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Pick Up A Piece of Enron
shintaro points out this massive collection of "gear from Enron on auction.
Amongst the more than 3,000 in this auction (1 of 10) are state and federal law books, and numerous notebooks sans hard drives. Might be a good opportunity to pick up a Sun Enterprise Server?
Office furniture is also on offer, Herman Miller and Knolls all over, not an IKEA item in sight. Interesting what Enron employees and shareholders must feel looking at this loot."
Some of that equipement is outdated and not worth the minimum bid... I'll go back to pricewatch and ebay...
I touch computers in naughty places
Why is this under YRO?
In Soviet russia, only old Koreans profit from pictures of Natalie Portman stored on Beowulf Clusters.
If the legislature doesn't have to read them, why should we?
Enron made campaign contributions totaling more than $5.7 million between 1989 and 2001. Republicans received 73% of this money. Ken Lay was an ardent supporter of George W. Bush during Bush's time as Governor of Texas. During the 2000 campaign, Lay allowed Bush to use Enron corporate jets to fly from stump speech to stump speech. So close were these men that Bush granted Lay a nickname: 'Kenny-Boy.'
About this time my '.com' was watching venture capital dry up. We had a meeting with Arthur Andersen to discuss our accounting product and I distinctly remember the 23 or 24 year guy not having the slightest clue why he was even meeting with us. Uniterested and pathetic questions. No wonder every audit firm in the universe used to APPROACH US at tradeshows - they must've thought EVERYONE was on the take.
Well my life since then plays like a broken country album. And Larry Ellison still looks like the devil. I hate this mellenium so far.
Stuff that matters.
Community programs are a bottomless pit into which tons of cash is wasted, I mean spent.
At least some up and coming business can get some good deals on expensive equipment.
It's not a question of whether they know what to do with it. They simply didn't earn it.
Every single thing in this country that we have is courtesy of business. Even government services are funded by corporations that pay taxes. A world without "greedy" business is a world of foraging for berries and dying of mysterious ilnesses like the flu.
Giving people with no ability money is a backwards way of doing things.
These company auctions rarely offer discount prices on anything... People get caught up in the moment and end up paying crazy prices for hardware. Often times you actually do better by buying newer hardware, then picking up things from these auction
No joke--another thing to consider is that any hardware you pick up is going to be at least three and a half years old (Enron died 12/2000.)
Something I noticed in the listings is that everything seems to have a minimum bid of $200, no matter what it is. Compaq server rack? $200. Compaq server rack with builtin 15" LCD, keyboard, trackball, and KVM? $200.
Like you noted, anyone who finds a good deal is someone willing to buy by the pallet at fifty to seventy cents on the dollar. If you're a surplus dealer who can move that kind of volume, more power to you. Else, best advice is stay away.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
Considering Enrons dirty tricks during the California energy crisis this is arguable, to put it politely.
Even government services are funded by corporations that pay taxes.
Considering that the ilks of Microsoft don't pay taxes (with some 60 billion $ cash reserve) and the fine people of Arthur Anderson fled to Bermuda as a tax shelter in order to stiff the community you're talking out of your arse, sir.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Try quitting the Communist Party. That should improve your viewpoint.
.com that was seeking out venture capital and selling accounting products? That doesn't sound very Communist to me.
Right. Everyone who dislikes Bush and the Republicans is a Communist. At least that's what the Young Republicans on Slashdot would have us believe.
But how do you explain why the so-called "Communist" to whom you replied was working for a
What they do is keep it around, and you can call in after the auction to buy bunches of unsold items at a price.
For best results, do the webcast or go in person. There are massive deals to be had. At one auction I attended, a loaded Sun E450 (quad proc, 1gb ram, lots o disk) went for $900 + buyers premium of around 16%.
The downside to having many lots is the auctioneer will sometimes collapse identical lots into one to save time. If you've got the cash, it's a great way to get great deals. You can also propose lots, like "I'll take the next 10 sun boxes for $8000 total."
Auctions are a real trip, but you have to know how much stuff is worth, definitely. I've seen things go for above-retail prices, so be warned.
Ah, but you forget that people like this live by knowing the limits of the law, and exploring their edges. You can't play the game without knowing the rules!
At least some of those law books are probably well worn. Companies like this spend lots of time exploring what has and hasn't been explicitely been ruled to be illegal, and trying variations on what has been to get around whatever was perceived to be the downfall of the now-illegal ploy.
The Fastows were permitted to arrange their prison sentences so that one of them could be "at home with their children".
Must be nice. If a husband and wife team had, say, broken into the Fastow's house and stolen 1/10000 of the dollar value that the Enron flacks DESTROYED (not stole), that couple would be thrown in the darkest hole the court could find them, and their kids would be lucky if they got into foster care.
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
It is funny you should say that. It seems America is moving closer and closer to being a socialist society. We just had Medicare say that obesity was a sickness so now we will have more tax dollars go to people who can't stay away from McDonald's and get some exercise. We work longer and longer every year to pay our share of the taxes. Soon those who work will get no real money and everyone will be on state aid with all our earnings going to the state. Those who can't work(probably most if the current trend persists)won't.
It seems America is moving closer and closer to being a socialist society. We just had Medicare say that obesity was a sickness so now we will have more tax dollars go to people who can't stay away from McDonald's and get some exercise.
The reason that Medicare did that was that obesity-related illnesses cost them far more that addressing the problem of obesity. If they can pay for weight loss drugs along with diet and exercise counseling now, it's a lot cheaper than paying to treat diabetes, heart attacks, strokes, and cancer later.
As to your concerns about a "socialist society," what is a society if not a group of people joining together and helping one another? Perhaps you would prefer to live like a pack animal, abandoning those who are sick or injured to die, but I would not. I'd rather that some of my money go to help the less fortunate. I'd rather have government/taxpayer aid help keep an unemployed person from losing their house and ending up destitute. I'd rather see someone born into poverty get government grants and subsidized loans for education. Keeping poor people uneducated and poor, and allowing the unemployed to slide into poverty, costs society far more than giving them aid.
Companies have two obligations - to make money, and to do so LEGALLY.
You can't make money for the shareholders outside the boundries of the law (Enron) or by screwing over your customers for very long though.
Unless, you know, you buy off enough officials so that the law fits your purposes. Then, you can screw the cust..erm, consumer all you want! The RIAA, MPAA, Microsoft, Wal-Mart, and other "fine american companies" have been doing this for years.
Pull your head out of your ass, and stop blindly worshipping at the altar of capitalism.
It is a societal obligation -- as in something that you are morally obligated to do as a member of society.
Could you point out what part of the Constitution authorizes the government to take money from one group of people (by force if necessary) and give it to another group of people?
Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1: "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States;..."
The OP is correct...
No, he, like you, is incorrect.
perhaps instead of being generous with other people's money, you might try being generous with your own money (or time) instead.
No, I prefer the system as it stands -- the one put in place by our elected representatives. I'd rather have laws to help ensure that everyone pays their fair share rather than having only the generous and decent people shoulder all of the financial burden of helping the less fortunate. I don't want you to be able to opt-out of helping the needy. I don't want you to be able to use the money you withold from from the needy to fund your next BMW purchase.
Now answer the remaining questions that I asked in the parent post rather than trying to come up with snappy sound bites: