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#231
December 9th 03, 08:13 PM
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In article a0nBb.29326$ZE1.6721@fed1read04, "R. Hubbell"
writes: I am not slighting the success of the intelligence folks at preventing follow ups attacks to 9/11/01, they have done remarkably well, but there is no way to prevent a handful of fanatics willing to die from shooting up a mall in Peoria or Kansas City. Or snipers from killing people at random. How about the 40,000 that die every year from car accidents. Or the 35,000 from the flu. What's the real threat? How about flying? There are risks, like flying or traveling by car, that I accept willingly in return for the joy or convenience I receive., There are risks, like disease that cannot practically be avoided and are not the work of malice. But I do not accept the risk of being shot or blown up by a religious zealot while getting a coffee at Starbucks. The risk i\of being killed by a terrorist is not something that goes along with an activity or convenience I freely chose, and it is not a risk of normal life, it is an act of war by a bunch of thugs and I need not accept the loss of one life to it as OK or unimportant. Don -- Wm. Donald (Don) Tabor Jr., DDS PP-ASEL Chesapeake, VA - CPK, PVG 
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#232
December 10th 03, 02:09 AM
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#233
December 10th 03, 02:12 AM
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#234
December 10th 03, 03:04 PM
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I think you don't know what some US corporations are doing in other
"emerging" countries. Enlighten us, please. -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination"
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#235
December 10th 03, 07:06 PM
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I think you don't know what some US corporations are doing in other "emerging" countries. Enlighten us, please. -- I am not attempting to enlighted anyone, but this morning, I was in a store shopping. (This is very rare for me). I spotted a shrink-wrapped, shadowbox frame, 11x14, of exceptionally high quality. I use these types of items in my business, so I looked VERY closely at it. It was made in Thailand. Now here's the thing . . . it was selling for $ 5.99. The 8x10 was only $3.99. So I ask myself, how can something this nice be made, packaged (these are GLASS and very fragile pieces), transported from the other side of the planet, loaded onto trucks, delivered, unpacked and placed for sale at $6? How can there be enough profit for all the parties involved in the process? I'm guessing that the cost to make them in Thailand must be real low, huh? G I bought a dozen of each. www.Rosspilot.com
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#236
December 10th 03, 07:14 PM
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In article kivBb.29415$ZE1.25509@fed1read04, "R. Hubbell"
writes: I think you don't know what some US corporations are doing in other "emerging" countries. Providing a means for them to emerge. Don -- Wm. Donald (Don) Tabor Jr., DDS PP-ASEL Chesapeake, VA - CPK, PVG
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#237
December 10th 03, 10:04 PM
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So I ask myself, how can something this nice be made, packaged (these are
GLASS and very fragile pieces), transported from the other side of the planet, loaded onto trucks, delivered, unpacked and placed for sale at $6? How can there be enough profit for all the parties involved in the process? I'm guessing that the cost to make them in Thailand must be real low, huh? G It's amazing, isn't it? I don't pretend to understand how they can possibly make that stuff in Thailand cheaper than we can make it here -- the shipping alone has to cost 50% or more of that six bucks. I was just out shopping for my kid's Xmas presents. On the shelf was a "real" "GI Joe", for $21.00. Next to it was a knock-off that actually had MORE cool stuff, for $4.99. Funny thing is, BOTH were made in China -- so what's the difference? One said "Hasbro", and one was "No Name" -- what do I care? I bought TWO of the No-Names... I'd guess that the Thai (and Chinese) people are simply more dedicated to what they're trying to do economically than we are... -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination"
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#238
December 10th 03, 10:06 PM
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Wdtabor wrote:
In article , Frank writes: snip Shame on anyone, anywhere for ignoring any such atrocities. OK, so we don't ignore it. Then what, write a strongly worded letter to "The Times"? Or send in troops to take out the monster? Because monsters like Saddam are not going to stop killing their opponents, and their relatives and aquaintences, unless they believe that someone will get up on their hind legs and punish them. Agreed. I'm sure I didn't say it explicitly before so I'll say it now. I don't think for a moment that the days of using force are over yet. But I want to see us working toward that day and I don't see much evidence of us doing that right now. You make it sound as if there are only two options: "Do nothing" or "Nuke the *******". I'll admit that there are scenarios where that might be true but usually there are other avenues to persue. As an example take the "sanctions" imposed on Iraq. Many scoff and say they didn't work and they are right. But we pretty much guaranteed they wouldn't work by not pressuring others to support them and turning a blind eye when we knew they were being violated. In other words, we weren't as committed to using our economic power as we are now to using our military. As a result we lost much of our moral high ground. Military force must be a last resort for it to have any chance of being morally justified. We may not have known the number of people he killed, but we, and the UN, knew it was in the tens of thousands, and neither the UN, nor his Moslem neighbors did a damned thing about it until the Cop on the Corner showed up. I said it badly but I'm talking about going forward. Get the internet into the hands of the people. While there are certainly fine journalists out there, the news organizations that we rely on for delivery are failing miserably and can no longer be trusted to fulfil their role. I agree that the internet is a great tool for getting inforamtion around the barriers set up to contain it, but you can't even change my behavior by posting something critical to usenet, much less the Saddams and Pol Pots of the world. Sooner or later, you need the presence, or the credible threat, of troops on the ground to effect that change. I hope you don't think I was suggesting that posting "Saddam is a big fat idiot" in rec.soc.heads_of_state would make a big difference...... I'm talking about ensuring a conduit for the free flow of ideas which we know makes it harder for dictators to gain and/or maintain power. And of course in times of crisis it can be invaluable for tactical matters. Just look at how it helped during the attempted coup in Russia some years back. Or during the Bosnia fighting. Once again I don't rule out the possibility that troops will be needed. But I don't rule out anything that has the potential to avoid the need in the first place. And we also get the benefit of overtly doing something to promote our ideals. It's also a way for us to demonstrate to the world that we really mean it when we talk about free speech. We in America know open dialog is crucial to democracy so exporting it can only help us in the long run. Well, exporting the rule of law in the form of a representative republic would be a good thing, but I would not inflict democracy on even our worst enemies. Don Killing's too good for 'em, let 'em have Congress! -- Frank....H
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#239
December 10th 03, 10:11 PM
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"Jay Honeck" wrote in message news:cMMBb.302393$Dw6.1006170@attbi_s02... So I ask myself, how can something this nice be made, packaged (these are GLASS and very fragile pieces), transported from the other side of the planet, loaded onto trucks, delivered, unpacked and placed for sale at $6? How can there be enough profit for all the parties involved in the process? I'm guessing that the cost to make them in Thailand must be real low, huh? G It's amazing, isn't it? I don't pretend to understand how they can possibly make that stuff in Thailand cheaper than we can make it here -- the shipping alone has to cost 50% or more of that six bucks. I was just out shopping for my kid's Xmas presents. On the shelf was a "real" "GI Joe", for $21.00. Next to it was a knock-off that actually had MORE cool stuff, for $4.99. Funny thing is, BOTH were made in China -- so what's the difference? One said "Hasbro", and one was "No Name" -- what do I care? I bought TWO of the No-Names... I'd guess that the Thai (and Chinese) people are simply more dedicated to what they're trying to do economically than we are... -- Jay Honeck Iowa City, IA Pathfinder N56993 www.AlexisParkInn.com "Your Aviation Destination" Saw a tid bit on the news a week or so ago. For 40 months in a row the number of manufacturing jobs in this country has gone down. In the mean time worker productivity has gone up significantly. Don't know if any conclusions can be made but it sounds suspicious.
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#240
December 11th 03, 12:55 AM
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Dave Stadt wrote: Saw a tid bit on the news a week or so ago. For 40 months in a row the number of manufacturing jobs in this country has gone down. In the mean time worker productivity has gone up significantly. Don't know if any conclusions can be made but it sounds suspicious. That's simple. At least 1/3 of the cost of an employee is overhead. If the company involved has a good retirement and benefits package, the cost is more like 2/3. Even if you have to pay time-and-a-half, it's cheaper to work two employees 12 hours a day than to work three employees 8 hours a day. The only problem is that, if you keep employees working lots of overtime, after a few months, they get tired and the amount they do per hours goes down. You may fix that by setting the workday at 14 hours, but at some point, the overtime pay gets to be more than just hiring another person. If your employees are "professionals", however, you don't have to pay them for the overtime. The real problem there is that many of these people were working long hours well before the current recession, so there's not a lot of room for "productivity" increases. So. If you increase the work day from 8 to 12 hours and fire every third person, the number of jobs just went down by 33.3% and productivity went up by 33.3%. George Patterson Some people think they hear a call to the priesthood when what they really hear is a tiny voice whispering "It's indoor work with no heavy lifting".
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