Members DBR Posted December 28, 2011 Members Share Posted December 28, 2011 Hello Folks,I can get into the politics of it all but the only thing I want to say is try to find and buy in America. Otherwise the globalists will be taking over as they have begun to snowball the rollout of tyranny in the U.S. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members hibbasc1 Posted December 28, 2011 Members Share Posted December 28, 2011 Excellent post and thanks for sharing. Let's spread these links to as many as we can, inside and outside this forum. ScottH Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members twostone Posted December 28, 2011 Members Share Posted December 28, 2011 note that re-use is a somewhat more efficient form of recycling. Absolutely is why the planet needs products with a long product life which you can re-use.America use to be the most advance nation in the world thanks to the help of the people of science which created jobs. But some where's along the way America lost sight of being the world's top innovator but instead IMO America has been blinded by the light of bling bling that has corrupted her great political, financial, and justice Institutions. Just my observation of being a first generation immigrant. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 6Imzadi Posted December 28, 2011 Members Share Posted December 28, 2011 Just to be clear, Tommy, science did not create the jobs. It was ambitious people who had working capital that exploited the scientific breakthroughs that created the jobs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted December 28, 2011 Members Share Posted December 28, 2011 History will likely record the downfall of America as being pinned to the period in time at which the richest, most successful Americans were no longer the ones who made money by providing products that people in the world wanted, or even being those people who loaned money to those who provided such products, but instead were the ones who made money just by moving money around and taking comissions from the transfers of this money that had no other purpose except to make others money by earning interest. Most of the "wealth" created during the last 30 years in America has been nothing more than the result of this giant pyramid scheme. There's been no REAL wealth to support it all. Just like that "value" of your home that rose and then fell by so much over the last 10 years, none of it is REAL. Those on the top will scrape off the profits and leave the rest of us holding the hard goods that wealth is based upon which don't really exist. They traded the goods of this country to others overseas, took the huge payouts, and left us Americans holding a bag of beans. But don't worry. Just vote for the other party next time. That will solve everything. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members twostone Posted December 28, 2011 Members Share Posted December 28, 2011 Just to be clear, Tommy, science did not create the jobs. It was ambitious people who had working capital that exploited the scientific breakthroughs that created the jobs. Where would America be at now without science? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted December 28, 2011 Members Share Posted December 28, 2011 I'm not sure that would be such a bad thing. If F.I. a ban were put on imported iphones, don't you think someone here would tool up and start making them? I'm not aware of a USA made touchscreen. I suppose the answer would be yes if 100 million customers would be willing to shell out $2000 a piece. I don't see that happening. Also if it were achiecved by a "ban" on imported phones then Caterpillar would be forced to stop selling machinery to China ... then nobody would be selling anything. It works two ways. The way of capitalism is to let the guy with the best price and value win. If several companies made similar products the competative cost would probably be about what you pay now for the imported one. I doubt it ... unless American worker would be willing to work for less than $1 per hour. Parts is parts and that cost remains pretty much the same. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dboomer Posted December 28, 2011 Members Share Posted December 28, 2011 For what it's worth, our products are 100% made in America. Fo those willing to spend $2000 for a system probably worth every penny. I do notice your catalog doesn't seem have any under $500 wireless mic systems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted December 28, 2011 Members Share Posted December 28, 2011 Just to be clear, Tommy, science did not create the jobs. It was ambitious people who had working capital that exploited the scientific breakthroughs that created the jobs. Just to be clear, it was the demand for the products which created the jobs. The "ambitious people" with working capital didn't create the jobs simply because they had a lot of extra capital lying around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members W. M. Hellinger Posted December 29, 2011 Members Share Posted December 29, 2011 Recycling is a HUGE part of the solution. I'll contend that precycling is a bigger part of the solution. If you can buy something that lasts 10 or 100 times longer and/or does the job more efficently or reliably so you need less, the initial cost becomes a negligable part of the total cost of owning & operating. Beyond that: If with a little thinking about it and doing your homework, you determine the thing is not really needed or serves no useful purpose... not buying it in the first place leaves it ultimately on the manufacture's shelf and it's not replaced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members agedhorse Posted December 29, 2011 Members Share Posted December 29, 2011 Precycling is another large part of the equation, and generally long lifespan items are made of readily recycleable materials too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members W. M. Hellinger Posted December 29, 2011 Members Share Posted December 29, 2011 In the electronics industry there simply are some components that are not available from domestic sources (in manufacturing quanitities) Yup. I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Miko Man Posted December 29, 2011 Members Share Posted December 29, 2011 . Yup. I Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 6Imzadi Posted December 29, 2011 Members Share Posted December 29, 2011 Just to be clear, it was the demand for the products which created the jobs. The "ambitious people" with working capital didn't create the jobs simply because they had a lot of extra capital lying around. I should also point out that taking the time and energy to bring a product to market takes considerable monetary and human resources whether the product is in demand or not. That's why some companies don't make it. And they should be able to go under and not propped up artificially. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted December 29, 2011 Members Share Posted December 29, 2011 I take huge exception to this notion that we should somehow all be in awe of, and in a state of perpetual deep gratitude to the rich because they "give us our jobs". There are a lot of propaganda catch-phrases running around conservative circles along those lines these days: "no poor man ever gave me a job", "the rich are the job-creators", etc. The truth is, the rich need the poor as much as the poor need the rich. Maybe more so. Kudos to Steve Jobs for developing and marketing the iPhone, but without millions of poor/middle-class people able to purchase it, he's got nothing. His great idea and his great marketing ablilities leave him penniless. OTHO, I have little doubt I could make pretty much the same middle-class living for myself that I have right now with zero reliance on the super-wealthy. The truth is, we all need each other. We're all part of the food-chain. Which is why we have a responsiblility to each other that exceeds simply exploiting everyone we can for the greatest personal gain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members 6Imzadi Posted December 29, 2011 Members Share Posted December 29, 2011 I concede. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fdew Posted December 29, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 29, 2011 I take huge exception to this notion that we should somehow all be in awe of, and in a state of perpetual deep gratitude to the rich because they "give us our jobs". There are a lot of propaganda catch-phrases running around conservative circles along those lines these days: "no poor man ever gave me a job", "the rich are the job-creators", etc. The truth is, the rich need the poor as much as the poor need the rich. Maybe more so. Kudos to Steve Jobs for developing and marketing the iPhone, but without millions of poor/middle-class people able to purchase it, he's got nothing. His great idea and his great marketing ablilities leave him penniless. OTHO, I have little doubt I could make pretty much the same middle-class living for myself that I have right now with zero reliance on the super-wealthy. The truth is, we all need each other. We're all part of the food-chain. Which is why we have a responsiblility to each other that exceeds simply exploiting everyone we can for the greatest personal gain. I agree no one should be in awe of, and in a state of perpetual deep gratitude to the rich or to any other human but I do think it is proper to thank God for the rich because they tend to employ a lot of people. Steve Jobs was just another guy when he went to Wall Street to borrow $250K to get Apple going, and he was just another guy when he died, but I thank God for him. The phrase is used by me to remind myself that many, and in fact most rich don't exploit any one. They just work hard, and pay a lot of people a fair wage to help them make money. Many work harder and take more risks then the average person. I think that that entitles them more profit. The rich are not automatically great, or evil. They are just rich. Frank Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted December 29, 2011 Members Share Posted December 29, 2011 I agree no one should be in awe of, and in a state of perpetual deep gratitude to the rich or to any other human but I do think it is proper to thank God for the rich because they tend to employ a lot of people.Steve Jobs was just another guy when he went to Wall Street to borrow $250K to get Apple going, and he was just another guy when he died, but I thank God for him.The phrase is used by me to remind myself that many, and in fact most rich don't exploit any one. They just work hard, and pay a lot of people a fair wage to help them make money. Many work harder and take more risks then the average person. I think that that entitles them more profit. The rich are not automatically great, or evil. They are just rich. Frank Do you think the rich should thank God for all the middle class people who buy their products and thusly make them rich? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fdew Posted December 29, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 29, 2011 Do you think the rich should thank God for all the middle class people who buy their products and thusly make them rich? Absolutely. I only know one rich man. (He was broke 10 years ago.) but I know he thanks God for his customers every day and he will amke sure you know it is god, not him who makes it work. Frank Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Vito Corleone Posted December 29, 2011 Members Share Posted December 29, 2011 Absolutely. I only know one rich man. (He was broke 10 years ago.) but I know he thanks God for his customers every day and he will amke sure you know it is god, not him who makes it work.Frank Then I must say I find it interesting that you spend so much more time talking about how we should all thank God for those who comprise just a small percentage of us than you do suggesting we should thank God for the rest. We need rich people for the system to work, to be sure. And the nature of capitalism ensures there will be winners and losers. But the rich are, to a very large degree, more beneficiaries of the system than they are the drivers of it. SOMEBODY will become rich. What is the determining factor that means it will be you, me or somebody else? Smarts? Hard work? To some degree, probably. But fortunate circumstances are a big part of it as well. Were it not for Steve Jobs, then somebody else would have filled that place in the economic structure. Do the rich work harder than you or me? Some might. Then again, I work pretty damn hard and I've run across far more rich people while they were on vacation than when they were working. I would submit that many don't really work all that hard at all. Just because the result of your work earns you $10 million a year rather than $50,000 doesn't necessarily mean the amount of actual work put in was any more. And almost certainly not THAT much more. One of the signs of our declining society is the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Or even the rich and the middle class. It used to be in America that all the company workers lived in a working class neighborhood and the manager lived at the end of the street in the nicest house. Now he probably doesn't even live in the same town. And he lives in a house that is more comparable to what the robber barons lived in 100 years ago than what someone in his same line of work lived in 50 years ago. Is he working that much harder than his earlier counterparts? Especially in comparison to the work output of the rank-and-file? I don't think so. In the last 20 years we've all seen dozens and hundreds of huge estates being constructed that previously only the very elite-of-the-elite could have afforded. "Who are all these people and where/how do they make their money?" I've wondered. Well, now we know. Most didn't work for it. They were simply the fortunate beneficiaries of a system that has gone painfully out-of-whack. They are no smarter or no more hard working than you or me. Did it take any amazing amount of intelligence or work ethic to be a mortgage broker for Ameriquest? Did these people create any jobs? Should we thank God for their existance? Be careful when thanking God for so many of these rich people you admire so much. Many are the work the of the devil. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fdew Posted December 30, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 30, 2011 Then I must say I find it interesting that you spend so much time talking about how we should all thank God for those who comprise just a small percentage of us than you do suggesting we should thank God for the rest.. I don't spend a lot of time. Just 3 posts ever including this one. It is just a reminder to my self not to demonize anyone because of there wealth or lack of wealth. Many humans are doing good, many are doing evil. For me wealth is just not an indicator of anything except wealth Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members W. M. Hellinger Posted December 30, 2011 Members Share Posted December 30, 2011 And almost certainly not THAT much more. One of the signs of our declining society is the widening gap between the rich and the poor. Or even the rich and the middle class. It used to be in America that all the company workers lived in a working class neighborhood and the manager lived at the end of the street in the nicest house. Now he probably doesn't even live in the same town. And he lives in a house that is more comparable to what the robber barons lived in 100 years ago than what someone in his same line of work lived in 50 years ago. Is he working that much harder than his earlier counterparts? Especially in comparison to the work output of the rank-and-file? I don't think so. I don't consider myself monitarily rich, but I do have the richest life I could have ever hoped for, and we (my wife and I) have invested pretty much every dime both my wife and I ever made in our company, and I do employ 3 full time. Admittedly our mom & pop operation is small-time, but we are the largest employer in our town, and the largest UPS shipper in the local some-odd few hundred square miles, and probably in the upper 1% highest grossing private business' in the local 2 or 3 counties. Liz and I live in a 300 sq. ft. house, which is more than 1/2 taken over by the business. Our house isn't at the end of some residential block, but rather, it's 20ft. from the main business shop (admittedly, Andys shop is a few feet closer to his house than mine). Our daily driver vehicle is a 17 yo. Astrovan that I bought on eBay a few years ago for $1K. Any one of my 4ea. forklifts cost considerably more than my daily driver vehicle... because: My employees also have to make the forklifts function properly, and forklifts get the work done... my daily driver? Well... that's my POS that hauls my ass around... and beyond hauling my ass around, I don't care what it looks like in traffic... so-long as it's doing it's job. All of our cloths (both my wife's and mine) fit easily in a 3ft. wide closet. My wife and I eat home cooked meals made from the most basic of scratch ingredients basically every day of the week (we were digging carrots and parsnips from our garden on Christmas morning). My wife's sum total of kitchen appliances amount to a 5th burner, apartment microwave, an apartment fridge, and an apartment toaster oven... all of which we rescued from the 2nd hand store and I fixed up. We heat almost exclusively with firewood, all of which I cut. Any one of our employee's yearly income exceeds our personal living expenses by at least a 4X factor (actually, the Christmans bonus' I handed out to our employees probably exceed our personal living expenses for the past year)... We (my wife and I) generally eat one meal a day (when we remember to eat something)... and have for over 3 decades. We (my wife and I) generally put in approx. 220 - 250 hours per week combined working for our business... and have for more than 3 decades. My wife and I could have retired in comfort (from a monitary standpoint) at a minimum of some 15 or more years ago (possibly considerably sooner than that)... and we have no idea why it is that we keep doing what we do from a monitary standpoint... other than we both view money as the ways and means to do stuff... and we like doing stuff... we really like making the wheels go around. Our last vacation was in 1991 (and I don't think we'll ever make that mistake again as long as we're both physically capable and have some modicum of sanity, which admittedly escaped us for a few days back in the early '90's). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Dogoth Posted December 30, 2011 Members Share Posted December 30, 2011 I agree no one should be in awe of, and in a state of perpetual deep gratitude to the rich or to any other human but I do think it is proper to thank God for the rich because they tend to employ a lot of people.Steve Jobs was just another guy when he went to Wall Street to borrow $250K to get Apple going, and he was just another guy when he died, but I thank God for him.The phrase is used by me to remind myself that many, and in fact most rich don't exploit any one. They just work hard, and pay a lot of people a fair wage to help them make money. Many work harder and take more risks then the average person. I think that that entitles them more profit. The rich are not automatically great, or evil. They are just rich. Frank I can't believe I'm jumping back into the fire here (I promised myself I'd leave this thread alone). Taken on an individual basis, I'd agree BUT to generalize, I'd say the majority of "rich" (maybe we need some definition here) got that way by something less than ethical means. Notice I didn't say legal (the divergence of the two is long lost). There is still the occasional person who had a good idea, took it to market and produced a better product (IMO this is honestly made money). Most of the money made in this country by the "rich" was made by simply taking a piece as it went by. This doesn't sound to me like "They just work hard, and pay a lot of people a fair wage". In all of my years as an employee, I've never worked for a rich person. I've always worked for myself and have had agreements (formal & informal) about a fair exchange of labor for money. Pragmaticly though, when there is nowhere else to go, you stay where you are and charge what the market will allow. Thanks to those unscuplious enough to do business with countries that UNDERPAY their employees, that's not as much as it used to be. Even Christianity abhores the money lenders. They were looked down upon until recent times. The term shylark came from "the merchant of venice". In Shapespear's time (not all that long ago) it was considered a sin to take money from your neighbor in such a fashion. What dictates how rich a country is is not the dollar/euro/wyan/rupee figure but the GDP (actual goods produced by labor). This country used to have a solid industrial base. It has now moved to other countries who aren't under as much scrutiny as to how they treat people (read employees). I say shame on those who are willing to exploit the poor people of Malaysia (or ________fill in the blank) for their own personal gain or worse yet feel the "right" to make money buy just moving money around. I understand risk, and it should be rewarded if it's taken trying to start a business that is in some way healthy for society but making risky loans isn't IMHO a noble occupation. Just my .02 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members W. M. Hellinger Posted December 30, 2011 Members Share Posted December 30, 2011 Even Christianity abhores the money lenders. They were looked down upon until recent times. The term shylark came from "the merchant of venice". In Shapespear's time (not all that long ago) it was considered a sin to take money from your neighbor in such a fashion. Yes, I believe you are correct. I'm of the understanding that it is against some (or possibly many) religious (or basic ethical) philosophies to intend to gain from helping someone in need. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members fdew Posted December 30, 2011 Author Members Share Posted December 30, 2011 I can't believe I'm jumping back into the fire here (I promised myself I'd leave this thread alone).Just my .02 I think what you are saying is that the bad rich are bad and the good rich are good. I agree. I just need to keep reminding my self not to generalize. W. M. Hellinger's story is a good example of why I won't generalize. Frank Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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