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So? Unless a lot of their employees work only one day a week 7 grand a year is a paltry sum.

To put it in perspective, 7k a year comes out to $134 a week. If some one is working 3-4 days a week ( I don't know how reliable this is but this site lists average part time hours at 20-30, https://marketrealist.com/2013... ) that is not very much at all. Wages like that one would have to work multiple jobs 7 days a week just to get above poverty level wages.

I don't know what your point is. My point is the study makes no distinction between full time workers and part time workers. It's dishonest.

Of course even if you took just full time workers into account the CEO makes a lot more than the typical worker. So what? The CEO is running a company with 375,000 employees and franchises in 100 countries. A typical employee might be making burgers and taking out the trash. It's just a pointless comparison.

Would anyone bother to compare the average NFL player salary against the average concession stand vendor? Or rock stars against the roadies?
It's just meaningless.

So? Unless a lot of their employees work only one day a week 7 grand a year is a paltry sum.

To put it in perspective, 7k a year comes out to $134 a week. If some one is working 3-4 days a week ( I don't know how reliable this is but this site lists average part time hours at 20-30, https://marketrealist.com/2013... ) that is not very much at all. Wages like that one would have to work multiple jobs 7 days a week just to get above poverty level wages.

The sad part is, most of the money goes to the corporation and shareholders. Very little goes to the actual person providing the service, which is where it should be.

False. over 80% goes to labor and costs related to operating the store. Same for almost every business.

See here http://marketrealist.com/2017/... which says "There are rumors that Intel may launch its HEDT (high-end desktop) processors and chipsets and its Coffee Lake microarchitecture a few months earlier than anticipated in response to AMD’s Ryzen 5 and 7 processors. "

That web page is dated April 28, 2017.
Here's another article: https://www.pcworld.com/articl... which shows Coffee Lake in 2H17. This article is dated Feb 13, 2017.

So Intel is executing according to plan since first of this calendar year.

Even at $10.5 billion, Apple is still at the bottom of the top 20 when it comes to R&D spending as a percent of revenue (basically normalizing for the size of the company), and around half the top 20's average.

35.7% - Bristol-Myers Squibb - $5.9b

24.3% - AstroZeneca - $6.0

21.9% - Intel - $12.1b

19.9% - Roche Holding - $10.0b

17.0% - Merk - $6.7b

19.2% - Novartis - $9.5b

15.7% - Pfizer - $7.7b

15.6% - Oracle - $5.8b

14.4% - Alphabet - $12.3b

12.9% - Microsoft - $12.0b

12.9% - Johnson & Johnson - $9.0b

12.6% - Cisco - $6.2b

11.7% - Amazon - $12.5b

7.2% - Samsung - $12.7b

5.6% - Volkswagen - $13.2b

4.9% - General Motors - $7.5b

4.5% - Ford - $6.7b

4.5% - Apple, revised - $10.5b

4.0% - Daimler - $6.6b

3.7% - Toyota - $8.8b

3.5% - Apple - $8.1b

8.7% - Total - $179.4b

To match the top 20's average, Apple would need to spend $20.1 billion on R&D. To match the top tech company (Intel) they'd have to spend $50.7 billion.

Sounds to me like Apple is spending smarter, then.

Even at $10.5 billion, Apple is still at the bottom of the top 20 when it comes to R&D spending as a percent of revenue (basically normalizing for the size of the company), and around half the top 20's average.

35.7% - Bristol-Myers Squibb - $5.9b
24.3% - AstroZeneca - $6.0
21.9% - Intel - $12.1b
19.9% - Roche Holding - $10.0b
17.0% - Merk - $6.7b
19.2% - Novartis - $9.5b
15.7% - Pfizer - $7.7b
15.6% - Oracle - $5.8b
14.4% - Alphabet - $12.3b
12.9% - Microsoft - $12.0b
12.9% - Johnson & Johnson - $9.0b
12.6% - Cisco - $6.2b
11.7% - Amazon - $12.5b
7.2% - Samsung - $12.7b
5.6% - Volkswagen - $13.2b
4.9% - General Motors - $7.5b
4.5% - Ford - $6.7b
4.5% - Apple, revised - $10.5b
4.0% - Daimler - $6.6b
3.7% - Toyota - $8.8b
3.5% - Apple - $8.1b
8.7% - Total - $179.4b

To match the top 20's average, Apple would need to spend $20.1 billion on R&D. To match the top tech company (Intel) they'd have to spend $50.7 billion.

Hard to argue if you are just going to make shit up... http://marketrealist.com/2017/...

Actually, you are mistaken. The data that you used from your quick google search was from 2015. In 2016 and most of 2017, it changed. http://marketrealist.com/2015/...

What are you talking about? I quoted no data. And I'm not wrong. Rig counts have been climbing for weeks (I think only recently did they break the climbing streak): http://www.businessinsider.com...

In any case, anything that you said does not discount what I said, in fact agrees with it. Near $50 a barrel, probably 60-70 now would be a fair market value.

I still think $60-$70 is out of the question with the new market. Permian break-even occurs around $40 and is profitable even below $50: http://oilprice.com/Energy/Cru... And that assumes no further advancements in efficiency. The Permian production price was $98 in 2013. It was $38 in 2016. Newer fields are going as low as $20 profitability: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/... We are not going to see $70 oil again. $60 is a longshot possibility, but unlikely.

The Cartel is by no means broken, and as the supply price is driven down and competing tech is made enviable, you will see the price rise again.

It's completely broken. OPEC tried to freeze production to boost prices and it didn't do anything. The US producers just filled the gap. The US is profitable at $50 oil. OPEC is not: https://www.bloomberg.com/news... What you're going to see is a great deal of budget changes and economic realignment in OPEC nations. There's gonna be subsidy cuts and attempts at building other industries, because they won't be able to rely on oil anymore.

Actually, you are mistaken. The data that you used from your quick google search was from 2015. In 2016 and most of 2017, it changed.
http://marketrealist.com/2015/... In any case, anything that you said does not discount what I said, in fact agrees with it. Near $50 a barrel, probably 60-70 now would be a fair market value. This is what I said in the original post. However, the price was artificially surged to $100+. This allowed alternative energies to be made viable.

The Cartel is by no means broken, and as the supply price is driven down and competing tech is made enviable, you will see the price rise again.

You can't comprehend how building something that can turn what is essentially dirt into pure synthetic natural gas could cost even a billion dollars? I'd be surprised if you had any experience in the industry.

A coal to gas plant is essentially a refinery. Refineries aren't cheap, a quick google search would seem to indicate $5-15B is a good ball park for construction cost, depending on size. Most refineries (or gassification plants) have on-board heat and power generation designed to meet the needs of the refinery, this one has a 580MW combined cycle unit. (The IGCC of that size cost about $2.6B alone to build (source)

Is there someone making a pile of money off this? Absolutely. Is a $7b cost wildly out of sync with reality? Not really. Your rover example isn't a fair comparison. The cost of material and equipment alone for a project of this magnitude would cost more than $300M.

Oh yes, you can find old servers / much less powerful ones on the web, but that`s not the kind of server that gets purchased repeatedly. We could always have replacement on hand in our small market (Quebec) for intel servers, or upgrades to the newer ones, even rare raid unlock chips, but there was nothing on hand for AMDs. With a 99-1 split in the server market, that is expected I guess..

For some nice read, the following & further;
http://marketrealist.com/2017/...

yeah, especially after Verizon and Charter merge.

You wouldn't say Apple has as strong or a stronger hold on the music and mobile phone markets?

No. I wouldn't. The market share numbers are in some cases nearly an order of magnitude different. Suggesting Apple has a comparable hold on their markets has no basis whatsoever in reality.

Google's search market share: roughly 90%

Apple's global smartphone market share: roughly 10% to 20% (it varies based on iPhone launch dates)

Apple's music market share: roughly 30% for retail sales and 10% for streaming

I wish I could find more recent numbers for music sales, since I suspect the iTunes share of the overall music sales market is much lower now, what with streaming services knocking the legs out from digital downloads. It's also worth pointing out that, as one of the earlier links shows, Android makes up roughly 75-80% of the global smartphone market, so if you want to suggest that Apple has a monopolistic hold over the phone market, what does that say about Google, given that their share is roughly 4x greater?

The only reason our cars cost what they do for as much as they cost to develop, is due to the millions and millions of them sold.

It often costs a billion dollars to bring a new car model to market, and that is for an established company that already knows how to do it.

If they sell 75% fewer cars because most people share them, the price will go up. Nothing is really gained in that process.

According to my reference below, on average only 23% of the total costs of each car is in R&D, Advertising, and Administration. Only 6% total is R&D. This means it is reasonable to assume if 75% fewer cars are sold, the total cost of the cars would go down around 57.75% (assuming administration costs would not be reduced). It isn't 75% savings, but it is still quite a lot. There would be more administration costs for the automated taxi services, but it would be heavily automated so it probably won't be much. Overall its likely people could see their monthly auto costs cut in half. That's assuming your 75% reduction figure is accurate that is.

You also would have savings from not needing a garage, which would be about $20k or $100 month less on your mortgage. Obviously this is only for new houses and retrofitted houses, but it would become more common over time to not have garages.

To contrast the fact you don't own your car, now you can change what type of car you want to drive each day. Drive a minivan when hauling the kids, a fuel efficient mini-car when commuting to work, and a sports car on the weekends (prices for certain cars will likely vary by day for this very reason).

source

Well maybe not but they got a less of a Ronald McDonald's like strategy.

http://marketrealist.com/2013/...

http://marketrealist.com/2013/10/shutdown-101-perceived-wealth-distribution-isnt-reality/
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

Health care disparities would presumably reflect that too, to some extent. But a deeper issue is how health is more than access to "sick care", What you eat, how much you worry, where you can live, whether you have time for self-education and exercise, these are also big factors, and those connect to at least a certain level of wealth.

The USA is really confused about that, in part because of decades of propaganda funded by very selfish people.

On global issues, see:
http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/10/world/gapminder-us-ignorance-survey/
http://www.gapminder.org/ignorance/
http://www.gapminder.org/GapminderMedia/wp-uploads/Results-from-the-Ignorance-Survey-in-the-US..pdf

Meanwhile, China is about to land a robot on the moon!

As George Orwell said:
http://blog.gaiam.com/quotes/authors/george-orwell
"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, whene we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, is possible to carry this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield."