"Joe Willmann" wrote in message
.77...
"CW" wrote in
:

The point being that it was not worth reading.


But it is true.

True horse****? Yes, I'll agree with you on that.

On 07 Feb 2004 02:47:54 GMT, (S S Law NH) wrote:

Doug Winterburn

And wrote::

"Lawyers."

Brilliant, Dougie; what did you want to be when you grew up?


Having narrowly avoided law school in favor of something that I
thought would be a little more fun, but still having considered the
way of the law to be and honorable path; I feel (perhaps unjustly)
qualified to respond.

Everyone hates lawyers, until the point that their son graduates from
law school.

Game Over.


Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
(Real Email is tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

On Fri, 6 Feb 2004 18:58:54 -0800, "CW"
wrote:

Those countries. Big deal, never made a mistake. BTW, your question makes no
more sense now that it ever did.


You are a perfect argument for there being a Breathalizer test prior
to posting on the Wreck.



Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
(Real Email is tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 05:48:47 GMT, "Upscale"
wrote:


The answer is a change of attitude and the controlling of greed.

If there is "An Answer", it is a change in concept, back to a previous
concept that we all shared, through education and enculturation.

We were, once upon a time, taught "Citizenship". We learned that we
were a part of a whole.and that we had both rights and
responsibilities.

I hear a lot of people making a lot of noise about "rights' but I do
not hear a concomittent outcry regarding "responsibilities".

At some point we were all convinced that we had become "Consumers",
who have no responsibilities and who have only rights.

We must again engage the burdens and blessings of Citizenship and
perform our natural function in the Polis.



Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
(Real Email is tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

I'm a linux guy primarily, got some solaris under my belt, spent 2 years
in my last position writing web apps with java servlets, mysql backend,
for a company that sold credit reports and public records searches to
small businesses, been in the industry since '99, done thin client work,
network management, taught linux administration and programming for
awhile, was part of the team that wrote "Upgrading and Repairing PC's,
Linux Edition", which Scott Mueller then DESTROYED. Done a good bit of
embedded work, just finished a Gameboy Advance title that I'm working on
getting published through Datel. Skilled in java, C, perl, arm assembly,
SQL, all forms of the techy side of web design (I'm not terribly creative,
but I can implement). I do a smidge of electronics stuff, done a bit of
work with wearable computing, I'm decent with microcontrollers such as
PICs. I run a small recording studio, I'm good with digital audio junk.

I'm in atlanta, btw.

Do I get the job?

On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 21:14:50 +0000, mttt wrote:


"tmbg" wrote in message
news
[quoted text muted]

What kind of software can you write?
What's your domain expertise?
Gimme a short C.V.

Pull your head. The lack of oxygen is affecting your brain.
"Tom Watson" wrote in message


You are a perfect argument for there being a Breathalizer test prior
to posting on the Wreck.



Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
(Real Email is tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

Not an answer to anything. You proposed a scenario. That is the most likely
outcome. Your other ideas of everyone suddenly becoming a warm caring
individual is ludicrous.
"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
On Fri, 6 Feb 2004 18:24:52 -0800, "CW"
wrote:

Revolution or (more likely) war.

If that is your best answer, you're not worth much.



Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
(Real Email is tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 18:11:17 -0600, Tom Watson wrote:

Today I was making up Purchase Orders for fabricated steel parts to go
into a store fixture project that I'm working on.
-snip-
Lest you think that the guy in China is a stinkpot operation that
cranks out easy to do stuff with slave labor - all the complicated
stuff was similarly below the nearest 'Murrican bidder and the guys
quotes came in on the best looking computerized format of any of the
bidders, quoting weights, volumes and shipping costs and quoting a
firm leadtime (to the day) as opposed to the "three to six weeks" of
the 'Murricans.

Guess who I was writing out the Purchase Order to?

Yeah, it's bidness but it's damned sad.

One of the RCMheads recently posted www.eMachineShop.com
where you download a CAD program, design your part, send
the specs off, and they shoot back a quote. Judging by the
prices, it was all offshore, too.


It seems to me that the guys we've come to let be in charge of this
country have decided that we will be a nation of managers, paper
pushers and the kind of professionals who support bidness type stuff.

What are we going to do with all of our guys who work in factories, if
this continues?

Will economics drive them into an underclass that we will pay, through
welfare, to keep them from revolting - for a while?

What will we do when we have to manufacture defense items but no
longer have the ability?

Somebody done gave away the store.

Ayup. Damnable.


I'm paying careful attention to this election. I don't see much in
the way of raw talent that will make for much of a change.

Same guys. Same attitudes. Same relation to money.

That's why I cannot, in good conscience, ever again vote for a
Republican or Democrat. Some day, when the rest of the sheeple
wake up and vote with their conscience (instead of the paid
whisper in their ears) we'll have more integrity in office.
Until then I'm beginning to think "****, why even vote?"


Maybe I'll start studying Mandarin.

Orange you glad you still can?


================================================== =========
Save the Endangered Boullions from being cubed!
http://www.diversify.com/stees.html Hilarious T-shirts online
================================================== =========

In article , Larry Jaques
says...
On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 18:11:17 -0600, Tom Watson wrote:

Today I was making up Purchase Orders for fabricated steel parts to go
into a store fixture project that I'm working on.
-snip-
Lest you think that the guy in China is a stinkpot operation that
cranks out easy to do stuff with slave labor - all the complicated
stuff was similarly below the nearest 'Murrican bidder and the guys
quotes came in on the best looking computerized format of any of the
bidders, quoting weights, volumes and shipping costs and quoting a
firm leadtime (to the day) as opposed to the "three to six weeks" of
the 'Murricans.

Guess who I was writing out the Purchase Order to?

Yeah, it's bidness but it's damned sad.

One of the RCMheads recently posted www.eMachineShop.com
where you download a CAD program, design your part, send
the specs off, and they shoot back a quote. Judging by the
prices, it was all offshore, too.


It seems to me that the guys we've come to let be in charge of this
country have decided that we will be a nation of managers, paper
pushers and the kind of professionals who support bidness type stuff.

What are we going to do with all of our guys who work in factories, if
this continues?

Will economics drive them into an underclass that we will pay, through
welfare, to keep them from revolting - for a while?

What will we do when we have to manufacture defense items but no
longer have the ability?

Somebody done gave away the store.

Ayup. Damnable.


I'm paying careful attention to this election. I don't see much in
the way of raw talent that will make for much of a change.

Same guys. Same attitudes. Same relation to money.

That's why I cannot, in good conscience, ever again vote for a
Republican or Democrat. Some day, when the rest of the sheeple
wake up and vote with their conscience (instead of the paid
whisper in their ears) we'll have more integrity in office.
Until then I'm beginning to think "****, why even vote?"



Well, if someone would put up a viable alternate candidate, that could
happen. The current alternates like Nader are even worse statists than
the regular crop. If a viable third party is going to start though, it
needs to start at the local levels and move up, not start at the top
office and expect to win. Start with local and state government
offices, then start running for federal offices at the congressional
level.

On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 20:27:38 -0500, Tom Watson
brought forth from the murky depths:

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 19:50:36 -0500, Tom Watson
wrote:

Today I was making up Purchase Orders for fabricated steel parts to go
into a store fixture project that I'm working on.


No, the problem ain't easy, as some have suggested.

The problem doesn't even appear to be a problem to the vast majority
of people.

The problem is not solvable on the personal level, as some have
suggested.

The problem doesn't even appear to be a problem to the vast majority
of people.

The problem with the problem is that it doesn't even appear to be a
problem with the vast majority of people.

Can you say "sheeple"? I knew you could.


It's a problem.

Si. Ya. Oui. Verdad. Hai.


I'm just wondering about how we are going to go about solving the
problem.

Y'all can get partisan- political about it if you want.

That means dick.

We can start with that. Stop voting for anyone from one
of the two absolutely _corrupt_ parties in our land.


We have an economic problem that will lead to a revolution in our
lifetime if the problem is not addressed.

What are we going to do about it?

Um...Arm ourselves and wait for the INEVITABLE anarchy to
hit, hoping it will change things for the better?

Keep hitting people upside the head and saying "WAKE UP!"?

Pray that the EU is kind to us once they've taken over?
(I know, bery bery bad joke. Sorry.)


I've been reading every mechanical/necessary craft book I
can get my hands on for many years now. When gas, electricity,
and services are all out, I'll have some idea as to how to go
about my business of survival. And I have the tools to do so
....if I can keep them.


================================================== =========
Save the Endangered Boullions from being cubed!
http://www.diversify.com/stees.html Hilarious T-shirts online
================================================== =========

In article s.com,
says...
This is not a new concept... I would buy it if everyione had started
demanding health care in recent years. What is truly happening is health
care cost is going up, with benefits going down. How do you explain
that?

Medical care used to be non-profit. Some small part of it still is. But
the money grubbers figured out they could get rich by charging outrageous
prices to alleviate diseases. If there was no disease, invent one!

Ever read articles about how the drug companies spin the studies to prove
their new drug is the best? And they do it without technically lying.

Been to the dentist lately? I think they're determined to outdo the drug
companies.

And the doctors aren't far behind, but at least they can claim their
malpractice insurance costs are greater.

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

gabriel wrote:

Phil wrote:

4. Now we want cheap prescription drugs and healthcare. Guess who
pays, companies, you and I in the form of taxes, and those who buy our
products. Nothing from the government is free, it’s our tax money!

Now, if the government would _shorten_ drug patent length to encourage
generic medicines and allow foreign dugs to be imported you would have a
point.


Trouble is if you allow that, the research and development portions of drug
companies will dry up. No new meds. The drugs that are imported are cheaper
for a whole host of reasons, the big one is the drug companies know they can
get if from the us because we can afford it, most nations can't. It costs
huge bucks to bring a new drug through clinical trials to market. If the
drug company can't recoupe that, they won't bring new drugs into being. Do
you want that?

The government, though, is taking the side of the big business (drug
companies) and so that's what's really pushing the costs of health care
up. This has nothing to do with taxes.


So who do you think owns the big companies? Us, the stock buying, pension
fund receiving, mutual fund buying public. None of the biggies are privately
owned. How many jobs does a $100,000 a year company support? How many does
a billion doallar year company support? Simple math.


5. We want our companies to give us free health, life, dental and
vision insurance, higher pensions, retirement health care, long term
disability…… It all goes into the bottom line so our products are
more expensive.

This is not a new concept... I would buy it if everyione had started
demanding health care in recent years. What is truly happening is health
care cost is going up, with benefits going down. How do you explain
that?


Easy, goto a smorgasboard and watch how many people don't stuff themselves,
nobody. Also they waste food because they try it, don't like it, throw it
away. Correlation to health insurance, before the hmo,ppo model you had a
deductable, when people got a scratchy throat they would say I'll give a
couple of days it will probably go away on it's own it would cost me $40 to
see a dr.. Now it's, I pay my insurance, doesn't cost me anything to see the
dr, I might as well use it. See it among my coworkers all the time. Before
hmo's my dr's waiting room was few patients you could get in to see him no
problem. The hmo started, no copay, same dr. office full no place to sit, a
week waiting to see. Look at auto insurance for new young drivers, it so
high because the insurance company knows very high likelyhood it will have to
pay out in the first couple of years. They are not going to lose money.


What really ****es me off these days is people want cheaper
healthcare insurance.

Actually we want insureance prices not ro rise. Where is the big
movement for cheaper health insurance?


Your right, my words didn't fit what I meant. It ****es me off, because
we're demanding no costs to use it, insurance should be just that, taking on
risk. The model has changed and the insurance companies know that your going
to spend thousands each year because it doesn't cost the user any extra, so
that becomes the new premium baseline.


There are lots of examples, though, of health insurance costs rising so
much that companies have started to pass most of (or all of) the
insurance costs to the employee. Simply look at the grocery worker case
in southern California.


Exactly, go back to the deductable model. Look at your homeowners insurance,
raise the deductable and the recurring costs go down significantly. The
insurance knows that most claims are less than a few thousand, the real risk
of a major homeowners payout above that is infrequent. (although stupid
lawsuits are making that more frequent) If your willing to take on the risk
of the first few thousand, they reward you. True insurance.


So we have no or low co-payments, but it’s now
costing us weekly premiums out of our paychecks cause everybody goes
to the Dr. when they sneeze.

You DO have the option of not belonging to a health insurance plan you
know. Why not just get out of it?


I'm fortunate, I've got great insurance, costs me peanuts. It's one of those
that is helping drive the cost up. I don't even have the option of taking a
deductable based model.


The people that use the service should
pay.

Do you even know what the business model of insurance is???? Jeeez!


Absolutely, I don't think YOU have figured it out, isurance is cost verses
risk. If everybody uses at least $10,000 in medical care each year, do you
think the insurance premium is going to be less than that a year? Think
about it! My auto insurance coverage could cost the insurance company a
million bucks if the claim was maxed. My health insurance is the same
million. My health insurance costs my company around $12000 a year for me, I
pay $600 a year on my auto. The risk of a million dollar payout is higher in
an auto accident.


Everybody else should pay a reasonable amount for the risk of a
costly medical issue.

There are plans for that. If that's what you really want, get out of
your HMO/PPO and join one of those you describe. There are dirt cheap
plans that come with a $5000/year deductible. This is exactly what you
describe. Don't attack HMOs because the "M" in "HMO" stands for
"maintenance, which means "regular doctor visits."


And just who do you think pays for those regular dr's visits. You or your
company does in your insurance premium.


There is a large portion of our society that
beats the drum of socialism that doesn’t label it socialism.

Absolutely, this surprises you?

11. Nothing will change until each person takes responsibility for
themselves and their family, ask less of their employeer, local, state
and federal government.

Won't happen. Governments exist precisely because this will never
happen.


On this point I agree, we're toast, but we can work towards limiting
government if people understand what is really going on, not some socialist
propaganda.


If you don't have police, the dirt bag with the bigger gun will win. If
you do not have structured laws and a court system to enforce them you
have no progress. If you want to live a life without outside support at
all (ie, from the govt), you better set up a farm, and buy lots of guns.

US product we buy is made up of wages, taxes and benifits. A business
is considered successfull if they profit 10 cents on the dollar. Oh,
buy the way, that 10 cents of profit comes to you and me in our mutual
funds, pensions (equities), Certificate of Deposits.........


Dude I understand economics, what didn't you understand about that? Your top
corporations make 12% earnings in a great year. That 12 cents on the
dollar. Banks are tickled at half that. Who do you think, gets that 10 or
12 cents in a publically owned company? It's called dividends, interest and
stock splits my friend.


Dude, you need to study economics. This makes no sense.


Dude, get a clue, how do you think it works?


Free enterprise works, trouble is the rest of the world hasn't gotten
social security, welfare, healthcare, good roads yet so their cheaper.
So we buy from them more and more.

You really, really, really need to study economics. This is not how the
world works. Chinese labor is NOT cheaper because they pay less for
medical insurance. The solution to our problem is NOT to let our roads
deteriorate to an Afghanistan level. You need to study economics.


Did you read this? The chinese don't have social security, welfare,
medicare, unemployment, pensions, 4 weeks vacation, super highways
everywhere....do you know how much the cost of healtcare costs a buyer of us
auto's? Many years ago it hit $1,000 per car when you bought a $15,000 car.
i.e. it would have cost $14000 if the autoworkers had no healthcare. I'M NOT
ADVOCATING THAT, but benefits are a real portion of our manufactured
products.
I don't want to go live in any other country, I like the comforts of ours,
but we have to either change our demands, be more productive, take more
individual risks and responsibilities or we'll lose jobs to China and others
until they get to the same level of government and benifits we have.


--
gabriel

CW,

Do you know if there is a way to open .SKD files in AutoCAD? .SKD is the
format that AutoSketch saves or saved drawings. IIRC at one time I could
open these file in older versions of AutoCAD LT. Maybe that was a dream.

Mike wrote:

almost anyone who wanted to work could find a decent paying job and even
support a family on one wage and still have money left over at the end of
the week.

Well, that definitely used to be true, but my grandpa got me to thinking
about this the other day. When he retired, he was making $7 an hour in
1977 dollars. Looks like just under $21 an hour today, or a tad less than
$44,000 a year today.

Now, that's more than I make right now, but less than my wife and I make
together. We could live on a single income of $44,000, but not without
getting rid of cable TV, Pizza Friday, the occasional CD or DVD, a toy or
two for the kids, and basically all the other frivolous bacon fat of life
that is unnecessary, not particularly good for you, but oh so tasty. Like
my *shop*, say.

Looking at my grandparents today, they have enough money in the bank that
they can go buy whatever they want with $20 bills by the suitcase full.
They're not millionaires, but Paw-Paw has been retired since 1977, and he's
got more money now than when he retired. My grandmother has never had a
job in her life, and didn't even get a driver's license until she was in
her late 60s.

All of this on a single income, with less money (adjusted for inflation)
than my wife and I make today. How did they do it?

They didn't have any bacon fat at all. They grew up during the Depression,
and they learned to be thrifty in a way that my whole generation, even my
parents' generation, just can't understand.

We buy too many DVDs. We watch too many movies, pay too much for cable TV,
buy too many Delta Unisaws (OBWWR), buy too many computers, pay too much
for high speed internet, drive expensive SUVs that get terrible gas
mileage... We throw things away instead of fixing them. We throw things
away that are perfectly good, just because we like the color of the new one
better.

Few people today have ever had to wear feed sacks. Few people today have
ever recycled wrapping paper. Few people today would be content to raise a
family of three in a tiny four-room asbestos-shingled tract house with one
TV, one radio, one car out front, no clothes drier, no dishwasher, no
microwave oven, no cable TV, etc., etc., etc. Few people would still have
the same carpet on the floor for 40+ years.

If we looked at someone living in a house like that today, under those
conditions, we'd probably consider that they were poor. So how could poor
people have amassed a fortune well into the hundreds of thousands?

Because they didn't spend money unless they *had* to, and because they saved
and invested. My grandparents have never paid interest for *anything* in
their lives. Cars, houses, TVs, and yes, more recently, VCRs and DVD
players; everything has always been purchased with cash. No interest, and
the discipline to pay in full or do without.

A lot of wisdom has been lost, I think.

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/

Tom Watson wrote:

My protest will be filed next November.

I'm just not sure how, yet.

Bill Cosby 2004!

--
Michael McIntyre ---- Silvan
Linux fanatic, and certified Geek; registered Linux user #243621
http://www.geocities.com/Paris/Rue/5407/

Medical care used to be non-profit. Some small part of it still is. But
the money grubbers figured out they could get rich by charging outrageous
prices to alleviate diseases. If there was no disease, invent one!


Dr's are making less than they used too, many are quitting cause they are fed
up. Nurses don't make anything. Insurance companies don't seem to be a good
investment on wall street, neither do health care providers. Who are these
money grubbers?


Ever read articles about how the drug companies spin the studies to prove
their new drug is the best? And they do it without technically lying.

Been to the dentist lately? I think they're determined to outdo the drug
companies.

And the doctors aren't far behind, but at least they can claim their
malpractice insurance costs are greater.

--
Where ARE those Iraqi WMDs?

Tom Watson wrote:

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 19:50:36 -0500, Tom Watson
wrote:

Today I was making up Purchase Orders for fabricated steel parts to go
into a store fixture project that I'm working on.

No, the problem ain't easy, as some have suggested.

The problem doesn't even appear to be a problem to the vast majority
of people.

The problem is not solvable on the personal level, as some have
suggested.

The problem doesn't even appear to be a problem to the vast majority
of people.

The problem with the problem is that it doesn't even appear to be a
problem with the vast majority of people.

It's a problem.

I'm just wondering about how we are going to go about solving the
problem.

Y'all can get partisan- political about it if you want.

That means dick.

We have an economic problem that will lead to a revolution in our
lifetime if the problem is not addressed.


Completely agree with above


What are we going to do about it?

Try to educate people on real economics, not politics, not lies they have
been told. Vote to shrink government. Educate people on how well they
really do have it. That profitable companies create jobs, they are not our
enemies. Unprofitable companies fold and lay people off. Yes there are
some bad eggs out there, greed is fundamental to a percentage of the human
race. You can't legislate it away. I know people that have a family of
four living on less than 12,000 a year. They are hard working, happy, and
wouldn't change a thing. No they don't have a satellite dish, cell phones,
high speed internet. They sit on their porch at night with their family
and love it.



Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
(Real Email is tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

Tom Watson wrote:
On Fri, 06 Feb 2004 01:30:50 GMT, "Mike" wrote:


Gee Tom,

Maybe next time the guy who gave you the store fixture order will figure it
out that he doesn't need your high priced Murrican labor and he can get the
fixtures from China also. Think about it, we are all in this together
aren't we?



My first question to my boss, when we were sending drawings over to
the Chinese guy, with the name of our customer printed all over them,
was - "What's to keep the Chinese guy from doing an end run around us
and going direct to our customer?"

Ya see, the Chinese guy is a store fixture manufacturer, not just a
metal fabricator.

My bosses answer was, "He doesn't sell in our market."

I'm a FNG, having only been in this job for about a month - so I
didn't complete the thought with, "Yeah, not yet."

I like my new job. I don't like the fact that my company buys from
China but the Chinese guy was the low bidder. I'm fifty-three years
old with knees that are too bad to work in the shop full time anymore.

My protest will be filed next November.

How? There doesn't appear to be a choice worth voting for. I used to
be able to pick the "least worst." Can't even figure out how to do that
this time.

RB

"On election day, I will be essentially doing the same thing you folks
are doing, except that when I'm finished masturbating I'm gonna have a
little more to show for it."

- George Carlin


I'm just not sure how, yet.


Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
(Real Email is tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

Doug Winterburn wrote:

This is not a new concept... I would buy it if everyione had started
demanding health care in recent years. What is truly happening is
health care cost is going up, with benefits going down. How do you
explain that?
Lawyers.

Nice try, but not true. In most states (all states?) you cannot even sue
an HMO (Can HMOs have politicians any more in their pocket?).

It is explained by two things mainly:

1) Higher drug costs,

2) Longer drug patent terms, which keep high drug costs for a longer time.
As soon as generics come out, drug prices plummet.

--
gabriel

Doug Winterburn wrote:

cost increase 50% in one year - and it ain't all because of the pill
manufacturers by any stretch. Tort reform is way overdue.

Riiight... keep believing that. Drug makers will love ya.

--
gabriel

Seems to me originally we survived by using our superior technology. We
configured machines to do our donkey work so that we could compete with low
cost wage labor sources, in particular China . Again China is a low cost
labor source to us but to the Chinese the hourly wage is sufficient for him
or her to provide for his family as our hourly rate is for us to do the same
..I really all comes down to standards of living and the cost of living, it
varies immensely from country to country. The standard of living in China
these days is vastly improved these even over what it was only a few years
ago although I surmise the cost of living is not that much higher. the
problem is that due to the emphasis of the Chinese on education our
technical advantages of the past have gone and now the playing field is
tilted their way. On the other hand again it seems to me we seem to value
education less and less ,basically we are giving advantages now to a bunch
of people who basically have no interest in education and we are well down
the slippery slope.

Currently we are allowing millions of virtually uneducated illegals into
this country which in my mind compounds the issue,just makes a bad situation
worse. Another aspect I have a relative working on wall street companies are
downgraded by these jerks called analysts,all the major "houses" have them
and thats the way wall street controls American industry with in fact owning
a piece of it. Companies that are downgraded generally experience a drop in
stock prices which in turn causes a reduction of research expenditures to
improve the bottom line, because the bottom line is all that matters these
days. Of course the other way to improve the bottom line is to find the
cheapest labor source .

So what to do, waite for living costs to equalize ? that will probably take
years . No perhaps some kind of import tariffs might work based on each
country's cost of living . Of course the politicos would not have the
stomach for that . NAFTA is a good example the jobs are being exported to
Mexico not Canada........mjh


--

You have got it right ....mjh

--




"Joe Willmann" wrote in message
.77...
Tom Watson wrote in
:

On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 20:41:57 -0500, RB wrote:

There aren't enough qualified "Murrican IT people....who will work for
the wage that employers now want to pay. They just forgot to complete
the sentence.


Well, that sorta goes to my buried point.


The answer is to throw out our current tax system and replace it totally
with import duties. I don't care who makes it, if it enters the US it
gets hit with a tax that is in relation to the ratio of wages in our
country and the other country.

Over time this tax policy will motivate companies to locate here and
hire here. If another country is at our econimic level then there is an
even playing field and the import duties would be minimal.

Joe Willmann wrote:

For an eye opening experience sit down with a doctor and ask them. You
What they say? My wife's doctor has quit.

I will not deny that paperwork does add a lot to the cost. But this is
not why the doctor quit. The doctor quit because he/she did not want to
take the only other option out the Work for an HMO.

I was a determined pre-med a decade ago until I realized this.

you go out and double your staff what do you think happens? Your cost
goes up so your price has to too.

Fine, now picture this: You run an HMO, and your doctors prescribe meds.
You pay the (vast?) majority of the cost of the meds (for example, I pay
$15 per prescription fill at Kaiser, no matter what the medicine is).
Now you have a patient that just got diagnosed with AIDS. The drug
cocktail costs you $2000 a month. There are no generics because the
drugs are under patent. You can only charge the patient $100 a month.
Can you say "OUCH!"?

Now another scenario: The allergy medicine Allegra costs $50 per box. A
week later the patent runs out and immediately generics are sold for it.
Result: Allegra and the generics drop in cost to $7 per box. Also
immediately, the request is approved to dispense Allegra over the
counter, reducing your costs even more. All of this because the patent
monopoly ended.

The money isn't going to the health care people. It is being swallowed
by overhead and taxes.

Oh puhleeze! It's not going to the doctors, and to a large extent, it's
not going to the HMO operators either. I already mentioned who it's
going to.

But you're right, hospitals are folding left and right due to several
reasons.

--
gabriel

"Australopithecus scobis" wrote in message
...
In article ,
Tom Watson wrote:

We are the largest consumers but we do not protect our market.

I've read enough economics and history enough to be sensitive to the
arguments against protected markets but I've lived in areas that have
been gutted both economically and spiritually by the results of an
open trade policy.

Do we want our standard of living to regress to the mean, in a global
sense?

Don't define standard of living in inches of television screen. Painful
as it is, lifting the standard of living (measured in terms of
childhood immunizations and literacy) in the undeveloped world will, in
time, lead to a better balance. I don't want to drive a SUV, or have a
huge TV (nothing much on except PBS, anyway.) I'm not fat, I don't like
McFoam nuggets or mindless consumption. (Tools don't count )

The challenge is to get those undeveloped countries to leapfrog the
Industrial Pollution stage. China didn't--what a mess.

"Regress to the mean"? No, but reduce ridiculous consumption here and
increase basic survival requirements there. That sappy not-Carlin piece
does contain a large measure of wisdom, treacly as is is.

Look to small, high quality work as a way to survive the changes.
Knight Toolworks is the sort of thing I mean. Wouldn't you rather live
in a small house made solidly than a fiberboard monstrosity? Pay the
builders instead of the bankers, and it could be reality today.
--
"Keep your ass behind you."

We don't need to be conerned with standard of our trading partners, things
need to be tied to the cost of living...mjh

The funny thing about life is when I was at school, all the kids who could
not solve differential equations andscience problems in general they were
transferred to the bidness school . guess who ende up making the money...mjh

--




"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
On 07 Feb 2004 02:47:54 GMT, (S S Law NH) wrote:

Doug Winterburn

And wrote::

"Lawyers."

Brilliant, Dougie; what did you want to be when you grew up?


Having narrowly avoided law school in favor of something that I
thought would be a little more fun, but still having considered the
way of the law to be and honorable path; I feel (perhaps unjustly)
qualified to respond.

Everyone hates lawyers, until the point that their son graduates from
law school.

Game Over.


Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
(Real Email is tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

May be the older versions but nothing newer will. AutoCAD 2002 (full
version) won't do it. I checked my other programs. Nothing. I'll check
around though. If I find a way, I'll let you know.

"Leon" wrote in message
...
CW,

Do you know if there is a way to open .SKD files in AutoCAD? .SKD is the
format that AutoSketch saves or saved drawings. IIRC at one time I could
open these file in older versions of AutoCAD LT. Maybe that was a dream.

A tariff system based on the cost of living in the exporting country.....mjh

--




"Tom Watson" wrote in message
...
On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 19:50:36 -0500, Tom Watson
wrote:

Today I was making up Purchase Orders for fabricated steel parts to go
into a store fixture project that I'm working on.


No, the problem ain't easy, as some have suggested.

The problem doesn't even appear to be a problem to the vast majority
of people.

The problem is not solvable on the personal level, as some have
suggested.

The problem doesn't even appear to be a problem to the vast majority
of people.

The problem with the problem is that it doesn't even appear to be a
problem with the vast majority of people.

It's a problem.

I'm just wondering about how we are going to go about solving the
problem.

Y'all can get partisan- political about it if you want.

That means dick.

We have an economic problem that will lead to a revolution in our
lifetime if the problem is not addressed.

What are we going to do about it?


Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
(Real Email is tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/

On Sat, 07 Feb 2004 05:43:01 GMT, "Leon"
wrote:

CW,

Do you know if there is a way to open .SKD files in AutoCAD? .SKD is the
format that AutoSketch saves or saved drawings. IIRC at one time I could
open these file in older versions of AutoCAD LT. Maybe that was a dream.




seems I remember something about autodesk changing vendors on
autosketch a few years back and dumping a file format. could be what
you're up against.

pretty fuzzy memory, though.

Mark & Juanita responds:


Weird way to buy. I shop, too, of course. But I shop for what I need or
think I
need. I do not shop for recreation. In fact, I'd rather drop large rocks on
my
toes than shop, so that helps keep it in line.


If it's shopping on a Saturday, I say "Bring on the rocks!"

Other days, maybe only if they're less than 10 pound rocks

Yeah, I know. For most things, I do my shopping around 5-5:30 a.m. if at all
possible. Fewer little blue haired ladies trying to use their baskets to maim
people.

Charlie Self
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you
nothing. It was here first." Mark Twain

http://hometown.aol.com/charliediy/m.../business.html

Tom Watson writes:


My point was that our focus, as a culture and as "The Man Writ Large"
has shifted from the duties and responsibilities of Citizenship to the
irresponsible category of Consumer.

Consumers are not responsible for anything other than getting the best
deal; a Citizen, if I rightly understand the term, is responsible for
the health of the Polis, being a full and mindful partner in the
process that brings the Polis into being.

Democracy demands reciprocity between the governed and the governing.

Our current culture treats those who run our affairs as professionals,
who must be given great latitude as regards the affairs of state,
rather than treating them as fellow amateurs, who must be guided by
the fellows that put them in such high regard.

This would be a mistake.


It IS a mistake and a very, very bad one. AFAICT, it is a tendency that
accelerated after WWII, too, though there were early practitioners in the '20s
and '30s (the Roosevelts come to mind as professionals in a basically amateur
field).

People who have children must have some great fun trying to figure out what the
kids are going to inherit as a country and as, yes, citizens. They're not being
educated to do the job of a citizen, but they're going to have a much heavier
civic load to tote than most of us have had.

Charlie Self
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you
nothing. It was here first." Mark Twain

http://hometown.aol.com/charliediy/m.../business.html

Joe WIllman writes:


I have several friends that are doctors. One, an othopedic surgeon, has
had his after tax income go down continually for the past 10 years. He
showed me his tax forms. 10 years ago his AGI was about $350K. Last
year it was $250K. He works twice as many hours as he used to but has
less after taxes.

He's got less BEFORE taxes, too, which seems to be the primary reason he has
less AFTER taxes.

The money isn't going to the health care people. It is being swallowed
by overhead and taxes.

And not all of it, not even most, is government. Check out insurance company
requirements. 500 different insurance companes. 497 different forms to fill
out, each one requiring an amazing degree of experience and patience. These are
not government forms. These are insurance company forms.

Oh, be sure and vote for Edwards. A trial lawer, he will fix it for us!

Probably not. Do you think Shrub will?

Charlie Self
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you
nothing. It was here first." Mark Twain

http://hometown.aol.com/charliediy/m.../business.html

Tom Watson responds:

The answer is a change of attitude and the controlling of greed.

If there is "An Answer", it is a change in concept, back to a previous
concept that we all shared, through education and enculturation.

We were, once upon a time, taught "Citizenship". We learned that we
were a part of a whole.and that we had both rights and
responsibilities.

I hear a lot of people making a lot of noise about "rights' but I do
not hear a concomittent outcry regarding "responsibilities".

At some point we were all convinced that we had become "Consumers",
who have no responsibilities and who have only rights.

Yes. Case in point: my wife and I educate ourselves as much as possible for
every election, local, state and national. We vote, or try to, the issues. The
youngest kid has yet to vote and may never: she's 28 going on 29, and does her
civic "duty" working as a court clerk.

Why?

You got me.

We must again engage the burdens and blessings of Citizenship and
perform our natural function in the Polis

But how, when probably 60% of the public isn't interested, and half or more of
the rest is rabidly for or against some party platform that is of slight
importance on any long term scheme of things?

HTF do we get them interested?

Charlie Self
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you
nothing. It was here first." Mark Twain

http://hometown.aol.com/charliediy/m.../business.html

Larry Jaques responds:

I'm paying careful attention to this election. I don't see much in
the way of raw talent that will make for much of a change.

Same guys. Same attitudes. Same relation to money.

That's why I cannot, in good conscience, ever again vote for a
Republican or Democrat. Some day, when the rest of the sheeple
wake up and vote with their conscience (instead of the paid
whisper in their ears) we'll have more integrity in office.
Until then I'm beginning to think "****, why even vote?

Because some choice is better than none, and none is what you get when you vote
a minority candidate or don't vote.Without the great and befuddled Ralph Nader,
the results of last election might well have been different. Would that be
preferable? I think so, others don't, but it would have been different.
Normally, I'd show my disgust by voting for Dick Gregory. I've got friends who
are planning to write in Al SHarpton (they wouldn't do that if there was even a
minimal chance of him winning). Me, I'll vote, but not for a minority candidate
(in any sense of the word, though I'd like to have seen Powell as a candidate
before he let Bush pre-empt his ethical stances).

Charlie Self
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you
nothing. It was here first." Mark Twain

http://hometown.aol.com/charliediy/m.../business.html

Phil responds:

Trouble is if you allow that, the research and development portions of drug
companies will dry up. No new meds. The drugs that are imported are cheaper
for a whole host of reasons, the big one is the drug companies know they can
get if from the us because we can afford it, most nations can't. It costs
huge bucks to bring a new drug through clinical trials to market. If the
drug company can't recoupe that, they won't bring new drugs into being. Do
you want that?

I don't think anyone is denying a company needs a reasonable level of profit to
advance its R&D and marketing. Drug company profits go beyond that. They are
hog fat and that's after ****ing away tons of money. We keep hearing that they
won' develop as many new drugs if the profit levels are scaled back. Nuts.
That's what they DO! If sales drop off appreciably, they'll come up with new
drugs to maintain the newer profit levels. Maybe what is really needed is some
way to spread the R&D load around the world: why is it possible for me to get,
as an example, Vioxx from a company in New Zealand at a bit over 1/3 the cost
of the U.S. price? Same drug, basically same company. Arrives at my door in 10
days, no charge for shipping. VA doesn't keep it in their pharmacy because of
cost, and I can't afford it at U.S. prices, so I got lucky and found this place
a few years ago.

But there is no desire anywhere to keep the drug companies from recouping their
R&D costs. But once that's done, they've got another 15-16-17 years for the
patent to run at a bloated price to the person who needs the medications.


Your right, my words didn't fit what I meant. It ****es me off, because
we're demanding no costs to use it, insurance should be just that, taking on
risk. The model has changed and the insurance companies know that your going
to spend thousands each year because it doesn't cost the user any extra, so
that becomes the new premium baseline.

Yeah. I can remember BC/BS when I was a kid right out of the Marines. Cost me
maybe 15 bucks a month, but the hospital part didn't kick in until 500 bucks or
so, while the medical had, IIRC, a $50 deductible.

Of course, I was making something like $100 a week then.

Charlie Self
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you
nothing. It was here first." Mark Twain

http://hometown.aol.com/charliediy/m.../business.html

Phil writes:


Try to educate people on real economics, not politics, not lies they have
been told. Vote to shrink government.

Yeah, wellllllllll...I thought that was what some people had done with Shrub.
He was going to downsize government.

IIRC, the last report indicated that he's presided over the largest increase in
history...and much of it is bloat. Homeland Security is going to come back to
haunt taxpayers over the next few decades.

Charlie Self
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you
nothing. It was here first." Mark Twain

http://hometown.aol.com/charliediy/m.../business.html

Do you have a way to save the .SKD file in another format, possibly .DXF,
..WMF or another vector format?

Stephen R.

"Leon" wrote in message
...
CW,

Do you know if there is a way to open .SKD files in AutoCAD? .SKD is the
format that AutoSketch saves or saved drawings. IIRC at one time I could
open these file in older versions of AutoCAD LT. Maybe that was a dream.

On Sat, 07 Feb 2004 06:09:01 +0000, gabriel wrote:

Doug Winterburn wrote:

This is not a new concept... I would buy it if everyione had started
demanding health care in recent years. What is truly happening is
health care cost is going up, with benefits going down. How do you
explain that?
Lawyers.

Nice try, but not true. In most states (all states?) you cannot even sue
an HMO (Can HMOs have politicians any more in their pocket?).

It is explained by two things mainly:

1) Higher drug costs,

2) Longer drug patent terms, which keep high drug costs for a longer time.
As soon as generics come out, drug prices plummet.

And a lot more use of the much larger variety of expensive drugs.

Renata

Was just reading about the latest budget proposal.
He's cutting some social programs, that amount to a teeny part of the
budget.
He's cutting money to first responders (police, fire).
He's increasing defense, but we're still gung ho on gee whiz technical
marvels that are next to useless on the kind of fights we're likely to
be engaged in.
Oh, and of course, the tax cuts need to be permanent, even though they
were supposed to be a stimulus to get the economy moving again.

Renata

On 07 Feb 2004 12:28:06 GMT, otforme (Charlie Self)
wrote:

Phil writes:


Try to educate people on real economics, not politics, not lies they have
been told. Vote to shrink government.

Yeah, wellllllllll...I thought that was what some people had done with Shrub.
He was going to downsize government.

IIRC, the last report indicated that he's presided over the largest increase in
history...and much of it is bloat. Homeland Security is going to come back to
haunt taxpayers over the next few decades.

Charlie Self
"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living. The world owes you
nothing. It was here first." Mark Twain

http://hometown.aol.com/charliediy/m.../business.html

On Fri, 6 Feb 2004 11:54:17 -0800, "CW"
wrote:

Apparently, it wasn't to hard to figure out. You did it.

Yeah, but I've got doubts about Africa becoming another China.
They've got a serious problem with an illness killing many of the
people that would do the work along with a lot of individual nations,
not one large one that sets policy.


"Lazarus Long" wrote in message
.. .
On Thu, 5 Feb 2004 23:09:18 -0800, "CW"
wrote:

Yes, I do. Two things that come to my mind immediately. (1) I will not
live
long enough to see China in Japans place. (3) By that time, they will
figure
out how to industrialize Africa. A lot of that country would love to make
a
dollar a day.


You mean "continent", not country.

Thank you CW, I would appreciate it. Even a way to just view and print the
file world suite me.


"CW" wrote in message
...
May be the older versions but nothing newer will. AutoCAD 2002 (full
version) won't do it. I checked my other programs. Nothing. I'll check
around though. If I find a way, I'll let you know.

"Leon" wrote in message
...
CW,

Do you know if there is a way to open .SKD files in AutoCAD? .SKD is
the
format that AutoSketch saves or saved drawings. IIRC at one time I
could
open these file in older versions of AutoCAD LT. Maybe that was a
dream.