OT: James Arthur, the perfect market and the perfect op amp

[John Larkin]

On Sun, 14 Aug 2011 14:57:16 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com
wrote:

On Aug 14, 5:04 pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:
Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
On 08/14/2011 03:30 PM, Nico Coesel wrote:
dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:30=A0pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

The idea that companies stand by their product is something you should
let go. They are only interested in maximising profits. Show me an
honest sales person. They are extinct like dinosaurs.

Honest companies prosper because people trust them.  Honesty is in
their economic interest, especially if they're going to be around very
long.

Sorry, but that is a lie. Sales people like to use that to gain your
trust.

Just look at Microsoft and how long they are getting away by selling
crap. Its all about marketing, not about quality. In general: count
the number of adds touting 'new formula', 'better taste', 'stronger
than ever'. Like the original product was crap!

Yesterday I bought an inkjet.  I specifically avoided and did NOT buy
a Hewlett-Packard because I don't trust them.  How does that help HP?

I used to do the opposite, because once upon a time I knew that if HP
made it, it was excellent.  But Carly Fiorina's HP sold me some shoddy
gear.  I haven't trusted them since.

HP may have lost one customer but by lowering the prices and quality
they gained hundreds of new customers. HP still has good business gear
but you must be willing to pay a bit more.

Do you lie like that when it's in your economic interest?

I do not own HP shares neither am I somehow employed by them.
Actually, when I announced to be self-employed someone warned me my
honesty would cost me money at some point

I owned HP shares. I sold them (profitably) the moment I bought
something from them that was grossly inferior, because I knew at that
point they weren't the company they used to be.

Two cool books:

"The HP Way" by David Packard

"The Way Forward" by Carly Fiorina

John

 

[Les Cargill]

dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:50 pm, Les Cargill<lcargil...@comcast.com> wrote:
Jim Thompson wrote:

Utter nonsense. What we are seeing is companies so afraid of the Obama
policies they're sitting tight until an administration change.

"Regulatory uncertainty" is mostly a red herring.
http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/playing-regulatory-uncertainty...

We'll get a natural experiment as the court ruling on the individual
mandate plays out in markets, but I predict "no effect". That
may be because they're waiting for a SCOTUS ruling. I'd bet
"no effect" then, too.

Survey data shows weak demand as more of a factor than
regulatory uncertainty.


The SBA estimates compliance with federal regulations cost $1.75
trillion dollars in 2008.
http://www.sba.gov/content/impact-regulatory-costs-small-firms-0

It only really "costs" if it's ineffective and it drives out
otherwise productive activity. This being said, $1.75T is a
whale of a lot. And a lot of it probably is ineffective.

We're in such a "null" economically that it's not out of
the question that additional regulation have a multiplier greater
than one! Obviously, that's not normally the case.

Given that cost, why would firms be other than concerned about the
reams of new regulations presently being pumped out night and day?
That would be irrational. They should, for example, have a rational
expectation that Obamacare and other regs are going to significantly
add to their cost of employing someone. That, or make a rational
determination to dump employer-based healthcare, as many firms--1/3rd
IIRC--have indicated they will.

That's true. But something like 64% already offer health care.

That's a bit of a strawman though--there are numerous actual effects
of the President's policies contributing to the whole mess, like
yelling at coal companies, seizing car companies, stopping oil
drilling, dispossessing bond holders, stopping states from defending
themselves, preventing companies from locating where they want to, and
on and on.

I just want to keep the signalling separate from what really hits the
bottom line.

All these things incite fear, and redirect people from doing other
more important things.

No argument there. What I am seeing, however, is more like companies
have embraced something like "survivor bias" as the central
tenet of corporate culture. I've seen... lots of people walk
away from business because of inadequate capacity. They fear
adding capacity because business is then down...

Then there's the whole focus on "envy your neighbor and we'll get you
more of his." Setting neighbor against neighbor isn't as good as
encouraging each person to seek their own best fortune.

I really don't see that *much*. It exists, but it's pretty rare.

All this disrupts the civil society. A society ill-at-ease, afraid of
their government, is not as cheerful or productive.


There's very little actual difference* between Obama's
policies and Bush's ( and there was even less difference
between Bush and Clinton) . Even if say, Rick Perry beat Obama
in 2012, why would anybody think he'd behave differently?

You mean why would he stop attacking employers and employment? Why
wouldn't he?

Maybe he will, maybe he won't. I am just saying that people behave
differently after being elected - and in a remarkably consistent
manner. I would not have expected Obama to deploy drones; I would
not have expected Bush to run up deficits.

--
Cheers,
James Arthur

--
Les Cargill

 

[Nico Coesel]

Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 08/14/2011 05:04 PM, Nico Coesel wrote:
Phil Hobbs<pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 08/14/2011 03:30 PM, Nico Coesel wrote:
dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:30=A0pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

The idea that companies stand by their product is something you should
let go. They are only interested in maximising profits. Show me an
honest sales person. They are extinct like dinosaurs.

Honest companies prosper because people trust them. Honesty is in
their economic interest, especially if they're going to be around very
long.

Sorry, but that is a lie. Sales people like to use that to gain your
trust.

Just look at Microsoft and how long they are getting away by selling
crap. Its all about marketing, not about quality. In general: count
the number of adds touting 'new formula', 'better taste', 'stronger
than ever'. Like the original product was crap!

Yesterday I bought an inkjet. I specifically avoided and did NOT buy
a Hewlett-Packard because I don't trust them. How does that help HP?

I used to do the opposite, because once upon a time I knew that if HP
made it, it was excellent. But Carly Fiorina's HP sold me some shoddy
gear. I haven't trusted them since.

HP may have lost one customer but by lowering the prices and quality
they gained hundreds of new customers. HP still has good business gear
but you must be willing to pay a bit more.


Do you lie like that when it's in your economic interest?

I do not own HP shares neither am I somehow employed by them.
Actually, when I announced to be self-employed someone warned me my
honesty would cost me money at some point


If you're honest, why do you impute dishonesty to everyone else?

Its not everyone else but the problem is that in many cases it is very
difficult to tell whether someone is acting in your best interest or
his/her own.

For instance, I'm finding it very difficult to find a reliable place
to get my car fixed (the law says I must take it to the garage for an
annual check). I thought I had found one but the last time he charged
€7 (thats about $10) for adding some wiper fluid and he wrecked the
switch for the head-light adjustment.

There are lots of straight shooters in the world, which is a good thing
because otherwise civilization would end abruptly.

Thats true. So far I always got good customer service from Ebay
sellers based in the US.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Phil Hobbs]

On 08/14/2011 03:30 PM, Nico Coesel wrote:

dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:30=A0pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

The idea that companies stand by their product is something you should
let go. They are only interested in maximising profits. Show me an
honest sales person. They are extinct like dinosaurs.

Honest companies prosper because people trust them. Honesty is in
their economic interest, especially if they're going to be around very
long.

Sorry, but that is a lie. Sales people like to use that to gain your
trust.

You keep going on like that. Some sales people are crooks, but some
aren't. Assuming without evidence that other people are less virtuous
than you is not a good strategy. Just saying.

Cheers

Phil Hobbs


--
Dr Philip C D Hobbs
Principal Consultant
ElectroOptical Innovations LLC
Optics, Electro-optics, Photonics, Analog Electronics

160 North State Road #203
Briarcliff Manor NY 10510
845-480-2058

hobbs at electrooptical dot net
http://electrooptical.net

 

On Aug 14, 5:04 pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:
On 08/14/2011 03:30 PM, Nico Coesel wrote:
dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:30=A0pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

The idea that companies stand by their product is something you should
let go. They are only interested in maximising profits. Show me an
honest sales person. They are extinct like dinosaurs.

Honest companies prosper because people trust them.  Honesty is in
their economic interest, especially if they're going to be around very
long.

Sorry, but that is a lie. Sales people like to use that to gain your
trust.

Just look at Microsoft and how long they are getting away by selling
crap. Its all about marketing, not about quality. In general: count
the number of adds touting 'new formula', 'better taste', 'stronger
than ever'. Like the original product was crap!

Yesterday I bought an inkjet.  I specifically avoided and did NOT buy
a Hewlett-Packard because I don't trust them.  How does that help HP?

I used to do the opposite, because once upon a time I knew that if HP
made it, it was excellent.  But Carly Fiorina's HP sold me some shoddy
gear.  I haven't trusted them since.

HP may have lost one customer but by lowering the prices and quality
they gained hundreds of new customers. HP still has good business gear
but you must be willing to pay a bit more.

Do you lie like that when it's in your economic interest?

I do not own HP shares neither am I somehow employed by them.
Actually, when I announced to be self-employed someone warned me my
honesty would cost me money at some point

I owned HP shares. I sold them (profitably) the moment I bought
something from them that was grossly inferior, because I knew at that
point they weren't the company they used to be.

The stock later plummeted to a fraction. Selling shoddy stuff hurt
them badly.

They got the message. They fired their CEO. They changed. I think
they're better now, but their ink-jet business practices just don't
smell right (selling pennies of ink for tens of dollars, with dollars
in cost to prevent you from refilling). I still don't trust them.

--
Cheers,
James Arthur

 

[krw@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz]

On Sun, 14 Aug 2011 10:50:16 -0700, John Larkin
<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sun, 14 Aug 2011 02:04:53 -0700, Rich Grise
richg@example.net.invalid> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:54:02 GMT, nico@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel)
John Larkin <jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

and europe; look at the debt crisies in europe. Did any government
economists do anything to prevent these? On the contrary, governments
and their financial ministries caused all these messes.

No, greed and total lack of any moral integrity caused the mess! The
problem is that big companies no longer value their customers. Letting
(big) companies do what they want leads to mass destruction.

You blame companies for grotesque government benefits and borrowing?

They fail to realize that companies can't steal from you, but only sell
you their products. If you don't like the company, you can simply not
buy their crap. With government, you don't have that option. But they
worship the ground that the bureaucrats slither across.

Cheers!
Rich

Companies can steal, and some reasonable legal protections make sense.
Stealing has been illegal since biblical times.

So, why are all 2x4s actually 1.75x3.75 inches?

Historical reasons (they're 3.5x1.5, actually). Originally, that was the
rough-cut dimension. You bought the shavings. Things have been resized a
couple of times since.

Why is a 1x12 actually 3/4 x 11?

3/4 x 11 1/4 (softwoods). A 1" hardwood plank, planed two sides, would be
9/16" thick.

Where is the Consumer Protection Department on this?

These standards have been around a *long* time.

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Aug 15, 7:13 am, Phil Hobbs
<pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 08/14/2011 05:04 PM, Nico Coesel wrote:



Phil Hobbs<pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net>  wrote:

On 08/14/2011 03:30 PM, Nico Coesel wrote:
dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:30=A0pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

The idea that companies stand by their product is something you should
let go. They are only interested in maximising profits. Show me an
honest sales person. They are extinct like dinosaurs.

Honest companies prosper because people trust them.  Honesty is in
their economic interest, especially if they're going to be around very
long.

Sorry, but that is a lie. Sales people like to use that to gain your
trust.

Just look at Microsoft and how long they are getting away by selling
crap. Its all about marketing, not about quality. In general: count
the number of adds touting 'new formula', 'better taste', 'stronger
than ever'. Like the original product was crap!

Yesterday I bought an inkjet.  I specifically avoided and did NOT buy
a Hewlett-Packard because I don't trust them.  How does that help HP?

I used to do the opposite, because once upon a time I knew that if HP
made it, it was excellent.  But Carly Fiorina's HP sold me some shoddy
gear.  I haven't trusted them since.

HP may have lost one customer but by lowering the prices and quality
they gained hundreds of new customers. HP still has good business gear
but you must be willing to pay a bit more.

Do you lie like that when it's in your economic interest?

I do not own HP shares neither am I somehow employed by them.
Actually, when I announced to be self-employed someone warned me my
honesty would cost me money at some point

If you're honest, why do you impute dishonesty to everyone else?

Rational people don't. James Arthur was irrationality imputing
dishonesty to the whole of HP on the basis of localised dishonesty in
the part of teh company that makes low-end printers, and Nico Coesel
was - perfectly rationally - pointing out that this was an over-
generalisation.

There are lots of straight shooters in the world, which is a good thing
because otherwise civilization would end abruptly.

The majority of human beings are straight shooters, and human society
depends on this. It seems likely that the human brain and language
evolved in large part to let us work together cooperatively and
altruistically while keeping track of one another's behaviour
sufficiently carefully to be able to catch cheats and stop them taking
an unfair share of our collective efforts.

The psychopathic minority is small, but they have the potential to
syphon off huge amounts of labour and resources if they aren't watched
and sanctioned.

Evolutionary biologists are fascinated by altruism - it's rare in
other species.

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

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Aug 15, 4:45 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:30 pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

The idea that companies stand by their product is something you should
let go. They are only interested in maximising profits. Show me an
honest sales person. They are extinct like dinosaurs.

Honest companies prosper because people trust them.  Honesty is in
their economic interest, especially if they're going to be around very
long.  Honesty maximizes profits.

Wrong. There are various ways to maximise profits. Most involve
involve defrauding the customer to some extent by restricting the
customer's access to genuinely competitive suppliers. As we know,
companies have to be watched to prevent them setting up monopolistic
cartels that agree to charge higher prices than the customer would end
up paying in a genuinely free market. Even in the absence of formal
cartels, companies can exploit advertising and brand management to
generate customer loyalty which lets them charge more than their
competitors for an effectively identical product.

The American military-industrial complex is a particularly flagrant
case in point. The AK-47 is well-known to be the best assault rifle
around - in Vietnam the US forces would use captured examples in
preference to the guns that they had been trained to use - but the US
army still uses the inferior substitute that US military-industrial
complex manufactures.

 Politicians have no such incentive.

Politicians have exactly equivalent incentives to behave honestly, and
need to be watched just as closely as businesses. James Arthur
displays the normal human weakness for doing what he's always done,
and believes everything that the Republican party tells him, and
nothing that any Democrat tells him. This isn't an optimal strategy -
he's been suckered by brand loyalty.

Yesterday I bought an inkjet.  I specifically avoided and did NOT buy
a Hewlett-Packard because I don't trust them.  How does that help HP?

I used to do the opposite, because once upon a time I knew that if HP
made it, it was excellent.  But Carly Fiorina's HP sold me some shoddy
gear.  I haven't trusted them since.

My reason for not buying HP ink-jet printers is a trifle more
rational. They work by - briefly - heating the ink to the boiling
point in the printing head, which is rough on the printing head, so it
has to be replaced frequently. Epson uses a piezo-electric print head,
which lasts for years.

Generalising from a particular piece of kit to a whole product line is
irrational, but that's what makes brand loyalty work.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Aug 15, 5:52 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:50 pm, Les Cargill <lcargil...@comcast.com> wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
Utter nonsense.  What we are seeing is companies so afraid of the Obama
policies they're sitting tight until an administration change.

"Regulatory uncertainty" is mostly a red herring.
http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/playing-regulatory-uncertainty....

We'll get a natural experiment as the court ruling on the individual
mandate plays out in markets, but I predict "no effect". That
may be because they're waiting for a SCOTUS ruling. I'd bet
"no effect" then, too.

Survey data shows weak demand as more of a factor than
regulatory uncertainty.

The SBA estimates  compliance with federal regulations cost $1.75
trillion dollars in 2008.http://www.sba.gov/content/impact-regulatory-costs-small-firms-0

As might be expected in something you'd cite, this study doesn't make
any attempt to evaluate the financial benefits of the regulations that
are being complied with. Onerous "irrelevancies" like the safe
disposal of poisonous waste obviously benefit the people who don't
suffer from the consequences of tipping unsorted rubbish into an
unused canal.

Given that cost, why would firms be other than concerned about the
reams of new regulations presently being pumped out night and day?
That would be irrational.  They should, for example, have a rational
expectation that Obamacare and other regs are going to significantly
add to their cost of employing someone.  That, or make a rational
determination to dump employer-based healthcare, as many firms--1/3rd
IIRC--have indicated they will.

Employer-based health care is a bad idea. Universal health care works
rather better, and pretty much every other country that has
implemented it ends up with a price per head that is at least a third
lower than the US pays. The best examples - France and Germany - offer
everybody the same level of health care that only the fully insured
enjoy in the US, at about 65% of the price per head.

That's a bit of a strawman though--there are numerous actual effects
of the President's policies contributing to the whole mess, like
yelling at coal companies,

How does it contribute if the coal comapnies don't pay and attention?

seizing car companies,

Who had gone bankrupt and were consequently worth nothing to their
share-holders

stopping oil drilling,

Continuing a long-standing policy which Dubbya had tried to dismantle,
in the interests of the oil-companies who had funded his election
campaign

<snipped the rest of the misinformation>

All these things incite fear, and redirect people from doing other
more important things.

They shouldn't actually incite fear, because they are actually
business as usual. James Arthur likes to present them as if they ought
to inspire fear because he's a right-wing political propagandist with
an axe to grind.

Then there's the whole focus on "envy your neighbor and we'll get you
more of his."  Setting neighbor against neighbor isn't as good as
encouraging each person to seek their own best fortune.

Providing that this doesn't involve opting for cheap - but dangerous -
waste disposal in - say - Love Canal, rather than paying more to
dispose of toxic waste safely.

All this disrupts the civil society.  A society ill-at-ease, afraid of
their government, is not as cheerful or productive.

So James Arthur's attempts to spread alarm and dispondency are
actually treason?

There's very little actual difference* between Obama's
policies and Bush's ( and there was even less difference
between Bush and Clinton) . Even if say, Rick Perry beat Obama
in 2012,  why would anybody think he'd behave differently?

You mean why would he stop attacking employers and employment?  Why
wouldn't he?

Because he's a right-winger, and his brief is to work to maximise the
advantages of the employers vis a vis their employees?

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Aug 15, 3:50 am, John Larkin
<jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

On Sun, 14 Aug 2011 02:04:53 -0700, Rich Grise



ri...@example.net.invalid> wrote:
John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:54:02 GMT, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel)
John Larkin <jjlar...@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

and europe; look at the debt crisies in europe. Did any government
economists do anything to prevent these? On the contrary, governments
and their financial ministries caused all these messes.

No, greed and total lack of any moral integrity caused the mess! The
problem is that big companies no longer value their customers. Letting
(big) companies do what they want leads to mass destruction.

You blame companies for grotesque government benefits and borrowing?

They fail to realize that companies can't steal from you, but only sell
you their products. If you don't like the company, you can simply not
buy their crap. With government, you don't have that option. But they
worship the ground that the bureaucrats slither across.

Cheers!
Rich

Companies can steal, and some reasonable legal protections make sense.
Stealing has been illegal since biblical times.

So, why are all 2x4s actually 1.75x3.75 inches? Why is a 1x12 actually
3/4 x 11? Where is the Consumer Protection Department on this?

Historically speaking, the wood was sold "as sawn", and planed flat as
an extra operation, if you wanted that. Since planing involves taking
off wood, the dimensions after planing are smaler than those of the
original sawn planks.

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen

 

[Michael A. Terrell]

Les Cargill wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Sun, 14 Aug 2011 02:04:53 -0700, Rich Grise
richg@example.net.invalid> wrote:

John Larkin wrote:
On Sat, 13 Aug 2011 22:54:02 GMT, nico@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel)
John Larkin<jjlarkin@highNOTlandTHIStechnologyPART.com> wrote:

and europe; look at the debt crisies in europe. Did any government
economists do anything to prevent these? On the contrary, governments
and their financial ministries caused all these messes.

No, greed and total lack of any moral integrity caused the mess! The
problem is that big companies no longer value their customers. Letting
(big) companies do what they want leads to mass destruction.

You blame companies for grotesque government benefits and borrowing?

They fail to realize that companies can't steal from you, but only sell
you their products. If you don't like the company, you can simply not
buy their crap. With government, you don't have that option. But they
worship the ground that the bureaucrats slither across.

Cheers!
Rich

Companies can steal, and some reasonable legal protections make sense.
Stealing has been illegal since biblical times.

So, why are all 2x4s actually 1.75x3.75 inches? Why is a 1x12 actually
3/4 x 11? Where is the Consumer Protection Department on this?

Typical Larkinism BS. 2" X 4" are the rough cut dimensions, right
after being saw from logs. You can still buy them that way from a local
sawmill, but very few people want to use them that way. They want
milled lumber that's easier to handle, and less likely to cause injury
during construction work. You might enjoy having hundreds of splinters
in your body to become infected, but most people don't.

So why do people drive on parkways and park on driveways?

--
Les Cargill

--
Subject: Spelling Lesson

The last four letters in American.........I Can
The last four letters in Republican.......I Can
The last four letters in Democrats.........Rats

End of lesson. Test to follow in November, 2012

Remember, November is to be set aside as rodent extermination month.

 

[Martin Brown]

On 14/08/2011 19:04, Les Cargill wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Sun, 14 Aug 2011 17:30:16 GMT, nico@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

Jim Thompson<To-Email-Use-The-Envelope-Icon@On-My-Web-Site.com
wrote:

On Sun, 14 Aug 2011 15:06:24 GMT, nico@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

Its not socialist crap. You have no idea what socialism actually is.

The point the "Yes men" are trying to make is that companies don't
care whether you live or die because of their products as long as they
make a profit!

Of course not... why should they?? Companies don't owe you shit,
other than
to stand by any product they sell you. Nobody _makes_ you purchase any

They often plan never to even do that where some financial products are
concerned. The banking collapse was amplified by hedge funds designinga
products that would be practically guaranteed to fail, getting them sold
by a third party and then betting on the failures. That is pretty much
fraud in anybodies book but it has not (yet) been prosecuted.

What they were doing was the equivalent of buying home insurance on your
neighbours house and then going a lobbying in a Molotov cocktail.

Same with private pensions and endowments a large proportion of what you
pay in ends up as fees and bonuses for the sales force. The endowment
sales bonus problem in the UK during the 1980's was so bad that they
have been cleaning up the mis-selling scandal ever since (ie salesmen
deliberately lying to customers to maximise their own income).

The idea that companies stand by their product is something you should
let go. They are only interested in maximising profits. Show me an
honest sales person. They are extinct like dinosaurs.

Sales people are _normally_ dishonest. Why do you expect differently?
Do you
need mommy to help you decide your purchases? I think you do ;-)

The purpose of a good salesmen is to get the customer to suspend
disbelief for just long enough to sign the purchase order. They are
complete bastards and in hitech companies selling large kit on long lead
times they know damn well that they will have moved onwards and upwards
before the shit hits the fan for the impossible product specification
they have just sold. They will do anything to maximise their bonus
package, absolutely anything.

I have seen some specs that would require the repeal of more than one
law of physics. The company was used to not getting the last 10% of
purchase price due to failed unrealistic final acceptance tests.

It is always worth asking a salesman how long have you been with the
company. Beware of any that have less than four years track record. YMMV

There is an interesting test of salesmen vs technical guys I recall from
an interview a long time ago. I later extracted the correct saleman
answer out of the recruitment consultant.

The scenario is you are stuck with a broken leg on the far side of the
moon in a hut with a fit colleague, a broken radio, limited oxygen
supplies, spade, gun, wheelbarrow and a bunch of other bits and pieces.

The salesmans solution is: he grabs the gun, sits in the wheelbarrow and
forces his colleague to push him to safety under duress.

The technical solution involves mending the radio whilst sending the fit
guy off to get help.

*Good* sales people are *NOT* dishonest. They figure out you're wasting
their time and move on. Granted, many people think "Glen Garry Glen
Ross" is a sales course these days...

There are very few *good* salespeople then. Most of the ones I have met
were charming but would always do whatever it took to get their bonus
and would lie through their teeth if they thought it would close a deal.

I did have the amusement once of telling an arrogant prat of a salesman
that his discourteous handling of our customers business cards in Japan
had just lost him an order worth $500k - and also that the $500 bar bill
he picked up on his Amex the night before was actually for $5k.

And as for the salespeople in the average high street box shifters their
product knowledge these days is strictly limited to whatever is printed
on the ratings plate on the back of the unit.

Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Martin Brown]

On 15/08/2011 00:01, Phil Hobbs wrote:

On 08/14/2011 03:30 PM, Nico Coesel wrote:
dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:30=A0pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

The idea that companies stand by their product is something you should
let go. They are only interested in maximising profits. Show me an
honest sales person. They are extinct like dinosaurs.

Honest companies prosper because people trust them. Honesty is in
their economic interest, especially if they're going to be around very
long.

Sorry, but that is a lie. Sales people like to use that to gain your
trust.

You keep going on like that. Some sales people are crooks, but some
aren't. Assuming without evidence that other people are less virtuous
than you is not a good strategy. Just saying.

That they are a salesman is evidence enough that they cannot be trusted.
They may be charming and good company but their purpose is to separate
you from as much money as possible for the smallest amount of goods. If
you remember that then you will not go far wrong.

Assuming that the salesman facing you is more interested in maximising
his own bonus than in selling you the right product to meet your needs
is actually a very sound strategy. If you keep this in mind and watch
out for the ones that have jumped ships every four years you will have a
much better chance of ending up with the right solution.

Avoid agreeing to include lock-out specs that favour one manufacturer
(unless you *really* want to pay more for less).

I have been on both sides of the fence on good and bad deals. The only
time I got seriously burned as a buyer was precisely because I had
formed a too good relationship with their sales guy and trusted what he
said. In fact their 4 CPU mode was not supported or supportable at the
time we bought the box and they were gambling we would never need it.

But we did and very suddenly after we took over another company. Then
all hell broke loose when we discovered 4 CPU mode was unstable.

Regards,
Martin Brown

 

On Aug 14, 9:16 pm, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Aug 15, 7:13 am, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 08/14/2011 05:04 PM, Nico Coesel wrote:

Phil Hobbs<pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net>  wrote:

Do you lie like that when it's in your economic interest?

I do not own HP shares neither am I somehow employed by them.
Actually, when I announced to be self-employed someone warned me my
honesty would cost me money at some point

If you're honest, why do you impute dishonesty to everyone else?

Rational people don't. James Arthur was irrationality imputing
dishonesty to the whole of HP on the basis of localised dishonesty in
the part of teh company that makes low-end printers,

No, that's you opining without information. I bought a computer, not
a printer, prior to the divestitures. The thermal design was outright
negligent, causing separate failures of the power supply and hard
drive. I corrected the flaws myself and am still using it. It hasn't
failed since.

The old HP would never, EVER have shipped that computer. Ever.

and Nico Coesel
was - perfectly rationally - pointing out that this was an over-
generalisation.

It certainly was not an over-generalization, it was a completely
accurate judgement that the company had lost its way, and no longer
provided the absolutely impeccable products that people had been
willing to pay more for.

In short, they'd ruined their good name and reputation, and were set
to lose the enormous goodwill and financial value that goes with it.

Experienced in business and as investor, I was assessing their value
as a business. I was 100% right. I sold my shares for many times
what they traded for just a few years later.

 

On Aug 14, 9:42 pm, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Aug 15, 5:52 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:



On Aug 14, 1:50 pm, Les Cargill <lcargil...@comcast.com> wrote:

Jim Thompson wrote:
Utter nonsense.  What we are seeing is companies so afraid of the Obama
policies they're sitting tight until an administration change.

"Regulatory uncertainty" is mostly a red herring.
http://www.remappingdebate.org/article/playing-regulatory-uncertainty...

We'll get a natural experiment as the court ruling on the individual
mandate plays out in markets, but I predict "no effect". That
may be because they're waiting for a SCOTUS ruling. I'd bet
"no effect" then, too.

Survey data shows weak demand as more of a factor than
regulatory uncertainty.

The SBA estimates  compliance with federal regulations cost $1.75
trillion dollars in 2008.http://www.sba.gov/content/impact-regulatory-costs-small-firms-0

As might be expected in something you'd cite, this study doesn't make
any attempt to evaluate the financial benefits of the regulations that
are being complied with. Onerous "irrelevancies" like the safe
disposal of poisonous waste obviously benefit the people who don't
suffer from the consequences of tipping unsorted rubbish into an
unused canal.

Given that cost, why would firms be other than concerned about the
reams of new regulations presently being pumped out night and day?
That would be irrational.  They should, for example, have a rational
expectation that Obamacare and other regs are going to significantly
add to their cost of employing someone.  That, or make a rational
determination to dump employer-based healthcare, as many firms--1/3rd
IIRC--have indicated they will.

Employer-based health care is a bad idea. Universal health care works
rather better, and pretty much every other country that has
implemented it ends up with a price per head that is at least a third
lower than the US pays. The best examples - France and Germany - offer
everybody the same level of health care that only the fully insured
enjoy in the US, at about 65% of the price per head.

We get better care, and we pay more for it. So what? We pay more for
food than someone in Ethiopia too.

Most of the extra cost is directly the result of government
intervention--they pay more than half the bills already, and they
increased that at 7% a year before Obamacare, and 9% since.

That's a bit of a strawman though--there are numerous actual effects
of the President's policies contributing to the whole mess, like
yelling at coal companies,

How does it contribute if the coal comapnies don't pay and attention?

Drivel. The President pre-announced that he was going to bankrupt
coal-based enterprises--the source of most of America's electricity.
He's doing it.

I heard an estimate that just one EPA regulation currently being
drafted will retire 8% of the US' generating capacity.

seizing car companies,

Who had gone bankrupt and were consequently worth nothing to their
share-holders

Wrong.

stopping oil drilling,

Continuing a long-standing policy which Dubbya had tried to dismantle,
in the interests of the oil-companies who had funded his election
campaign

snipped the rest of the misinformation

Not a single item was misinformation--you're misinformed.

All these things incite fear, and redirect people from doing other
more important things.

They shouldn't actually incite fear, because they are actually
business as usual.

Name a President, other than a dictator, who dispossessed secured
bondholders? Who's demanded $20 billion in ransom from a company
without first a determination that they were even in the wrong? Whose
administration has prevented companies from locating where they will?

It was the President who recently suggested publicly, several times,
that Social Security checks might not be paid.

He said that deliberately to scare people. There was never any such
possibility. He made it up--it wasn't true.

--
Cheers,
James Arthur

 

On Aug 14, 8:58 pm, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:

On Aug 15, 4:45 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

 Politicians have no such incentive.

Politicians have exactly equivalent incentives to behave honestly

No they don't. The penalties are far smaller, and rarely enforced.

The President attempted to bribe at least two people running for
office (Joe Sestak was one), a felony. Penalty? Nope.

The President deliberately misled seniors recently into thinking their
SS checks might be in danger. An absolute lie. Penalty? None.

It has surfaced recently that the CBO was deliberately required to
score Obamacare in a fashion that understated the true cost by
hundreds of billions (omitting dependents of newly eligible), so that
Obama could claim it cost less than it actually does. Penalty? None.

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article.aspx?id=581079&p=1

The Attorney General has done more than enough to be put away, Tim
Geithner has told a number of whoppers--voters' recourse? Nada.
They're Obama's appointees, beyond the voters' reach.

Politicians are far worse than companies.

 

[Nico Coesel]

dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 9:16=A0pm, Bill Sloman <bill.slo...@ieee.org> wrote:
On Aug 15, 7:13=A0am, Phil Hobbs wrote:
On 08/14/2011 05:04 PM, Nico Coesel wrote:

Phil Hobbs<pcdhSpamMeSensel...@electrooptical.net> =A0wrote:

Do you lie like that when it's in your economic interest?

I do not own HP shares neither am I somehow employed by them.
Actually, when I announced to be self-employed someone warned me my
honesty would cost me money at some point

If you're honest, why do you impute dishonesty to everyone else?

Rational people don't. James Arthur was irrationality imputing
dishonesty to the whole of HP on the basis of localised dishonesty in
the part of teh company that makes low-end printers,

No, that's you opining without information. I bought a computer, not
a printer, prior to the divestitures. The thermal design was outright
negligent, causing separate failures of the power supply and hard
drive. I corrected the flaws myself and am still using it. It hasn't
failed since.

The main question is: is this a business or consumer product?
In the mid 90s I repaired computers. I quickly learned that the big
brands had business products which just work and consumer products
which won't work.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Nico Coesel]

Phil Hobbs <pcdhSpamMeSenseless@electrooptical.net> wrote:

On 08/14/2011 03:30 PM, Nico Coesel wrote:
dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:30=A0pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

The idea that companies stand by their product is something you should
let go. They are only interested in maximising profits. Show me an
honest sales person. They are extinct like dinosaurs.

Honest companies prosper because people trust them. Honesty is in
their economic interest, especially if they're going to be around very
long.

Sorry, but that is a lie. Sales people like to use that to gain your
trust.

You keep going on like that. Some sales people are crooks, but some
aren't.

I have been burned a couple of times over the past decades. The
problem is seperating the good sales people from the bad. If you have
to do that by experience, then you are always too late.

--
Failure does not prove something is impossible, failure simply
indicates you are not using the right tools...
nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
--------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Martin Brown]

On 14/08/2011 19:45, dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:30 pm, n...@puntnl.niks (Nico Coesel) wrote:

The idea that companies stand by their product is something you should
let go. They are only interested in maximising profits. Show me an
honest sales person. They are extinct like dinosaurs.

Honest companies prosper because people trust them. Honesty is in
their economic interest, especially if they're going to be around very
long. Honesty maximizes profits. Politicians have no such incentive.

Pump and dump maximises returns for the senior executives if they can
time it just right. If some fool can be persuaded to buy the company at
the top of the market then they carry the can when things turn sour.
The stock markets are so short term these days that no-one plans for the
long term future of the company except in Japan.

Yesterday I bought an inkjet. I specifically avoided and did NOT buy
a Hewlett-Packard because I don't trust them. How does that help HP?

HP kit isn't all that bad. Some of their consumer inkjets are a bit
iffy, but their old Laserjets and scanners were phenomenal workhorses. I
have only fallen out with them a bit over lack of XP/Win7 drivers. I
would still consider their products in the right context.

Canon or Epson have the edge for inkjet and you have to carefully price
in the costs of consumables or you can still be very easily stuffed.

I used to do the opposite, because once upon a time I knew that if HP
made it, it was excellent. But Carly Fiorina's HP sold me some shoddy
gear. I haven't trusted them since.

Not everything HP make is junk, and Agilent still makes some fine gear.

You will quickly run out of suppliers if you do this to excess...

Regards,
Martin Brown

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Aug 15, 1:29 am, dagmargoodb...@yahoo.com wrote:

On Aug 14, 1:21 am,BillBowden <bper...@bowdenshobbycircuits.info
wrote:

Well , I don't know, but gold seems to be a hedge against the riots
going on in London. If they burn down all the stores, what will there
be to eat?

Under Keynes London's riots are a positive boon.

Only if the economy is in recession, and then only in terms of
generating extra economic activity.

Think of all the construction needed to fix the damage, all the workers
that will be needed for repairs, all the materials that will be purchased.
GDP will soar!

GDP has never been an entirely satisfactory metric. You have a better
one?

On top of these Keynes adds his multiplier - each worker with a new job
will spend his money at the shopkeepers' stores, who will spend their
new income yet somewhere else. The cycle repeats several times before
taxes at each transfer reduce the original sum into nothingness, for
net multiplier claimed of 1.89 or such.

Precisely 1.89? You appear to be summing geometric series run on to
infinity, having chosen to assume that 53% of the cash handed over in
each transaction become available for the next one.

It demonstrates a rather precise idea of the UK business environment,
and is curiously similar to US estimates.

To a Keynesian, your house is worth twice as much burned down as left
standing. They call this "stimulus."

It's certainly generates a lot more action in the economy, but even
the kind of Keynesian conjured up by James Arthur's right-wing
imagaination would baulk at claiming that a house was worth twice as
much after it had burnt down. James Arthur is fond of these verbal
sleighs of hand, but they do betray his enthusiasm for peddling
irrational, emotionally-loaded, propaganda.

At least you have a little gold to trade for some bread?
That's better than trying to trade stocks or bonds for bread. Maybe
oil would be a better bet? How about toilet paper?

Looks like Keynesian economics isn't working any more? Maybe this is
the end of all that BS?

It is. Regular Americans see it. You can't spend your way out of
debt.

An otiose proposition, and perfectly irrelevant to the discussion,
since Keynesian pump-priming isn't spending your way out of debt, but
spending your way out of a recession (by going into debt).

The tax income from an economy that is expanding at the nominal 4% per
year is obviously larger than that from a stable or contracting
economy, so you are better placed to pay of the debt once you have got
the economy out of depression or recession, but this is does involve
thinking about long term consequences, a task for which right-wingers
don't seem to be well-equipped.

Slicing the loaf thinner doesn't make it bigger.

Another otiose and irrelevant proposition.

A gov't whose plan is setting neighbors against each other, promising
each one more of the other's stuff does not create more stuff, but less.

This is - of course - true but since every governement who has ever
collected taxes has been doing this, for some thousands of years now,
it seems a bit silly to go to trouble of wasting bandwidth reminding
us of this well-known fact.

Krugman squeals to the contrary,

He's certainly not wasted his time advancing that particular
proposition. He does argue that borrowing money from people who aren't
spending it and giving it to people who will spend it boosts the
economy, but this has been an economic orthodoxy since Keynes first
advanced the idea in the aftermath of the Great Recession. It not an
idea that James Arthur and his fellow believers in flat earth
economics are prepared to endorse, but 5% of the population needs
psychiatric care at some time in their lives and it is a bit sad that
James Arthur hasn't benefited from that kind of attention.

but having gotten his way twice, he's
finding it harder and harder to convince people that it's all
working. "Oh, phrenology works" he insists, "you're just not feeling
the bumps right."

The treatment is working - US GNP is rising, if not as fast as it has
done, and unemployment is down to 9.1%. Paul Krugman's proposition is
that the treatment wasn't as vigorous and as well targetted as it
needed to be. Hoover's treatment of a similar situation after 1929
ended up with the GNP down by 25% and unemployment at 25%, and the
Keynesian stimulus has done better than that.

It's not working. According to Keynes and his multiplier, $1T in
stimulus should've produced 20+ million jobs. We got 500k (and they're
temporary).

<snipped the silly comment about pathological activity>

This ignores the situation that made the stimulus payment necessary.
James Arthur's beloved bankers engineered and burst the house price
bubble by making ninja loans. When the bubble burst, it took a great
deal of liquidity out of the economy. Most of the $1 trillion in
stimulus was used up in replacing that liquidity.

Hoover's "stimulus package" allowed unemployment to rise to 25% after
the 1929 crash.

Applied to the current US figures of about 140,000,000 in work, a rise
in unemployment from the 7.5% before the GC to 25% now would have put
24.5 million people out of work, while today's actual unemployment
rate of 9.1% represents just 2.24 million lost jobs. As Paul Krugman
says, the stimulus wasn't as big as it should have been, but it was a
great deal better than the nothing that James Arthur has been
fervently campaigning for.

<snipped silly comment about the Nobel Prize for Economics committee>

--
Bill Sloman, Nijmegen