"charlesb" wrote in message
.com...

Hey, I hate to interrupt the historical and political discussion, but I
have
a Ham Radio - related question.

Sorry to abruptly drift back on-topic like this, but what is the latest
poop
on the BPL rollout in Virginia? There has been more than enough time for
something to have happened... So what happened?

Charles Brabham, N5PVL



Haven't a clue...

Kim W5TIT

"Kim W5TIT" wrote:

Dwight, are you calling me a liar? (snip)


Well, call it what you want, Kim. You told me that you're an informed
consumer that routinely researches the products you buy. It seems to me
that if one routinely researches products, the locations of sites with such
information would be instantly familiar. But, when I then asked you for
information about several products, you didn't offer the sites you
supposedly use - you had to search the internet to find sites. By the way,
the sites you finally did list certainly didn't dispute my claim that
reliable info is not that easy for consumers to get (see next paragraph
below).


ethicalconsumer.org (check out the research link)
epa.gov/tri (toxic release inventory)
greenchoices.org (has some links to fairly every-day things we buy)
corpgov.net (good primer on the topic)


Is this really where you get your information from, Kim? I stopped looking
after seeing the prominent "Boycott Bush" link on the
www.ethicalconsumer.org home page. If this site is at all typical of the
others, these are sites pushing their own little agendas, not sources of
accurate and reliable consumer information.


For cryin' out loud, Dwight, who the phucking (HansTM) hell
do you think is going to keep "business, the government, and
the courts" responsible?


Well, isn't that just an astonishing revelation, Kim? Did you just now
realize this entire discussion is all within the context of this country,
it's people, and their system of government? That's what's going on in this
thread, Kim - people discussing what they think their government should do.


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/

"Mike Coslo" wrote:

Side story, in 1980, I bought my first brand new
car, a 1980 Fiesta. In a fit of I don't know what,
I bought it in a bright orange. Darn car was run
into by more people than any other car I've ever
owned! 8^)


Bright orange, huh? Interesting color choice. Anyway, didn't you notice
the number of orange cones littering the highways around construction sites?
I don't know if people just can't see them or they intentionally run over
them. I worked at a truck rental place many years ago and a customer
returned a truck one afternoon with an orange cone dangling under the front.
When I asked him about it, he said it must have come from the construction
site he went through up the road. Obviously, he wasn't even aware that he
had run over it. Hopefully there was no worker standing near that cone. If
so, he fell off before the truck got to our location. ;-)


Dwight Stewart (W5NET)

http://www.qsl.net/w5net/

KØHB wrote:
"Mike Coslo" wrote


The present paradigm will undoubtably hold sway until accountants see
*thier* jobs shipped out to a third world country.


Don't look now, but accounting is one of the "back office" functions which
most manufacturing companies have outsourced to India and similar places a
***long*** time ago.


Hadn't heard of that. Any idea who and when?


- Mike KB3EIA -

Kim W5TIT wrote:
"KØHB" wrote in message
link.net...

"Mike Coslo" wrote


The present paradigm will undoubtably hold sway until accountants see
*thier* jobs shipped out to a third world country.

Don't look now, but accounting is one of the "back office" functions which
most manufacturing companies have outsourced to India and similar places a
***long*** time ago.

73, de Hans, K0HB




Yep, sure have and did! And, along with that, customer service/support is
"shipped"overseas quite often. When you call the "local" help group for a
service you're purchasing, or product, it's likely you're talking to someone
in the Phillipines.


What outfits use accounting in India? no question that tech support has
in large part moved there.

- Mike KB3EIA -

Dee D. Flint wrote:
"N2EY" wrote in message
...

In article , Mike Coslo
writes:


As I recall reading a while back, in 1950, it took 14 percent of an
average workers income to put a roof over "his head". That may have
changed a little bit! 8^)

It changed big time. Same for medical and education costs.


However as noted in later in this same post for cars (now snipped), people
now demand more features in that house and more room in that house that was
common in 1950. So it's an apples to oranges comparison.

Well if we cant compare houses to houses because houses to houses is
apples to oranges..............

C'mon, Dee - there has to be *some* sort of comparison that can be
made! If my comments about people paying 50 percent or more of their
take home pay to put a roof over their head compared to 14 percent way
back when are irrelevant, and if people doing 30 year mortgages vs 10 or
15 year mortgages are irrelevant, than I guess you are saying that
buying a house in 1950 is the exact equivalent of buying one in 2003?


......but it isn't because it's an apples to oranges comparison?

- Mike KB3EIA -

"Dwight Stewart" wrote in message hlink.net...
"N2EY" wrote:

As Kim points out, look elsewhere. The 'net gives
us a powerful tool to find other sources. The problem
is that you may have to wait for the item, and pay
more for it (delivery vs. sales tax).

But I shouldn't have to do that, Jim.

Why not, Dwight?

I don't think a quality fan should
be an esoteric item requiring a nation-wide search. Yet that is exactly the
case.

That's today's reality, brought about by a number of factors such as
the willingness of people to buy cheap stuff.

And this was only one example - I run into similar situations just
about every day of the week. By the way, the fans are purchased locally
because that's in the contract.

Then the contract should be changed because it's not cost-effective in
the long run.

Because whether such ideas work or not is largely
dependent on those details.

I wasn't aware we were here to make a particular idea work. This is a
general discussion in a newsgroup. Anything more than that would require
considerable time (which I place a high value on) and a research &
development budget (which I haven't seen anyone offer).

I'm simply saying that the hard work is in the details.

Because it's their responsibility. Part of a free market
economy is being a *customer*, not a *consumer*.

Again, shoppers are going to the store to ponder the global economic
implications of the purchases they make. It is absurd to even expect them to
do so (see my next paragraph below).

I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect them to do so! It's part
of life in a modern industrialized society with global trade.

Then they should not complain when the hardware store
and the American power tool plants shut down, quality
degrades, unemployment rises, etc.

Jim, short of setting up a dictatorship, you're never going to get even a
significant portion of the 280 million people in this country to shop the
way you want.

No dictatorship needed. Just education. Look at how Hans' company
deals with suppliers - all those principles apply to individuals as
well. Sure, we individuals aren't going to make detailed
investigations of every product we buy, but we *can* become better
educated about them and make better choices. Just like Hans' and many
other companies do.

Consumers in general have neither the business awareness or
economic awareness to make those types of decisions on their own.

Then they need to learn. Just like our ancestors had to learn how to
deal with their environment.

And they
also certainly don't have the time or money to fully research an industry
each time they want to go shopping for something.

They don't have to. The govt. requires all sorts of labels on all
sorts of items, which means all one needs to know is how to interpret
those labels. Outfits like Consumer's Union do product testing so we
don't have to. And the 'net gives us access to enormous amounts of
information.

Business darn well knows
all that, which is exactly why they point to consumer spending as the main
cause of a poor economy.

Do you think they're going to blame themselves?

Doing so absolves business of any responsibility
for that economic situation and instead places the entire nation's economic
burden, and sole blame for a bad economy (and blame for the things you list
above), on consumers alone.

I disagree. All businesses are regulated to some degree - many to a
very high degree. And in many cases it's justified, on the basis of
safety.

Business has some responsibility in all this.
Your argument gives them a free ride when it comes to that responsibility.

Not at all.

My point is that *everyone* has some responsibility in all this.
Business, government, and customers are all part of it. Every purchase
we make is "voting with our wallets". But some people don't want that
responsibility, because it takes some effort and it detracts from the
perfect images we see in advertisements.

For example, it doesn't take a degree in nutrition to know that if
someone eats 3000 calories a day and only burns off 2000 calories a
day, they're going to gain weight and keep gaining it until something
changes. And the required changes (eating less, eating differently,
becoming more active) may not be 100% fun. In fact, they may be 0%
fun.

And it doesn't take a degree in economics to know that if enough
people stop going to Ma's Diner and instead patronize Taco Heaven,
that Ma's is going to go out of business.

73 de Jim, N2EY

"KØHB" wrote in message thlink.net...
N2EY wrote:

Thanks for a complete and concise answer, Hans. And for showing that
it's not just the bottom line that drives business decisions.

Ah, but I think you missed the best part of the whole message, Jim.

I didn't miss it, but perhaps I wasn't clear about my appreciation of
it. I wrote about how those policies were all "price" policies because
they worked to reduce the true cost of things bought. (If you have to
spend a nickel to inspect every 10 cent widget you buy, it's actually
cheaper to buy a 12 cent widget that doesn't need incoming
inspection). Etc.

Every
action I described has a tendency to reduce my overall cost of goods sold,
either in reducing fixed factory costs, in reduced variable costs, in
higher inventory turns, in shorter manufacturing cycles, in better cash
flow, or in reduced headcount. All of that DOES drop directly to my bottom
line.

Not every action! The ethical concerns you mentioned would tend to
raise it, if:

1) you spend money to check out suppliers
2) you would refuse a lower priced supplier on ethical grounds alone -
even if the supplier wasn't breaking any laws.
3) you spend more money to buy from local and minority/woman owned
companies, etc.

Of course all three can be looked upon as long-term investments that
will ultimately benefit the bottom line 'someday'. Much better than
taking a short-term view that ultimately winds up costing more in the
long term.

And I agree with all those actions 100%.

73 de Jim, N2EY

Mike Coslo wrote:
N2EY wrote:
"Kim" wrote in message
Yeah, I am glad you re-brought that back up, Dee. I have often wondered how
"close" a comparison it is when we start comparing the wage:cost of living
ratio from yesteryears and today. Because, we do have "bigger, better"
ideas in our products today.


Sure - in fact, my current home (built 1950-51) is a case study in the
differences. I doubt anyone would build a house like mine new today in
a similar neighborhood, but a half-century ago it was a pretty
standard "little box made of ticky-tacky" design. And most of the
differences (more bathrooms, bigger, more feature-filled kitchen, AC
from the getgo) cost more than just simple square footage add-ons.

If you want a recent document with an outline of relative housing costs:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housi.../afford95.html

It shows over a recent time period what I have noted over a longer time
period, which is that less people can afford to buy a modestly priced
house. In 1995, it was 44 percent could not afford to do this, an
increase from 40 percent in 1988.

Not really a recent-enough time period, however. Housing affordability
is volatile since it strongly depends on things like mortgage interest
rates and non-salary income, which can vary greatly. Obviously interest
rates have varied greatly in the downward direction in very recent years,
and we had a few good capital gains years before that.

If you look at this one

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housi.../q303tab5.html

you'll see that the rate of home ownership in the US, which varied
between 63% and 66% for the 30 years prior to 1995, took a jump starting
in about 1997 and was at 68.4% in the quarter just ended. It seems
hard to argue that houses have gotten less affordable over the long
term when the fraction of people who demonstrate they can afford
to own a house by doing so remained fairly constant for so long and
actually took a significant upturn in the last few years.

Dennis Ferguson

Mike Coslo wrote in message ...

If you want a recent document with an outline of relative housing costs:

http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/housi.../afford95.html

It shows over a recent time period what I have noted over a longer time
period, which is that less people can afford to buy a modestly priced
house. In 1995, it was 44 percent could not afford to do this, an
increase from 40 percent in 1988.

- Mike KB3EIA -

They must be buying immodestly priced houses, then, because there are
more homeowners than ever before.