(I AmnotGeorgeBush) wrote:
Ebay requiring no explanation or reason from
the seller.

That happens, but not very often. No reserve means just that.

(I AmnotGeorgeBush) wrote:
From: (Dave=A0Hall)
I've heard the same thing echoed from many

hams. I've known hams who have religiously

made the trek to Dayton every year, and now

talk of this being their "last year". I guess it's a

shell of its former self. Talk like this is certainly
not making me want to experience it again any
time soon.

Dave

"Sandbagger"

The writing is on the wall. Shelby hammiefest in NC gasped its last
breath, also.

You can buy a damn nice cell phone there.

Dave Hall wrote:
On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 10:14:24 -0400, (I
AmnotGeorgeBush) wrote:

From: (Dave*Hall)
I've heard the same thing echoed from many

hams. I've known hams who have religiously

made the trek to Dayton every year, and now

talk of this being their "last year". I guess it's a

shell of its former self. Talk like this is certainly
not making me want to experience it again any
time soon.

Dave

"Sandbagger"


The writing is on the wall. Shelby hammiefest in NC gasped its last
breath, also.

I was sad when the CB Coffee Breaks (or Jamborees) pretty much died.

Same here, we used to have a yuck it up ball at those, back in the day.

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 13:44:01 -0400, Dave Hall
wrote in :

On Thu, 09 Jun 2005 20:56:30 -0700, Frank Gilliland
wrote:

If you have a hammer made in China and a hammer made in the USA, the
price is going to be the same because the market dictates the price.

Right, and when a hammer can be made cheaper in China, it forces the
American company to lower its price (Often resulting in sharp
reductions in overhead to keep a reasonable profit margin). At some
point the American company will no longer be able to compete.


Hence the success of Wally World.

Thank you for conceding my point. And with a perfect example.


And to expand further on your point, you left out the part about the
reduction of average income of American workers as a result of lost
jobs, thereby reducing overall spending in the economy (-including-
the sales of cheap imported products), shifting more people into the
no-tax bracket and -increasing- the tax burden on everyone else.

Lessening of consumers' purchasing power causes a reduction of demand,
and therefore the prices will drop further, which then leads to
deflation, which was a very real fear a few years back. Which is one
reason why the fed chopped interest rates so much.


Greenspan chopped the prime rate after Bush's tax "rebates" because
the expected revenue wasn't coming back -- instead of spending that
money people were paying down their credit cards. So the Fed dropped
the prime rate to encourage people to borrow and spend -more- money.
IOW, the Fed was bailing out the economy after Bush ****ed it up.


snip
The
price is set by the lowest price that someone is will to sell it for.


Wrong. It's set, as I stated before, by the laws of supply and demand.

That's too overly simplistic.


Not according to Friedman, Lindahl, Svennilsson, Myrdal, Ohlin,
Lundberg, etc, etc. But if -you- say so then it must be true.

I'm sure that none of them put it as simply as you did. They know, as
you should, that there are many mitigating factors that also influence
where a price is set. Think about things like monopolies and economic
collusion.


Think about taking a couple semesters of economics.


snip
Wrong again, Dave. The recommended fuel for the Model T was alcohol,

No Frank, the Model "T" had the capability to run on alcohol "as an
alternative" to gasoline. Henry Ford felt that allowing the car to run
on alcohol would sit well with local farmers who produced it. It was a
"bell and whistle" not a mandatory requirement.


Wrong, Dave. The preferred fuel for the Model T was ethanol, and any
Model T fanatic or Ford historian will tell you the same thing. In
fact, Henry Ford called alcohol "the fuel of the future. There are
more stills in this country than filling stations."


and that's what automobiles were built to use back in the early years
of their history. And it was great because there were a whole bunch of
backyard stills that were pumping out gallon after gallon of good ol'
moonshine. But along came a big foreign oil company that decided to
take a risk by dumping cheap gasoline on the market (at a net loss), a
move which shut down the stills and convinced auto manufacturers to
build their engines to run only on gasoline.

Titusville Pa. (Not all that far from me) is a foreign oil company?
We were producing "cheap" oil since 1859.


Except that it wasn't refined for gasoline until much later. Otto
invented the IC engine to run on alcohol, not oil or gas.


We didn't start importing oil on a large scale until 1970.


The world's first oil tanker was built in 1877. Henry Ford continued
to push for alcohol fuel until the 40's, even though big-time oil was
discovered in the middle east a decade earlier. The rest is history
(that you never learned).


Try entering "US first imported oil" into google and see what you
find.

You really should stop with the conspiracy theories Frank.....


Go back to school.


snip
If, back in the early 1900's, the alcohol producers were able to stay
in business (in a fair and competitive market, protected by import
tariffs) they most likely would have developed the technology to
produce much cheaper alcohol, technology that is only -now- being
developed. We now know that fuel-grade ethanol can be produced cheaply
on a large scale using specially developed yeasts & enzymes and vacuum
distillation, but there are no 'refineries' large enough to make it
profitably.

You also discount the potential environmental impact that large scale
raw material farms, as well as the effect of production emissions and
byproducts of the process might have on pollution.


The environmental impact of farming? That's a -real- stretch, Dave.
FYI, gasoline was originally just a worthless byproduct of refining
kerosene from crude oil. Regardless, part of the 'byproducts' left
over from the fermentation process of alcohol are left in the vats to
ferment the next batch of mash, while the rest is almost a perfect
fertilizer (and sometimes used as hog chow). Ethanol burns cooler so
there are no NO emissions (thereby reducing ozone pollution), there
are almost no hydrocarbon emissions, no need for lead or other
additives, no cyclic carcinogens, and the fuel burns more efficiently
than gasoline. Ethanol is clean at both ends. Get educated, Dave.


snip
Hindsight is always 20/20. We didn't know about such things as global
warming, ozone depletion, the finite availability of fossil fuel, and
the need for truly renewable fuel sources back in the early 1900's.
Oil was cheap, easy to extract, and plentiful. It was a no-brainer
back then.


Wrong again, Dave. Read up on the Free Alcohol Bill of 1906.


snip
I'm not nearsighted. No, in fact, I am a realist. Like you once told
me, change is inevitable. We can't go back to what we once were, so
our best chance is to adapt to what we will become.


Wrong -again-, Dave. Our best chance is to make decisions that will
provide the most benefit for us -as- those changes occur.


snip
Wrong again. Oil is inelastic because the -demand- remains constant
-regardless- of the price.

Demand is never constant. Demand changes with the season, economic and
social conditions around the world, and emerging technology in
developing nations. Overall, demand has been steadily increasing for
the last several years.


geez U R dum:

http://www.netmba.com/econ/micro/dem...sticity/price/


I'm tired of educating you, Dave. I think I'll let Twisty or someone
else do it for a while.





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Frank Gilliland wrote:
I'm tired of educating you, Dave. I think I'll let Twisty or someone
else do it for a while.

Well, shake it up, baby, now, (shake it up, baby)
TWIST and shout. (TWIST and shout)
C’mon c’mon, c’mon, c’mon, baby, now, (come on baby)
Come on and work it on out. (work it on out)

(1$ fab four)

Steveo wrote:
Frank Gilliland wrote:
I'm tired of educating you, Dave. I think I'll let Twisty or someone
else do it for a while.

Well, shake it up, baby, now, (shake it up, baby)
TWIST and shout. (TWIST and shout)
C'mon c'mon, c'mon, c'mon, baby, now, (come on baby)
Come on and work it on out. (work it on out)

(1$ fab four)

mopathetic, do you sing and dance to that at the truckstops?

On Fri, 10 Jun 2005 15:26:18 -0700, Frank Gilliland
wrote:

Greenspan chopped the prime rate after Bush's tax "rebates" because
the expected revenue wasn't coming back -- instead of spending that
money people were paying down their credit cards. So the Fed dropped
the prime rate to encourage people to borrow and spend -more- money.
IOW, the Fed was bailing out the economy after Bush ****ed it up.
++++++++++++++

Actually the Federal Reserve chopped the Federal Funds Rate during
2000 to 2003 period. This in turned caused banks to lower the prime
rate.

The process of controlling the Fed Rates is to pump in or take out
liquidity in the markets. Lower rates in a recession to stave off
defaltion. Raise rates when teh economy starts to heat up to controll
inflation. The Federal Reserve was very scared in 2000 that the US
would follow Japan. The consumer stimulation in the economy was
purposely done so that Deflation and Fed Rates would not fall below
1%. During Japan's deepest deflation period of 1997 to 2000 their
Central Bank rated never got abor 0.5%. The lower rate was as low
0.01%. The Japan Central Bank at times was literally giveing money
away and few one were taking then up on their offer.

One can debate the merits of teh Fed's move on money policy over the
past five yrs. In doing so you must consider which of the two evils in
worse? Between two and three yrs of deflation or four to five yrs of
stagnation? The Fed took the road of Stagnation considering the
wholesale lack of control on the part of Government to curtail
spending. Funny how the Republicans always criticized the Democrats on
their spending habits! I thought Republicans were supposed to fiscal
responsible? They spend money just as fast if not faster than
democrats.

james

On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 08:59:32 -0400, Dave Hall
wrote:

Tariffs have nothing to do with inflation directly. But it can
stimulate it by initiating price increases.
******

Tariffs if used on short term basis will have small effects on
inflation. When used as a part of long term policy and become over
bearing then they can become a direct cause and effect to inflation.
Producers can absorb costs spikes that are one time occuring or short
term. If they remain long term then the producer must pass the cost of
tariffs on to the consumer in higher prices. Thus infaltion.

james

On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 08:59:32 -0400, Dave Hall
wrote:

No, they were expensive because the cost to manufacture them was much
higher. Both advances in technology and in manufacturing as well as
finding cheaper sources of labor have resulted in price reductions.
*****

Having worked in consumer electronics manufactoring here in the US and
abroad, I would hardly believe that the material cost for the most
expensive CB radio to exceed $50. Labor another $10 per unit. Most
likely the material cost is between $20 and $40 and labor about $3 to
$4. Manufacturer's markup is more likely 300% to 500%. Considering
that marketing and shipping costs will equal the sum total of direct
material and direct labor costs.

The last consumer electronic product that I worked on had a material
cost of $26 and a US labor cost of $7 per unit. Foreign labor cost in
Mexico only reduced labor to about $5 per unit. We were doing about 1+
million units per year. In high volume, high automated manufacturing,
labor is not your major cost factor. It is overhead and variations.
Overhead in the US has gone ape in the past ten yrs. This includes
electricity, insurance, worker training and other items. Variation is
the changes in cost of piece parts due to volitility in shipping cost
due mainly to variations in oil prices.

james

On Wed, 08 Jun 2005 08:59:32 -0400, Dave Hall
wrote:

That is why competition is so important for a free market economy.
******

Actually in a free market society I often find that the manufacturer
that has deep pockets has distinct advantages over smaller less
affluent manufacturers. They can afford to sell at rediculously low
profit margins to drive competition out or to control who gets into
the market.

james