowman wrote:



Yeah, I'm a dinosaur and I never quite got the whole service economy
thing. Gates, or I should say Microsoft, does create software. Even that
is very intangible. I've been in the software game for about 40 years
and I'm not sure anything I've done was all that necessary or even had a
positive effect.

I spent 30 years writing code. I doubt there's a line of it in use today.

You might have been writing the wrong sort of code. I know some aircraft
companies still using 30-year-old Fortran code (or older). If it ain't
broke....

NOAA has a treasure trove of code that can be adapted -- if you speak
FORTRAN.

https://polar.ncep.noaa.gov/waves/wavewatch/

At least this package is FORTRAN 90. I've worked with some that is still
77.

As a side note, f2c takes perfectly good FORTRAN code and produces a
steaming pile of **** that vaguely looks like C.

"rbowman" wrote in message
...
On 11/10/2019 01:22 AM, Ray wrote:
Even AWS doesn't add anything to the mix other than a service.

That’s not true of kindles and ebooks alone.

To be accurate, Foxconn manufactures the kindles, along with some of the
competing devices. Amazon designs and distributes them.

Not true of the ebooks. Amazon does a lot more than just provide a service.

Ever hear of Gregg Zehr? He cut his teeth at Palm and runs Lab126, where
the Kindle family originated. For his 10th anniversary with the company
Amazon gave him a special employee badge with a red border. I doubt he has
seen his first million.

Irrelevant to whether Amazon is much more than just a service.

I would imagine the Amazon Basics line also enriches the economy of China.

Of course it does, but Amazon also enriches authors too.

Gates, or I should say Microsoft, does create software.

And some hardware. So has amazon.

Hardware for MS has been a mixed bag.

Yes but it has been for all the others like Google and Apple and Amazon too.

Apple's walled garden has done much better.

Not in the areas that MS has done well with hardware,
games consoles and stuff like keyboards and mice.

Speaking of Foxcomm...

Foxconn isnt the only operation

On 11/10/2019 12:21 PM, Ralph Mowery wrote:
In article , "frank says...

If you work and retire from the company now there is no pension and no
health insurance. I think you are better off because more is put in
your 401k and when you are retired you alone are responsible for your
welfare. Problem would be people that spend these savings before they
retire.



I think the main thing about a 401k is that if a company matches some of
the money you put into it, it gives a good reason to do so.

Had the company I worked for not started the 401k , I doubt that I would
have put anyting in on my own. I was almost 40 years old at the time. I
was so strapped for money at the time it started up, I only put in the
minimum ammount we had to to get it started. About 6 months later we
got a raise and I put that into the 401k to max it out.

I hit it lucky and 2 times when the stock market started down, I moved
the money to a money market type of account. Then as it started back up
I went back to stock, which in the 401k was sort of a mutual fund.
Worked out very well. The third time the market dipped, I had so much
on my mind that I let it slip by. The money dropped to almost half,but
in a few years, it came back up and more. Lost a lot in the last dip ,
but it is now more than it ever was. You just have to have a way to
ride things out for about 2 years if the market does go south.

Being retired I plan on staying in stock of some kind. I will probably
keep about half of the RMD for a year in cash/money market just incase
the marked does tank for a year or so.

As I told the man that handles my IRA, I have enough pension and SS that
I can get by. I may have to eat beans instead of steak for a year, but
can get by just fine as all is paid for.



I read someplace that 100 minus your age is the percentage you might
invest in stocks. That is where my 401k just happens to be today.