Slashdot Mirror
The Almighty Buck
The NYT Magazine this week focuses on a topic near and dear to its heart: money. Stories about the dotcom boom, priorities, the cult of Wall Street. Some of the stories are interesting, as with this comparison of how far a dollar goes depending on where you live. Some are disturbing, like this one on CEO salaries. And several are (unintentionally) humorous, like this one about bankrupt Etoys and this one, by a rich writer who believes everyone else is rich too.
...that this is done by the New York Times, who requires you to register so they can sell your personal info (or at least demographic information) for more "almighty bucks."
The 'almighty buck' is a concept I think most people (even us geeks) battles. Even Linus in his book Just for Fun talks about how he wouldn't mind some more of it. Everyone wants it. Everyone would like it in huge quantities. Just some people are willing to do a lot more to get it.
Guess that's the story of our lives. Some people have it. Most people want it. Few people get it. Oh well.
Posting as directed.
An unemployed person gets a WEEKLY manicure and pedicure? Excuse me... weekly!?
And that gives her an hour a week when she can feel normal? NORMAL?
You are far from normal lady!
You can look at a historical graph of their stock price and pinpoint almost the exact moment when people realized that Etoys.com was nothing more than some money-grubbing lawsuit-happy suits who would rather use the courts as a business case than the traditional way (e.g., have a plan on how to make a profit yourself without relying on government handouts).
RIP Etoys; say Hi to Beelzebub for me.
Yeah, right.
It's true.
Fact is, we spend more than most people in the world make. We're a consumptionist society. We invented disposable plates and cups and diapers and everything else. Sake of convienience, isn't it?
I agree with his article where it describes the 'poor' of the US as wanting things they can't afford. Poor here is defined as "earning between $17,000 and $34,000 a year."
I don't make much more than that, and I've got all of these computers, and an XBox, and a Dreamcast, and...well, not to get too far into it, but I've bought a lot of crap I don't need, but I want. I have nobody but myself to blame.
But don't hide under a rock and take this article as a joke. I've started to think about what the hell I'm spending all of this money on long before I read the article.
Next time you buy 3 DVD's at Best Buy, take a step back. Do yourself a favor.
Place your orders for the mike tyson hotdog grill only available at k-mart!
username: slashdoted
password: slashdot
Rinse, lather, repeat if needed.
Lawyers, MBA's, RIAA? A jedi fears not these things!
Hey if people stop buying stuff they don't need capitalism kinda falls apart so let's just keep this whole thing quiet ok?
OOOooohhh look shiny new anime dvds! I NEED that!
What where you talking about?
ok that's better...
Everyone who responds to this article seems loose karma. Anyone who raises mine will be worshiped by me and I will make you my beautiful handsome almighty god. :)
There's the same happy : unhappy ratio of rich and poor people. Yet I swear, no matter how many times it hasn't happened, if I had a little more cash, life would be a lot better.
All the major religions, all those philosophers mentioned in the last article seem to say "the key to true happiness is inside you," but I feel like the Greatest American Hero: where's the manual?
c-hack.com |
It sounds to me like he thinks every American is rich. He has a point.
How many color televisions and refrigerators are owned by the typical poor person in America? How many color televisions and refrigerators are owned by the typical Bangledeshi?
How many times per week does the typical poor American get to eat clean food, versus his Third World counterpart?
Health care may not be free, but *no* injured person is turned away from an emergency room.
Poor people today don't have to worry about many problems that would have killed even rich people 75 years ago, so I think the author is justified in regarding virtually all Americans as rich.
There are third world countries with a GDP of 500$.
(don't laugh look it up in the cia fact book)
Even a McDonald's employee makes that in 2 weeks...
So ya compared to some anarchic african shithole or some repressed muslim dictatorship yes americans are rather rich.
I'd much rather eke out a meager living, scraping the ground in some thuggish People's Republic in Africa.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Or you can do what I did and become pissed of at society and live as a recluse. The only truth I find in the world anymore is in academics; not in materialism or worldy banal desires. It's the perfect life! I get paid a very high salary to do what I love doing: learning and inventing. The catch is I hardly spend any of my salary; buying things or conspicuous consumption just doesn't do anything for me anymore.
I really feel sorry for those who try buy happinesss. The truth is that all the gizmos people try to sell you are meaningless. Enjoy what you have, life's a trip.
Hrm, the article doesn't mention two interesting part of the story. His "Stay Incentive" was stolen from money which was promised to the employees.
I used to work for eToys.
eToys layed off a bunch of nonesential staff in January 2001. The survivors of us were promised, if we worked until March 2001, our regular pay plus a retention bonus equal to 2 months of pay (some were offered more). This money was "supposedly" in a specially marked fund that was protected from the creditors.
But when March 2001 rolled around, eToys dropped the bombshell: The bonus money is gone. It wasn't protected after all.
But Toby still got his retention bonus. Guess who payed for it? That's right, we employees.
I've bought a lot of crap I don't need, but I want
Worse than that is when you buy stuff you don't need but really want, then two days later you realise you don't have much of a use for it, and don't really want it anymore. Anyone else just go out and buy something just cause it feels good to? What's going on? You know, I've been unemployed for a while, so I don't buy much of anything other than groceries (well, and beer) these days, and to tell you the truth, I don't really miss it. Maybe this is what the **AAs are really afraid of? Not that piracy will deprive them of their revenues, but that it'll get people used to not buying stuff, and then they'll really be up shit creek.
c-hack.com |
You are born into this world and society convinces you that money is important.. but this is a fabrication, an instrument of oppression. You can enjoy your life without any money at all.. this may sound like blasphemy, but it is true.
Another interesting part of the story.
eToys had one subsidiary, Babycenter [babycenter.com], which they bought in 1999 for like $90 million in eToys stock. I still know many Babycenter employees.
Here are some stats:
- Number of employees in December, 2000:
eToys: over 1000, not including babycenter
babycenter: 90
- Number of layoffs by Feb 2001:
eToys: 700
Babycenter: 20
- Revenue in 2000 (not profit):
eToys: $70 million
Babycenter: $20 million (consider that they had
10% of the staffing)
- Expenses in 2000:
eToys: $100 million
Babycenter: $20 million
- Typical expenses in the FALL of 2000 (Which
is when they were considering bankruptcy):
eToys: Brand new shiney Pentium III with a flat
screen monitor for most employees
- Brand new shiny headquarters in West Los Angeles, with a $100 million 10 year lease
Babycenter: The poor schmucks are still using
PII/366 & Sun Ultra5 machines
- converted warehouse in SOMA, San Francisco
- Amount that the entity sold for in spring 2001
eToys: $7 million to KBToys
Babycenter: $12 million to Johnson & Johnson
- Number of employees who still work for the company:
eToys: 10 or so
Babycenter: 70 (almost everyone)
- Number of days that the website has been down
due to the bankruptcy
eToys: 90 - March - May
Babycenter: Zero
- Number of managers who came in from the parent company to replace existing managers:
eToys: almost all of them
Babycenter: 1 , the finance controler
Ya i stopped buying moves and just download SVCDs and DVDRiP DivX until i got sick of watching all these movies. Now i don't watch any movies, new, old, theatre, dvd, bootleg, none. It's like man screw it after i started downloading movies and not even watching them i realised fuck i don't even want to see any of this crap. It's just movies are pushed into our culture so it was just something you do. Now i have a shelf filled with movies and i probably only watched half of them and i have no desire to see any more movies. I mean ya maybe i'll watch the new lord of the rings or the matrix 2 or something but i'm not really excited about it. I'll probably download a DVDRiP of it someday but i'm in no rush. So i guess the piracy just made me realise, shit i don't actually want this crap. heh.
Jacuzzi TV this...
Almighty Dollar that...
Do those two stories seem kind of mutually exclusive, or is it just me?
I find it interesting that the article on how rich we are nowadays fails to take into account inflation, or adjusted dollars, or even a spending parity analysis.
The way I see it as this: To live in a large city where you can earn a fair wage costs unbelievable amounts (look at the rents for the New York City area, to live in a tiny closet), but if you live in a smaller town the likelihood of you working in a intelligence/reasonable paying field drops dramatically (unless it's in a core, location sensitive field like the medical field). The reality is that it is now next to impossible to afford kids, and very likely a married couple will have both spouses working. In the 50s/60s the standard model was the mother at home, keeping the home, the father working a job, one or two cars, and a home full of kids (i.e. 3 - 5 kids). Now I can't even imagine the financials necessary to make that work.
Just meandering.
When using Mac OS 9 All I see are question marks when using Internet Explorer 5.1. What do you see instead of the question marks? Can you think of a font that might need to be installed?
The words cock and children appear to be inside Malda's head. Brilliant indeed. Your script seems to have correctly identified Malda as a pedophile.
Good work!
There is a big difference between lining your own pockets at the expense of the shareholders whose company you are running into the ground, and trying to figure out what the average age of your newspaper's readership is.
I'd much rather eke out a meager living, scraping the ground in some thuggish People's Republic in Africa.
Who the hell wants to eke out a living in some thuggish People's Republic in Africa? If you can bring yourself be ruthless as all get out and trample on people's dignity and human rights you can become the Grand Generalissimo Dictatorial President Prime Minister in only a few years and then live in mansions while your humble supporters eke out a living so you can tax them unmercifully to support your opulent lifestyle and defend against the capitalist maurauders and human rights activists who attempt to overthrow your noble People's Republic.
I thought that was supposed to be the tip of an erect cock until i clicked read more and was confronted with a full page ansi art picture of anal coxes jiz stained beard.
They currently think that I'm an Afghan cleric working in the import/export business earning $150K+ and the address of biteme@marketroids.com so if they want to base their targeted advertising on that, I'd be interested to see the results.
This is not pleasant for many people to hear, but there are signs that the USA may be in decline. The 20th Century was the American century, and what do we see in the first year of the 21st Century? September 11. The Roman Empire did not fall to a single enemy, but to successful waves of attacks from "barbarians" from east of its border (the strongest being the Huns). Strong nations decline due to being worn out by external factors.
Bin Laden will be remebered in history as a terrorist and no more, but he at least shows the existence of the "barbarians" to America. These enemies will not be able to conquer America, but they, like the barbarians, can wear America out. The USA's policy toward the Islamic world does not address the "production" of these bin Ladens, so there will be more bin Ladens to drain America's energy for a long time to come.
We already see the changes inside the USA due to September 11. This new Dept. of Homeland Security will be a massive government organ and take over many agencies who previously focus on more "peace time" tasks but now turns to security matters above everything else. The internal orientation is changing. USA will be more like a police state. There will be more overhead on productivity and creativity. The previous "free" environment is in decline.
History may not always repeat itself, and the USA does not have to follow the cycles of nations. But it needs the right policy to resolve the root causes of the productions of the external threats, and so far there are no signs the USA is addressing these anti-American feelings in the Middle East. America is trying to build the dam higher to block the water rather than to open channels to let the water flow through without harm. This does not look good.
Free Software: the software by the people, of the people and for the people. Develop! Share! Enhance! Enjoy!
Heh thats niggers for ya...
I saw a poll on in the new york times that showed that 40% of nignogs in democracies in africa actually prefered dictators and eagerly awaited a new ruler.
Heh.
No tellin' what those crazy chimps'll do.
Therefore, good CEOs are worth a lot of money.
Why is this so difficult for people to comprehend? Why do they continually whine about how much CEOs are paid. They are paid that because they are scarce. In general, they're the best business men in the world. Why is it shocking they're paid so much?
"American workers are still the most productive on earth, two-thirds more productive than our counterparts in Great Britain, for example. American technology is still the envy of the world, and her universities are the queens of learning."
Are American workers really two-thirds more productive than their counterparts in Great Britain, or are machines (probably made in Japan or China) used far more commonly in the US of Hey. I have travelled the world, and I can tell you the hardest workers and most productive workers are inevitably in the poorest countries. Alas, like the writer, I have no references for this assertion.
As for America's universities being the "Queens of learning" they may like to remember that to most of the world Oxford University, or the Sorbonne, are definitely the academic institutions of choice. American universities do seem to spend an awful lot of time on self-promotion though, which may explain why they spend millions of dollars to attract sporting heroes to their "learning" institutions.
Oh, by the way, I am NOT British, or even from Europe, I am Australian.
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
You are unbearably poor. If you were to move out of the country then we'd all be richer and have a better chance of fending off the barbarians.
Answering the question: What the heck is a GDP anyway?
The CIA world factbook, which beats the reference materials I used to have as a kid.
To all those reading this, wondering where their Porsche is, there's a simple fact you should know now before it's too late. A six figure income will not make up for ever living above your means. You're better off putting off those luxuries until you can get them without a credit card or a loan. If today's pleasure is purchased at the cost of your future, you can forget all about pleasure tomorrow.
No Zen is good zen
Interesting
Poor here is defined as "earning between $17,000 and $34,000 a year."
Poor is relative, right? I used to think that being a student was a tough living. I worked two jobs as an undergraduate to make ends meet and after I graduated, went on to the medical school here and am now making about $15,000 a year as a Ph.D. candidate. Because I worked as an undergraduate, I don't have many of the student loans that other M.D. and Ph.D. students have, but I still thought that getting by was fairly difficult.
Recently however, there was a group of ophthalmic surgeons, nurses, technicians, students and scientists here that travelled to Ghana with the idea of helping out some of the local folks who would not otherwise have access to medical care. You will never see poverty in your life like exists in third world countries. People live in unbelievable conditions and the one patient that stuck out in my mind was a 50 something gentleman who had SEVERE cataracts so bad he was completely blind. Replacing his lenses restored his vision completely. Now, cataracts of this severity are never seen in the western world. In the U.S., even if you are completely without any job skills and make absolutely no money, your cataracts will never get that bad without someone paying for them to be fixed. And whats more, this man was brought in by his grandson who guided him walking for over twenty miles for the chance to have something done for him.
That was poverty.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
I want to see Lennox Lewis vs one of the Klitscho bros.
Actually, I've learned to be quite satisfied without buying, or even downloading, commercially made music. I might buy a few CD's a year, because as far as I'm concerned, I get much more out of my money by feeding the poor of other countries than I'll ever get from some CD. Now that I'm richer than I've ever been, I've learned to value relationships above things - I don't care that I don't have a DVD player, or the latest, fastest computer. Let others fill their lives with empty material objects; I'll fill mine with loving relationships.
What is IDOS?
The International Dutch Oven Society is a non-profit organization based in Logan, Utah. Our primary mission is to promote and encourage the art and skill of Dutch oven cooking, and to provide education regarding the benefits and methods of Dutch oven cooking.
For more information, click on one of the links to the left!
How to Join IDOS
Joining IDOS costs just $15.00 per year. You receive quarterly editions of "The Dutch Oven News" (our newsletter), an IDOS pin, and great times with your family and friends.
Members can also cast one vote to elect board members at the yearly Spring convention.
Mail the $15.00 as we can't take plastic.
Why the high proportion of stories linking to the New York Times website?
Does David Brooks' claim that the USA is different from other empires and will never go through a decadent phase remind anyone else of the end of the business cycle supposedly heralded by the dotcom boom? I think one of the greatest problem any society has to face is complacency: once you get too many people at the top saying "yeah, we're great, we've created the perfect never-ending utopia" they stop responding to outside pressures, stagnate, and start to decline. I don't know if that's happened in the US yet, but I'd definitely rather that our national leaders were all a bunch of pessimists. First, they're probably more likely to be right; and second, if they're wrong, the consequences aren't as bad as they would be if they were incorrectly optimistic.
At first I thought it was counter-productive on your part to include so many links to the NYT site, given the negative slant of the headline. I mean, having us all go visit their site only helps their overall "number of hits".
Maybe, though, your looking to see if the slashdot effect can take out the NYT site. Too bad all but one of the links requires a login (yeah, I tried them all before posting this.) The login page is static and likely cached on their site.
Well you know most of them think that raping babies is a cure/vaccine for aids.
so I don't buy much of anything other than groceries (well, and beer) these days
Beer IS groceries!
You probably have not heard of Marie Curie.
You will definitely not have heard of Louis-Victor Pierre Raymond, who won the prize for physics in 1929.
Jean Baptiste Perrin won in 1926. They all attended the Sorbonne. There are tonnes more, but I wouldn't have expected you to have done any basic research. What with all your high 'falutin universities I guess you know everything already!
If the pattern goes 9am, 10am, 11am, why isn't noon 12am?
But your money would go a hell of a lot farther there than it does in the US.
$5 says michael's broke.
Skiers and Riders -- http://www.snowjournal.com
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Ultimately money is only coveted because we are afraid of going hungry.
If we could come up with a civilization were nobody would end up on the street then money wouldn't be so important.
How many paychecks away are you from not being able to pay your rent or mortgage?
-- Jessica
The mutant geek grrl from Hell.
Once again slashdot shows it's socialist ideology.
No more problem of barbarians. Bang, boom, dead greaseball muslims.
Shit, dude, it doesn't matter how much you have, you'll always be wanting a little more. Psychological studies have shown that people's happiness levels is relatively set, and while major events may elevate or depress their overall happiness (such as winning the lottery for happiness or death of a loved one for misery), before too long people are back to their previous happiness levels. So, even if you think you'd be damned happy and things would be great if you won the lottery and became a millionaire, that happiness would be relatively short-lived, I'm afraid. Essentially, you'd find other shit to bitch about.
I could not justify my existence if I were a turkey farmer. Would I terminate myself? Undoubtably, yes.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
WARNING: RANT
... and yet we still fail
(the buck that turns lives into shiny things)
money: someone who has money OWES it to give back to humans/earth what they/it gave that someone to succeed. if any of your are/will be rich, remember this - in this society it's really, REALLY simple to do good. since everything is evidently based on money, once you have money, all you have to do is give it to the right people
how could it be simpler???
we care about the morality of using embryo cells for research while millions are africans are dying day by day
thats money for you...
USA is not a democracy. just like communism, "pure" democracy simply can not exist. but what we have here is worse, we have something called a USD democracy, run by OIL KINGS.
(this is targeted at "us americans".. though everyone else in the western world.. hell, everyone else THAT'S READING THIS should read)
WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP!!!!!!
YOU have a direct effect on the world around you. your INACTION has the same effect. its YOUR job to make the world a better place.
its your job to try to make humanity something greater than a parasite.
as tyler durden said, "you are not your fucking khakis"
From the article:
Americans in 2000 spent less than they did 10 years earlier on steaks, martinis, cigars, jewelry, watches, furniture, toys and sound equipment. They spent less on entertainment and more on education, housing, transportation and computers.
Okay, steaks corresponds with the mentioned trend about people eating more fresh vegetables. That would seem to correlate with trying to eat healthier. Martinis? Okay, perhaps people are drinking more malt beverages?
As for the education, housing, transportation, if you look, housing prices, education prices and transporation prices have all been going up. That has nothing to do with any earnest desire by Americans to do something wholesome with their money. It's indicative of the fact that we are running our of spaces to expand to.
Computers? 10 years ago was 1992. Computers were hardly ubiquitous then and the top of the line was a 486. Now computers have become a much more essential part of every home and the internet has driven a lot of buying. To suggest that somehow we are doing something good because we buy an Athlon to surf pr0n is a crock.
Americans spent 10 percent less on food in general (though baby boomers spent 15 percent more on fresh vegetables). Americans spent 14 percent less on clothing, the largest decline in any category, though they did spend 12 percent more on shoes.
Food in general? Okay, lets get back to that steak. How much does it cost you for the ingredients for that steak vs a salad? Furthermore, the price of food, realtive to the value of a dollar has been decreasing. The reason clothing prices are going down is because of globalization and cheap international production of textiles. That has nothing to do with buying less clothes.
So, whatever, if you believe America has escaped some trend of history. If you think that this will go on forever, I just have three words for you:
THE NEW ECONOMY
Yup, remember that crock. Oh, record employment, growing wealth, with no looking back. The old rules are done. YEAH RIGHT. This country has done well over the years, granted but we've got a lot of bumps in the road to deal with ahead. A massive generation of retirees. The increasing gap between rich and poor. We haven't solved some magical formula folks, we've been blessed by history and it may continue that way for a while, but as any dot com CEO will tell you, all good things must come to an end.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
So is it wrong of me to buy a new computer every year to indulge my insatiable passion for gaming? I mean, as long as I don't shovel the old ones into a big heap and kill the environment by burning them?
I live in West Fargo, ND!
w00t.
In general the poor in America are extraordinarily well off in comparison to those in other countries. That isn't too say that there aren't people living in condition equal to the 3rd world - take a drive through Appalachia, or the Delmarva - or the Delta. Yes they may have a television - but the home contruction (1 or 2 rooms, outside plumbing) is very similar to that in India.
Here's another rich writer interviewed:
3 ,7 29841,00.html
http://www.observer.co.uk/magazine/story/0,1191
the numbers they gave in the articles were fairly abstract.. debt, savings, how much a person works... but it didn't specify how much things cost in different places in the states and how much you can afford by working part time or full time.
I think that the comparison would be better if it included price and wage comparison. For example, I can buy a sandwich at Subway in a small town in Oregon for 2 bucks less than in Silicon Valley. A grilled sandwich I will pay 3 dollars for in Kansas, I can buy for 8 bucks in Manhattan, NY.
Same goes with wages: a barista in starbucks in California would probably start around 8-9 bucks an hour, while the same person in Kansas would be getting paid probably around 5 bucks.
Then we have living expenses. A studio in a tiny town in PA might cost you 100 bucks/mo where as in SV you have to shell out probably 600+ greenbacks a month.
Now, THAT'S something that gives me a better idea how people are doing in different parts of the country.
Disclaimer: if you wana flame me because i got off my estimate by a fraction of a dollar, get a life. This is to make a point not to quote everything exactly.
"While I am not going to say they are happier than others (i personally am a pretty happy motherfucker) they seem more sociable/family oreinted. Such are the advantages of living without televisions,game boys etc.."
Several studies have shown increased cognitive activity, across the population as a whole, for populations without "modern" conveniences & urban social structures. This difference is particularly apparent in Hunter/Gatherer societies - and generally attributed to the constant environmental interaction & increased content of social interractions.
Of course we're smarter than we've ever been.
We as Americans are vaguely aware that we are better off that most people in the world. I thought I 'got it' before I travelled a bit. I know I could have been the one who posted how hard it is to raise a family in New York.
No.
I tell you truly: a homeless person anywhere in the US is far better off than the average African. We are so steeped in wealth, what one person I met called "an embarrassment of riches", we have no perspective.
We truly do not understand what poor means. Not a clue. The average american roughing it in the great outdoors brings more stuff in his backpack than the average african ever owns.
No running water. No electricity (ha!). No roof. No car. No bus. No sidewalks or pavement. No shoes. Nothing.
Disease is rampant; 80% of the population is HIV positive in Malawi. The average age is 15.
If the world is getting you down, take a trip to Malawi. It will change your perspective.
from the praise-mammon dept.
Mozilla's about:mozilla page mentions mammon:
And the beast shall be made legion. Its numbers shall be increased a thousand thousand fold. The din of a million keyboards like unto a great storm shall cover the earth, and the followers of Mammon shall tremble.
from The Book of Mozilla, 3:31
(Red Letter Edition)
reprinted in about:mozilla since April 2000.
The shareholder is always right.
Brings to mind some of the arguments in "No Logo" by Naomi Klein.
On the other hand there is the law of deminishing returns. That translates to something like... "Sooner or later the structure will choak itself to death". Now not being a pessimist, but the US seems to be getting pretty inefficient. A great amount of the per capita production has been outsourced. The govening bodies and communities seem to be trying to regulate all the citizens out of the picture, and the larger companies are killing themselves to up the ante and make the market place even more difficult to operate in.
There has got to be a breaking point somewhere!
Saw an article on Nash's Equilibrium point a few nights ago. Could be a really nice solution there.
Otherwise there is always darwinism.
"... every time I open my mouth some of my stupid escapes!"
Some geeks in silicon valley, and others elsewhere, need to figure this out.
:)
One of my friends recently started making around $30k a year before taxes. Not terrible with only two years of higher education.
His first move? Buying a $20k car.
He now has no phone service, is quite starving, and no one's seen him for months after talking to him last.
It reminds me of silicon valley. "Look at the paycheck I have!" And then dolts decide that they're going to buy everything they've ever wanted because they can afford it.
When you spend twice your income each year, you can expect the ominous sound of the devilish repo man. Tears (I've seen video from stories on repo men in Silicon Valley) won't save your porsche or anything else. It'll just make the repo men love their job even more.
Being a CEO is fucking hard!! You have to work with your VPs to try to figure out new ways to cook your books and dupe Wall Street into pouring money into your pockets. Then you gotta come up with lots of good speeches and sound bites to keep your employees and investors happy. Then you gotta work your ass off to make sure that nobody figures out that the company is losing money even faster than you spend it on new cars and beach houses. Then, when it looks like the dam is gonna burst, you gotta cash out quick and cover your ass so that the blame falls on some mid-level moron. Man... they just don't pay these guys enough to deal with all these headaches.
If a grunt-worker is getting $30k a year, it can be argued that a top-executive in that (large) company should get $100k-200k fairly reasonably.
Giving yourself a yearly bonus of $10 *million* is not reasonable, unless the grunt worker can expect a (proportional) $1.5-3 million for working his ass off too.
And then there was the phrase in the article that, *after* receiving a $3.1mln bonus, the CEO did things that made him a tidy sum of money. Many reasonably well-to-do people would, metaphorically, kill to have that amount of money.
Expecting all people to get paid the same is ridiculous, but for equal values of determination, dedication and hard work, people should get equally proportioned rewards.
Comparing the USA to Switzerland is retarded. We simply do not have the option of being neutral in international affair such as the Swiss are. A country of our size, power and influence just cannot abide such a policy. Has the pre World War II era taught you nothing?
Mac OS X and Windows XP working side by side to fight back the night.
When you're poor, you're likely to be unhappy and wanting more. When you're rich, you're likely to be at least satisfied, if still wanting more. I'd rather be satisfied than unhappy.
Also - when you're poor, the "more" you want might be: not to be living on the street if you can't find the money for rent this month. When you're rich, the "more" you want might be: none of the house-help quits this month. Again, I'd prefer #2.
...by consumption figures alone, one has to take in account production. And this is where US has nothing at all for a long time already. US may be "rich" because it uses internally the currency that everyone else uses as a precious resource for international trade. So while in US a dollar is something you pay for everything without thinking, abroad it's something you save for trade with other countries fot their goods (not with US -- US doesn't export much) and can obtain only by international trade (including US -- US imports a lot).
This situation formed after WWII when US economy was in a good condition while everyone else was in deep crisis and had very weak and unstable local currency. By starting a stream of worthless in itself green paper from US to others US managed to create a mechanism that supplies it with goods and power for merely providing international currency.
When inflation of dollar in US reach the extent that will make dollar undesirable for international trade, or another currency will start competing with it, or when countries will develop more advanced trading system that will instantly adjust prices based on the expected behavior of the currency offered, US will lose that advantage. If at that point US won't develop a non-parasitic economy it can just as well start randomly nuking foreign countries in an attempt to discredit their currencies just like WWII did.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
I'm single and I still live with my parents. Granted, I'm only 20, but back in my parent's day, it was common to leave home at 18. Nowadays, none of my friends have left home. Why? Our society is not designed for single people.
;-)
In the UK, the average rent on a small 1 bedroom place is about £600 ($860) in most places, even in the quiet and jobless South West.
The average wage in the UK is reported as £20,000 (almost $30,000) a year. After tax, this equates to £15,000 a year, or £1250 ($1800) a month. So, bam, half of your wage has gone on your rent.
In the US, you have it a bit better. Your society is not geared towards single people either, but those who want somewhere cheap and safe to live can find it. I know that you can rent nice places in the South for $400/$500 a month, and I know that groceries are cheap, and gas is ridiculously cheap. Nice weather too. Sure, it's not a wealthy area, but if you telecommute (as I do) who cares?
Now, take a poor place in the UK. Crime (primarily street assault) is a major problem in the UK nowadays, so finding somewhere reasonably safe is key. You're looking at £500 ($750) minimum to rent a tiny shithole, and add to that that gas is US$4.50 a gallon. Plus, the weather's lousy.
The difference, however, is that there are housing associations for those who can't afford $750+ a month in rent. This is a rather socialist idea, and one of the reasons we pay so much tax. My pride kinda stops me from looking at this option. I'm a capitalist, and if I want something I have to damn well work for it. This view somewhat conflicts with the UK's 'welfare state' ideals.
To be honest, if I could haul my ass to Louisiana tomorrow, I would.. but unfortunately your visa system wouldn't let me in. This, despite the fact that I wouldn't be scraping off of welfare, and could keep working for exactly the same clients as I do now! Of course, Greece or the south of France are other options, but hello.. don't we want to live in a place that speaks English?
mogorific carpentry experiments
If we could come up with a civilization were nobody would end up on the street then money wouldn't be so important.
Europe is like this.
Okay, okay, there are people on the street, but rest assured, you can get a home from the government if you're really in the shit. Believe it or not, a lot of homeless people have ideals and don't want to live on government handouts, but the option is there.
Now, you're right, money isn't as important in Europe as it used to be. This is a bad thing. People are lazy. I know people who just can't be bothered to work, and claim benefits perpetually.
That's the problem with the socialist system. The lazy don't work, and the people who want to work end up paying shitloads of demoralizing taxes.
mogorific carpentry experiments
You're kidding, right?
> Fact is, we spend more than most people in the world make. We're a consumptionist society.
It's not just that you spend more because you make more either! As a european I find it amazing that most of the families described in the "how far a dollar goes" section supposedly make over 50.000 USD, but only have a few thousand dollars saved up...
Without social benefits, what happens to these people if they're made redundant (or fall down the stairs, break their backs, and cant work anymore)?
..even the poor ones.
A month ago, Reuters reported that Swedes were less well off than poorest Americans.
Quoth the article:
"Black people, who have the lowest income in the United States, now have a higher standard of living than an ordinary Swedish household," the HUI economists said.
And I still would choose to live in Sweden any day over living in USA.
Actually you don't need a login or password.n ytimes.com/2002/06/09/magazine/09COMPENSATION.html
/ college.nytimes.com/2002/06/09/magazine/09/COMPENS ATION.html
e /09/COM PENSATION.html) and voila.
For example take http://www.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http://www.
Change that into http://archives.nytimes.com/auth/login?URI=http:/
It returns a error with some of their crap or something. Try to access the story again
(http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/09/magazin
Actually, the US benefits/welfare system is much more robust than the critics would lead you to believe.
A girl I went out with recently is the mother of 2, lives in a free townhouse with all utilities paid, car expenses and repairs paid, may be getting a replacement car (under some certain value I forgot) and has had various surgery procedures for cancer all paid for by the government in Rockwood, Tennessee.
I did not make any of that up and was pretty amazed when she was telling me, since I had the same brainwashing everybody else gets about how "horrible" our welfare system is.
Oh yes, she does work, from time to time, in grocery stores.
michael thinks it is "unintentionally funny" because he is one of those folks that believes our wealth comes at the expense of the "downtrodden" people of the world.
"Hey if people stop buying stuff they don't need capitalism kinda falls apart..."
oooookay...
If you don't buy some new shiny stuff,capitalism fall apart...
riiiiiiiight...
In other news...if you hold your breath for more than a minute, the carbon-oxygen cycle of the earth 'falls apart'...keep breathing dammit!!!
"only truth I find in the world anymore is in academics...."
ahhh...so you're one of those smelly profs that don't actually teach,but still get paid because you're on tenure...
way to advance the human genome there, monkey boy...
The solution for CEO pay is simple: No CEO can make more than 10x more than the lowest paid employee in his company, stock options included. This may, at first glance, seem like a lot but consider right now the average CEO pay is 400x of the average worker.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
I've lived in Cambridge, south east England (one bedroom flat was £415 a month), Lancaster, north west England (Two bedroom house was £380) and I'm currently living in Cellardyke, west Scotland (3 bedroom house for £390). You have to go somewhere pretty expensive to have to pay £600 a month for a one bedroom flat.
;-)
£415 a month in Cambridge? Were you sharing or going through a housing association? That's pretty cheap for round that way.
The cheapest place I've found in the entire country is Lincolnshire. You can get a 2/3 bedroom house 15 miles outside of Lincoln for about £250/£300 a month. Ridiculously cheap, and low crime. Of course, no jobs (or broadband), but hey!
I'm interested in moving to North Devon or North Cornwall, but as you can expect, sky high prices.
What's your area of Scotland like? I've never really considered Scotland before for the stupid fact that I don't like the accent
I guess I'm looking for the impossible. A cheap, low-crime area in the UK that has DSL.
mogorific carpentry experiments
Poor here is defined as "earning between $17,000 and $34,000 a year."
I don't make much more than that, and I've got all of these computers, and an XBox, and a Dreamcast, and...
No doubt, but I'll bet your single, young and in good health. That's a 2-child household income in a lot of places. Bringing up baby cuts into the gaming money real fast. But you've got a point. The article does sort of hit home.
I actually found it a little sickening, but also very difficult to refute. I've been thinking about this topic long and hard already after a recent trip to the Netherlands. Their country makes so much more sense than America in terms of infrastructure, land use, and even on some levels culture (e.g. live events are more popular than TV), and yet there's a certain spark over here in the US that just doesn't seem as present. For all the great stuff they've done with their nation, the Dutch struck me as generally bored, laconic, maybe even a little down in the dumps. And I know it's not just because their Football team didn't qualify for the world cup.
So this article does a good job of capturing That Thing (opportunity, real or perceved) that makes America glimmer, hum and sing, but it convienently glosses over the rough spots. I'm talking about things like the amount of trash we produce, the violent crime, or the soaring numbers of citizens who subscribe to anti-depressant prescriptions. You know, all the fscked up stuff that's wrong with this place.
The trouble with the cult of money is that as good as it is for getting people off their ass, it's an empty temple. There's no there there, no nirvana, no peace, only endless and relentless pursuit. I'm fine with this kind of thing in theory. It is, after all, all about the journey. We're still evolving as a nation, thank the constitution, gutted as it may be, but we're not there yet. That's why it's so important to keep the playing fields open (copyright law) and the spooks off our backs (civil liberties) and keep a careful eye out for the nasty leviathans that tend to rise up (anti-trust). If we declare this or any other time to be, as they used to say, 'the end of history', then we will surely go the way of the Romans.
In the end, I encourage the impulses that drive the consumer machine. How can I not? It's energy, and energy is the potential to make some of the wrong things right. We've all got a bit of that progressive energy in us. I just wish we were a little more progressive about how we applied it.
Howard Dean for president
Maybe we should lie to homebuyers and say, "Yeah, with interest rates at 20% your mortgage payments will be yada yada" then we'll have a solid recovery instead of a credit card-induced recovery.
MESSAGE TO ALL AMERICANS - you are poor only if you have sold your only car, and have to buy discounted groceries from WalMart because the fresh stuff is too expensive. Just a reality check for you, this is how we live in the rest of the world.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
A few weekends ago, a friend recommended Rich Dad, Poor Dad to me. No, it's not an investment book. Rather, it's an interesting look into the ways that those of different economic levels teach their kids what money is, and how to earn money.
It's pretty good so far. Nothing mind-blowing, but there's certainly some logical thought in there that had never occurred to me.
I mention the book, though, because he freely admits that your typical "employment" lifestyle that most Americans have isn't enough to make you "rich", and is hardly enough to help you retire comfortably. However, he also realises people have to start out somewhere. You can't invest if you have zero. Thus, fiscal responsibility is entirely necessary, especially in the beginning, and something that most of us (yes, you, Slashdot reader) don't have.
I know and/or have known way too many people who make way too much more money than me to be living paycheck-to-paycheck like they do. Granted, I make an okay salary, but I've known tonnes of people who've made six-figures USD and can't control their finances. It's asanine, but it's not an anomaly -- US News and World Report recently that some enormous percentage of Americans had saved less than $50,000 for retirement.
The author of that NYT article was right, to some degree. Americans are fairly rich. We also, however, spend a lot of money on absurd things. The author of Rich Dad, Poor Dad is right, too: Americans don't know where to put their money, spending it on liabilities, not assets, and have a pitifully wrong understanding of it.
I think what the **AAs would really be afraid of is people discovering that their public library has tons of good books that are free for you to read.
These dumbasses don't realise that in 2 years when the Fed raises interest rates their mortgage payments are going to be so high that half of them are going to be in negative equity.
No, the idiots were the ones who didn't get FIXED mortgages when 30 year loans were 6%! Why in the world would you get a variable percentage mortgage when the interest rates were that low???
Americans have all been programmed, by Christmas especially, to associate getting stuff with feeling good (getting an endorphin rush). Doesn't matter what kind of plastic crap it is, the point is that getting stuff feels good. It's an addiction, and the first step in kicking it is realizing that. The next time you find yourself hot to buy some new thing that you just gotta have, take a step back and start doing some serious thinking.
Did anybody check out the slide show the detailed where people where putting their money in different areas of the country?
The car payments are crazy. It seems like people across all the economic stratas are spending way to much on cars. People with no money are paying $800 or more every month on their cars (sometimes more than one car). It's a far better idea to keep your cars until they are worn out and to put as much down as you can (unless you have a great loan rate).
Anyway, don't blow all your money on cars when your family is struggling to make ends meet. You have more important things to buy.
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
The wealthy Noam Chomskys of the world run around saying it is somehow YOUR fault that those dirt poor Kuwaitis are poor.
The original poster didn't say that at all. And besides, Kuwait is a very, very rich country. If you think that lower class Kuwaiti's are living a miserable, poverty-stricken existance, than well - donate to the Christian Charity Fund today! That way, you can placate your delusions of cultural superiority.
I don't understand why people like to gripe about CEO's salaries. If you don't want a company to have the money to pay its executives crazy amounts of money, then don't purchase products/services from that company. If you're a shareholder, sell. Or get together with other shareholders to make your gripe known.
I feel the same way about people who whine that sports superstarts get paid too much. It doesn't bother me, because I don't watch sports or attend sporting events, so they're not taking my money. (although the partly tax-payer funded stadium built here in Cleveland taking up useful water front space to be used 10 times a year does tend to piss me off....)
Same goes with rock/pop stars or movie/TV stars. If you don't want them to get paid that much, don't give them your money.
The only salaries that get to me are those of government workers because they're paid with my taxes which I have a pay even if I don't want to.
Macintosh humor! MacComedy.com
If you aren't happy in your life's station then you aren't happy. It is of little difference if someone out there has it worse than you. Perspective is an integral part of your environment.
Why do people continually feel the need to put down other's emotions and desires by bringing up people who may live in a different world? If that is the only way you can drive yourself to do better than so be it, but don't attack others for not feeling the desire to use pity as a driving force.
--- I do not moderate.
I wouldn't call it white man's burden even though it may be eugenics. We should start with the swedes since they are poorer than african americans as this yahoo article shows:e rty_1.ht ml
http://biz.yahoo.com/rf/020504/sweden_pov
Well, I've been through periods where I've been fairly well off (earning aroun $100k) and times when I've been pretty darn poor ($17k and living in low income housing). I can say without any doubt that I'm happier now because of my money.
My neighbors aren't dangerous and my life is a little smoother. I can enjoy small treats when I want them without feeling guilt. (I like being about to afford orange juice.) The fact is eating well, having fun toys, and not struggling to get by does make me happy.
Now, I'm not totally immune to consumerism. I have a tivo (which I enjoy) and I just payed $200 for a ticket to the Stanley cup. I sat right behind 9 hall of famers. That made me happy too. (I'm a big hockey fan and player)
So, money isn't the only key to happiness but it sure does help.
Vanguard
That which does not kill me only makes me whinier
Could we see one for the VA/Andover one?
AFAK, Andover was profitable, then VA ("The #1 losing money Linux PC maker") stepped in. A year later the joint company shed as much of the VA heritage as possible. How many VA employees were sent away in the end?
VA as a company was only able to buy a GOOD, profitable company and leech its revenue stream because of the ludicrous valuation of its stock by idiots on the futures market. That websites that were owned and operated by Andover in 1999 are still around today is a miracle of their financial controllers, thanks to Larry Augustin and his money-losing grew.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Brooks's entire argument appears based on his eagerness to generalize about all Americans based on an average income. This method is blind to the possibility that the "great wealth" he's reporting is falling on a very few people who skew the curve.
t . tml
The median income (the income level below which half the people live) can drop while the average income rises. Thus, the rich get richer, and spending on consumer items falls, meaning we, as a nation, become virtuously "undecadent," spending less on clothes and shoes and whatnot.
From the US Census bureau: http://www.census.gov/hhes/income/mednhhld/p23tex
"MEASURING THE LEVEL AND DISTRIBUTION OF INCOME
From 1969 to 1996, median household income rose a very modest 6.3 percent in constant dollars (from $33,072 to $35,172). At the same time, per capita income rose by a robust 51 percent in constant dollars (from $11,975 to $18,136). The two data series are not inconsistent, because the median simply identifies the income level of the household in the middle of the income distribution while per capita income is calculated by dividing aggregate income by the total number of individuals in the universe. Although the two series are not inconsistent, the difference between the two is sufficiently large that an attempt to identify the reasons behind the difference seems useful. The material below will focus on changes in income inequality and changes in the size and composition of households as factors that help explain the different growth rates in the two income series.
The fact that median household income showed only a small gain during the same time period that per capita income rose sharply suggests that a major change occurred in income inequality. The distribution of income changed dramatically over the period, but it changed in such a way as to have a small effect on the median."
Must be why that 48-hour shutoff notice next to my keyboard makes me feel so goddamned rich and yet delightfully undecadent, what with all this money sloshing around in my environment.
Start with the one about median incomes:
a zi ne/09median.slideshow_1.html
http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2002/06/06/mag
That one.
Now look at the amount in savings these people have on their $54,400 a year.
1st Family: he's 28, she's 29. Savings: $22.5k.
I guess that's not *too* bad, but they bought a $16k boat even though they've only saved 1/2 a year of
their combined incomes...
2nd Family: he's 35, she's 33. Savings: $1000 in a savings account (i.e., NOTHING). They bought a huge TV, but their kids are like 15, 12, and 8 or something. Sorry, no college for you.
3rd Family: he's 52, she's 45. Look at the hours that poor guy works: upto a 100 a week! For $54k a year! Only $20k in savings, but over $400k in debt.
4th Family: he's 39, she's 28 (good job, buddy). Savings: over $100k (plus college fund), and they own their house and are working on a second one. Best so far.
5th Family: he's 59, she's 53. No mention of savings, but they sold a diner they had, and he mentions that their 401k did pretty well.
6th Family: he's 43, she's 43. Savings: ~$40k + $7k for a college fund. He's a programmer (only technical person so far).
7th Family: She's 35. No $$ figure, but she puts $600 a *month* into a savings account.
So families 4 and 7 seem to be doing pretty well off toward retirement, and probably family 5 as well. Family 3 works hard, but farming is even tougher than I thought.
WHAT ABOUT THE REST OF YOU! WHERE ARE YOUR SAVINGS?!
That's what I can't believe about this country. No one ever saves any goddamn money. They either expect a miracle to happen, or that someone else will cover for them. Like me. And you know what: *fuck* that.
Family number 6: you're technical, you should *get* this. You make $54.4k in Fargo, N.D., which is probably a *lot* of money for that area. Yet you have less than one year of income's worth of savings, and apparently are still paying off your house. WHY?! I've only been working for two years and soon I'll have that much, and I've had to pay off large amounts of student and other debt. Why why why why why?
I can understand that some people just can't save money: that eating and having a place to sleep just eat up their entire income. But then there's people like Family 2: the price of their TV is twice their TOTAL savings. And when they reach retirement age, what do they expect will happen? Keep working until they die? Get Social Security from a generation probably smaller than theirs? What?
Take some responsiblity for you financial future, you goddamn losers. I am not your savior, and the rest of the American public shouldn't have to be, either.
Thanks for taking the time to write it.
My wife and I are pretty much in the same situation. SF Bay Area, she's staying home to take care of our son. I bring home the bacon, and she does our finances. We just bought our first house a couple months ago, and things are looking just fine.
And it's all because we live below our means.
Thanks again for the well-written article!
You talking to me? Who are people like me? Do you mean the whiny socialists or the greedy capitalist? Where do you think I'm coming from?
Question: Why in the world would you get a variable percentage mortgage when the interest rates were that low??? Answer: Because you are sure you are going to be selling that home within 5-7 years (first house, temp. job re-location, whatever) and you can get an even better rate and save yourself some money by going with a 5/25 or 7/23 mortgage.
That's the problem- the shareholders are being robbed by shysters with good PR agents. I have no problem with CEOs making huge amounts of money when they do good work. But running a company into the ground and still making millions is repugnant.
If a CEO does a lousy job, he ought to get- NOTHING! That's right, no compensation at all. One of the problems is that once a person is financially secure, the rest of it is just a game. A guy with 10 million in assets can still lose 9 and retire better than 99% of the population. So let these primadonnas work uncompensated 'til they get results. That's what the rest of us have to do in our ventures, and sometimes we lose- everything. Most of these guys can well afford to work for free anyway.
One can eat only so many carrots. It's time to bring out the stick.
One of these articles says the average family income is $54,400, while another says $42,000. Which is it?
You're absolutely correct. That's how MOST people in the United States become wealthy. :). Substitute Accord or Camry to taste :).
In this book a marketing research type contacted MANY high net worth households and found that most wealthy people drink Budweiser, drive Fords, and live in Middle class 'burbs. They most often own their own businesses (worth a note). Frequently they are immigrants who haven't gotten caught up in American style consumption.
A lot of those people driving new BMWs and living in expensive neighborhoods might have high paying jobs, but if the checks stop coming they are in deep doodoo.
I am a "high net worth individual" and I drive a Ford, but I do prefer Corona
In general, they're the best business men in the world.
If only that were true. Did you even read the article?
Gates, William H.
Chairman of the Board and Chief Software Architect $666,754
Ballmer, Steven A.
Chief Executive Officer, Director $665,520
Allchin, James E.
Group Vice President, Platforms $694
Raikes, Jeffrey S.
Group Vice President, Productivity and Business Services $695
now look at a company with a simular market cap, GE.
Jeffrey Immelt, 46
Chairman, CEO $6.6M
Dennis Dammerman, 56
Vice Chairman and Chairman, Gen. Electric Capital Services, Inc. 6.5M
Gary Rogers, 57
Vice Chairman and Exec. Officer 3.5M
Robert Wright, 58
Vice Chairman and Exec. Officer 6.1M
the "scam" here is that all those folks at MS have a lot of stock options, for example Gates sells his stock at regular intervals, making (i think) around 1B a year.
Reading all that whining about how this CEO at SBS is rakeing it in with average performance made me think, why the f*ck is the board paying him so much, then i read this:
(from the artical, page 2.)
The directors, who earn $60,000 a year, no doubt believe this; they have been close to Whitacre and have been endorsing his pay for a long time. He has also been endorsing theirs. Two of SBC's nominally independent directors -- August A. Busch III, chairman of Anheuser-Busch, and Charles Knight of Emerson Electric -- run companies for which Whitacre is a director. Most of the other 18 directors have either served with Whitacre for at least 10 years or were directors of companies that Whitacre acquired.
Bassicly this CEO is a director for some of the membors on the board, bassicly, you give me a raise, i'll give you a raise deal, very "good old boys" style. Either way, if you don't like it just don't buy any of thier stock, the obviously don't care that much about it, i don't see why you would.
-Jon
this is my sig.
Wow. Three slightly edgy anonymous comments, 3 moderations wasted marking down throwaway comments that are below most people's thresholds, anyways. This feels great. Now I understand what motivates trolls.
Got this today, with my pets.com order verification and BEOS newsletter. Either e-mail delivery is slowing down or I don't check my mailbox very often.
Dear Anonymous Coward,
Greetings from eToys Customer Service! Here is the information you requested:
Your password: slashdotted
Your password clue: What am I?
You should now be able to use your account.
If you still have trouble using your account, or if you have any other questions
or comments, please do not hesitate to e-mail us at service@etoys.com or call us
at 1-800-GO-ETOYS (1-800-463-8697). We are open 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific
Standard Time,
Monday through Friday.
If you are calling from Canada, please dial 1-888-98-ETOYS (1-888-983-8697).
For all other calls outside the United States, please dial 310-664-8530.
Sincerely,
eToys Customer Service
http://www.etoys.com
Where great ideas come to you.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Comment removed based on user account deletion
What's worst is all of this, but doing it with your Visa/MC/etc. Frivolous debt is a disturbing thing.
CBC will knock the ignorance out of your brain. Afghanistan is still in a full fledged civil war - the only difference is that America just propped up a dictatorial rat bastard, and they get him to do whatever the fuck they want. How do they do it? Well, as a green beret said, "We promise him, as long as you do what we want, foreign aid won't come in to interfere with your rein."
Sure, I agree it's a fact that we spend more than most of the world makes, here in the USA.
Where I think you're missing something, though, is with your accusations of items such as "paper plates and disposable diapers" being evidence of our wastefulness.
The old adage "time is money" holds a lot of truth, and most of these disposable items are used because they free up our valuable time for better things. Even with something as simple as an office that holds a "food day" of some sort in the cafeteria -- which makes more economic sense; let several employees clean all the dishes and cups afterwards, or toss out the paper ones and get back to work?
Furthermore, I can speak personally on the disposable diaper issue, now that we have our first kid. We looked hard at avoiding disposables - but you know what? It's just not worthwhile. Most babies have skin irritations if you use the cheap laundry soap. If you want to avoid that, you have to buy something like Ivory or Dreft detergent, at double the price of Tide or All. Then you figure in the cost of all the extra dryer sheets, electricity used for the washer and dryer, and all of your time spent cleaning the extra loads of cloth diapers in the wash. If you don't get them cleaned right away, you've got this mess of used diapers stinking up the house - so consider that another possible negative. Buying the "store brand" disposable diapers started making a *lot* more sense for us - and "convenience" was merely a secondary bonus to it.
Yes, there are benefits in many societies for marriage or couples sharing the burden of bills. The break in the taxes in the US, arguably, is not very good by design thanks to liberal policies.
Also, I live in the NY area... my wife and I make 80K total. We have montly bills of the following:
1) Rent of 2100
2) Car payment of 500
3) Car insurance of 220
4) Utilities of 300 a month
5) Misc utilities (website fees, ISP) of another 50 a month
6) 2 bus tickets and one subway ticket (montly passes) totaling 210 a month
7) Entertainment and food totals 450 a month
8) CC and Credit bills of 500+ a month
Thats 4600+ a month, not counting travel to and from home, car maintenance, clothing, unexpected bills, etc...
Our montly post tax income is 4690 a month. That only leaves us with 90 at the end of the month if we are lucky. And that doesn't account for things like a vacation, trips home for family and weddings, etc... we certainly come up short some months. Problem is, the economy nose dived and available jobs in our fields of interest cut pay because either they could or they had to (we just moved here).
We plan on economizing at the end of our lease, moving away from this apartment into something at least 500 dollars cheaper, but that place will be further away from NY most likely, smaller (we need at least 1100 sq feet to live comfortably, shooting for 1250 and we have 1500 currently), and not as close to services and shopping.
So, yeah, we make alot and buy lots of toys in this country (if we are an example of a young couple in the under 35 catagory), but a dollar doesn't go far either and cost of living is rarely discussed fairly in articles like the ones that spawned this thread.
Yeah, people are so stupid. House prices are rising here because the Feds cut interest rates so mortgages look cheap. These dumbasses don't realise that in 2 years when the Fed raises interest rates their mortgage payments are going to be so high that half of them are going to be in negative equity.
Ever hear of a fixed rate mortgage?
Do you have links for those studies? I'd be very interested in reading them.
- MFN
It's funny how reproduction in the whole falls into an "evil to discuss" category, at least in regards to "white man"
No, what's funny is how some people think that other people's reproductive lives are somehow anybody else's business.
Moron.
$54,400 is the median.
$42,000 is the average.
You need some evidence to back up that claim. There is plenty of evidence that bin Laden was responsible for the 1993 bombing, and at the very least had the motive for Sept. 11. He certainly had the means to organize it.
The man actually declared war on the USA! Or did you somehow miss that tidbit?
Living in Texas, there is no excuse for a Brit who wants to live in the US. Just do like the Mexicans. Come on in. When I go to the supermarket, I hear about 80% Spanish 20% English.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
Thats funny, seeing as I just locked into a fixed rate mortgage loan last week at 6.75%. Last I checked that was less than 8%.
"Honesty is the key to a relationship. If you can fake that, you're in." --Rich Jeni
Although I agree that executives should not be rewarded for poor performance . . . it is likely that the SBC CEO did work very hard at his job. It is also likely that he kept the outcome of the 2000-2001 slump alot lower than it could have been.
It is very hard to measure how well an executive performs when he or she is perfroming damage control. The company looks bad, but it could look worse.
Walk a mile in his million dollar shoes and you might not find them very comfortable. You might even decide that no amount of money would be worth the hassle you had to go through.
Here in the UK that is Yankee Doodle doo.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
As to you diaper example the Union of Concerned Scientists had a book, cant think of the name at the moment, came to the same conclusion. After so many things are figured in they came to the conclusion that disposable diapers arent any worse for the environment than ones you have to wash.
My blog: http://jkratz.dyndns.org/~jason/blog/
I'd add to that that it's probably very likely that - just as when OPEC constrains supply to oil, revenues actually go down because people drive less when gas prices go up - the market will respond the same way with eveyrthing else, if there develops an underclass of people who aren't able to afford goods and services, because monopolies have priced them out of the common man's reach, or licensing agreements become too onerous.
Face it, the whole reason Brittney sold so many zillions of CD's is because there were a whole buttload of 14 year olds whose mummies and daddies gave them too big of an allowance.
And the same thing's going to happen in broadband as the competition dissolves, and they jack up the prices and restrictions. The whole reason why people started getting on the internet back in the early 90's was because it was trivially cheap for every quirky individual to put up his or her own web page, and you could just surf for hours and hours looking at cool stuff. That Internet is long gone, and there's really not a whole lot that's compelling anymore. So why do people feel the need to get broadband? A pissing contest? Sure, the geeks need the bandwidth to download ISOs, and low latency to frag losers - but the rest of them - the ones that got onto the Internet 5 or so years ago because there was so much cool content - now it's pretty much gone - or consolidated into commercial interests which intend to wring every penny out of it - which makes it instantly unappealing to the average websurfer.
There was a resurgence during the era when it was safe and free to download MP3's - the new "killer app" of the Internet - but now - MP3's aren't free anymore. You pay for them by being subject to spyware - or dealing with a low signal-to-noise ratio (vs. spam, poorly ripped, mislabeled, or incomplete tracks).
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
As I move along in life, I'm coming into the theory that most of us are manic depressive, spending our money on a bunch of crap we don't and never will need, just to make ourselves feel better for a little while.
If we're all manic depressive, that'd mean that manic depression is merely a theory to...bla bla. The point is that the extremes are the cases you see, and the rest of us are either a) also manic depressive, or b) it doesn't exist at all and that's just how people are by nature.
And most of us have ADD as well (in theory), the successful people being the ones that can force focus long enough to make it to the top.
As we should all know, "poverty" is relative, as most of you mentioned. One of you (or more) was talking about how much your money is really worth and relating it to what a dollar can buy.
Take the family in Fargo, ND. If they make $54,400/year, they need to make the following amounts in those cities to have the SAME standard of living:
Chicago: $98,840
Manhattan: $103,367
St. Louis: $67,984
On scale, the average cost of living in the U.S. is 100. Manhattan is 261 and Chicago is 173. Burlington, VT, is 110 and St. Louis, Missouri, is 85.
[All numeric data is from homefair.com]
For those of you who apparently didn't catch it, that was the point of David Brooks's article.
As far as the Fargo, ND, farming family is concerned, they don't give the most important data in order to judge this family's true income and "worth". It says he makes that $54,400/year. Some of you were talking about the $400,000 loans and the $25,000 tractor payments. I highly doubt that this is out of his $54k income. Farms are generally run as a business, and since i'm Mr. Assumption, I'll assume that they bring in much more than $54,400 on a gross-income level, and $54k is what they have slated for themselves. The business costs taken out of that gross (post-tax) income would be the loan payments, etc.
Farming is a very, very difficult business, regardless.
The thing that annoys me with these articles, like it does with the people who surround me every day, is how much these folks spend on car payments. $750 and $800/month? Are they insane? For those cars?
I have friends that pay $700 for Monteros and coworkers who pay $350 and $400 for an average car (Monte Carlo, etc.).
I bought a 2003 TL in April and I pay $336/month. It's amazing how badly people get ripped off when they buy cars. My dad pays like $400/month for an Accord and was pretty damn mad when I got payments of $336/month. People don't do the research and are happy being ripped off.
On a personal level, I often feel that the excess is ridiculous, but don't pass up dropping $4 on Starbucks or spending $100 at the grocery store, and then the next day wondering what there is to eat in the house.
I keep telling myself that feng shui saying, "Cluttered House Equals Cluttered Mind." But then I look at my 8 drawers of wires and plugs and adapters and two closets of clothes I never wear, and convince myself that I'll need that 18th 4'-long telephone cable ever again in my life. And then I go buy more cables and clothes.
I have a 3-bedroom apartment and it's FULL of crap. And it's just me and my dog and half the days, my girlfriend. What single man needs a 3-bedroom and still needs to use basement storage? That's f*cking sad.
I've promised myself that if I ever lose my apartment (I pay $800 for a 3-bedroom in a city [Chicago] that has an average 2-bedroom cost of $1795), I'll move into a 1-bedroom and get rid of all my crap. Of course, promises are nearly always broken. I'll probably go to Ikea and buy more sh*t and never throw anything away and keep 16 boxes of cereal in the cupboard for no apparent reason.
Regardless of all that, though, "poverty" on a global scale is relative. Everyone talks about "go to Africa and see how bad it is," but to be rich there is a different story. Poor here is poor here, and it's not going to make a poor person in Alabama satisfied with his/her life just because you tell him/her that 80% of the people in Malawi have HIV [quote].
Just my $.02 of rambling during the daily grind.
-RH
The author of the article about the U.S. being rich, David Brooks, was on the Marketplace radio program last week introducing the article.
The page for the show is here, and has a link to the Real Audio archive of it.
It's followed by an interesting story on the horrendous interest rates charged by banks in Brazil.
Banks only offer fixed rate mortgages when the interest rate > 8%. Otherwise the Banks know they're gonna lose money when he interest rate inevitably rises.
... ;-) As far as I can tell, the interest rate is basically a way for the governments to control how much people borrow from the banks, thereby controlling inflation (since lending is the primary way that banks create money) and economic growth (since people need access to money in order to do anything these days).
Last time I checked, the banks didn't actually have to have all of the money they lend you. They can collect interest on several times the amount of money they actually have. Furthermore, the banks can use other people's money (which otherwise would sit unused in savings accounts) as a basis to lend still more money. Under a system like ours, the banks can actually fabricate that $300,000 you need for a house out of "thin air", and you will still have to pay the entire amount (plus interest compounded annually) back to them. For the banks, paper (or even better, electronic!) money is a wonderful thing.
Methinks they can still make some money at less than 8%
Cheers,
This happened to my friend, he had a $200,000 mortgage with BCCI, he had paid $150,000 of this mortgage off, so he only had $50,000 to go. He had $100,000 cash available but because of mortgage tax relief he didn't want to pay up his mortgage fully.
When BCCI tanked, they auctioned his house, they didn't give him a chance to pay $50,000 cash to buy the house.
Banks point of view:
If they buy the house from us, we get $50,000
If we seize the house and auction it, we get $300,000.
If you're thinking 8:1 is a bottomless pit, remind yourself that MANY top Bank employees get paid > $1.5million per year, and not just CEOs. You think the dot com boom was driven by the Nasdaq, well here's something for you - where do the VCs get their money from? $100 million doesn't grow on trees you know.
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
I've seen offers from banks advertising fixed rate mortgages of less than 7%, and know people that have fixed rate mortgages of less than 7%. Actually, it's not all that hard to get a fixed rate well under 8% if you have good credit.
Well, I've been trying so articulate a new way to understand an economy. Particulary, taking into account WHAT people buy in different countries. The problem is mainstream is not concerned about anything that is either: 1) relevant 2) insightfull. They just want to add layers of crap and theory over whatever obvious thing some nobel said in the past. They have no clue! But as long as "everyone" in the field buys the "crap", it hold as true ... it's the lens through which they understand economics.
The real important thing to have a RICH country like the US depends on basicaly three pillars:
1 - having enough food and jobs
2 - having a large share of the world purchasing power
3 - use the money to buy stupid* stuff inside the country (DVDs), export stupid stuff. Buy hard goods.
I will not go on exmplaing why, but it can be proved. Every time you buy a DVD, you are making yourselves richer. Trust me! It's not the point if you need the DVD or not, it's the fact you can afterwards buy hard stuff cheap from abroad by printing paper.
* "stupid stuff" is here defined as "near zero marginal" cost of production.
I can only describe a little example: suppose Bush wanted to increase the USA wealth and that he controled everyones minds in the US. He could then force all employers to pay $2000 to employees. The suppose alll those employees are forced to buy 200 DVD a year. Would ex-ante PRICES rise?!?! NO! Not a cent.
The ex-post situation depends on what Holywood does with the "extra earnings". Well, they just pay a lot of money to stars, pay for high end equipment, distribute some earnings to investors.
The stars mostly save the money or spend it in "stupid stuff" (if they could eat $5 millions bucks of local bread, you'd toasted as this would lead to inflation and thus all this "richist illusion would fall over"). The investors save it , or buy hard goods abroad, etc.
Well, the bottom line is: trust me, buy DVDs. It's the only way you can earn such high salaries! The day the US citicens (if ever) discover that their extra wealth is based in the assumption of them buying DVD, you'll see a great chaos (either bank collapse, or severe depression or high inflation).
unfinished: (adj.)
The scenario you describe doesn't make any sense.
BCCI "tanking" doesn't give them the right to seize his house---only his default does. If BCCI tanked, some other bank would pay to assume the mortgage.
when the Fed raises interest rates their mortgage payments are going to be so high that half of them are going to be in negative equity.
Changes in interest rates alone do not change the equity of the homeowner.
Equity = value of house - principal owed.
When interest rates change, your payments can change, but your equity doesn't magically disappear. The problem of negative equity comes when house prices drop. There is only a mild, indirect connection between mortgage rates and house prices.
So sudden increase in interest rates induces a drop in value of house and an increase in mortgage burden
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?
"Upon an interest rate rise, the effect is twofold - the repayments rise beyond the affordability of the majority of mortgageholders because it upsets the calculations they did at the low interest rate."
;-P
hey, you mentioned this before... bitter?
A caveman dreams of being us, the incalculable power and riches. We dream of being Q, then what?