As far as accounting goes, those costs are on the books when they are incurred. Thus, these maintenance costs (I'm assuming the.05 cents is some figured related to the cost of operation/maintenance) are not "upfront" costs.
However, the costs associated with building the damn thing, transporting it to a location, and installing it are included in "upfront" costs i.e. asset acquisition cost.
And technically, in an accounting sense, buying a nuclear power plant doesn't create an expense to an entity, only an outflow of cash. The asset gets depreciated and only a certain portion of the asset acquisition cost hits the books each month as a depreciation expense decreasing net income along with the maintenance costs.
Now in a finance sense well we need to take into consideration the lifetime cost and figure out the NET present value of the investment (estimate of future costs and cash flows in today's dollars). But then you have to assign some sort of expected rate of return and each year is discounted differently unless you estimate the same value every year for X years....
high school C student who applies himself
Right, and if that high school C student applied himself in high school, he could have gotten a scholarship for college! LOL!
Look, you don't have to prove to me that today's world is oh so complex. It isn't. It is just a set of different processes that actually simplify many things that were complex, were difficult or just took a long time to complete.
And also, if you think it is just blue collar jobs being outsourced OR being taken by foreigners working in our country you are very very mistaken. Heck, I work for an engineering company and we hire plenty of foreign engineers (mechanical, electrical, etc) and are currently looking to outsource some engineering in India! Our C students do have to compete more because of globalization. In many different disciplines.
I have no problem with C students or D students going to college and having a "second chance" at actually doing well. I just don't think we should reward such lackluster effort in high school on the taxpayer's dime.
No, you've got it all wrong. Because all of our lower-education but higher-paying jobs are moving away, we need more people to go to college.
Hmmm, this is what happens when you lower the bar.
We're competing globally, so now the best of the best foreigners are winning over our C average. Yep, that piece o' paper can't mask the fact that an average Joe is just an average Joe.
Pushing our average through college with taxpayer monies still doesn't help them compete with the brightest from other countries if they are just average.
Ah yes, time to open up a new business market.
I mean, it's not like your software is a bloated piece of garbage, which doesn't really clean or prevent any viruses that you can't get from something like AVG http://free.grisoft.com/ which is free.
I seriously hope we aren't contracting our government IT security to THAT company.
How expensive is "too expensive"? I just did a couple checks, and the average price of gas in the UK is $7.88 a gallon (converted from pence/litre for the UK average). Granted, they probably drive a lot less than we do and have smaller cars, but still -- expensive gas hasn't exactly destroyed the British economy.
Right, it hasn't, but then again England isn't the U.S.
England is 93,278 sq mi
U.S. is 3,539,224 sq miles
Most people here in the U.S., and I am one of them (and apparently you are not), have long commutes to work. That is, driving 45 minutes to 1.5 hours to get to their job ONE WAY. I do it because I make a lot more money at my work than I would if I worked locally in a podunk town.
As an example. I fill up my tank twice a week. Say a year or so ago prices were around $2.20 per gallon:
$2.20 x 15 gallons x 2 times a week x 4 weeks in a month = $264 monthly transportation costs
I just filled up yesterday and paid $2.91 per gallon:
$2.91 x 15 gallons x 2 times a week x 4 weeks in a month = $349 monthly transportation costs
So I'm paying $85 bucks more a month to get to work. Meaning I spend $1020 more in a year just to get to work.
Gas hits $4 a gallon and I'm paying $480 a month - JUST TO GET TO WORK.
But I'm just talking about the U.S. worker. What about shipping costs, you know, to transport all that crap we buy all over the U.S.? Yeah, those rise as well which increases prices of the goods that we buy.
You'd be surprised how increasing transport costs will hurt the U.S. economy in all sorts of different ways.
even the small fry can weight heavily in a company's financial bottom line if there is just enough of it. Well, wouldn't it mold with the other fries and create one giant potato? A small fry by itself is still, well, just a small fry.
Please don't take this the wrong way, but it's obvious that you have no understanding of science or scientific terminology. Maybe once you've taken some science courses in high school, you might learn a little bit about it - but when you have *DATA*, there is no need for faith.
When you have "*DATA*" all it is, is *DATA*.
You should question the methods used to obtain said *DATA*.
You should also question the methods used to analyze said *DATA*.
Honestly, science is good and all, but it isn't the end all solution for all the world's problems. It lends us insight and may be persuasive on issues as grandiose as global warming, but this application of science is very much like explaining black holes.
Yeah we have some theories but who knows what 'discovery' tomorrow will bring that will totally change the theory of 'why.'
I LOVE mob rule! Politicians should in no way go against the general populous, no matter how stupid, unjustified, and/or emotionally charged the issue may be!
The reason for a federal and state two tier legislative branch is for faction vs. masses balance.
Listening to the masses isn't optional but legislating by the masses IS optional.
I would very much like more wolves and bears in the woods. They do plenty of good, and any harm they do is greatly exaggerated. I myself would rather not have bears and wolves in the woods. I don't want them coming to my doorstep sniffing at my garbage, which they tend to do where I live. Maybe you live in the city, I don't know. They are far more a threat than a deer by design. Whether or not they use what nature gave them against humans could be debated.
It doesn't take much logical thought that if you cull the population by consistently killing the best animals, you are exerting a reproductive advantage to the ones who don't meet your criteria. In essence, we are performing the exact opposite of natural selection. True, but you are thinking on a more grandiose time scale. What you are suggesting takes a much longer time than what hunters could do to a localized population of deer. They could easily cull the population given a decade. I doubt deer will somehow be naturally selected within that timespan to not be strong, to not have big antlers, and so forth.
Hunting is not a substitution for natural predation. You're right. We don't kill the weak and old like "natural" predators do. However we are effective at reducing populations of animals in a localized area. It DOES work.
When a hunter kills a deer which one does he kill? The biggest the strongest male he finds. Not exactly the way nature intended. I love when someone assumes people aren't apart of the "natural" system of Earth. You must believe we are inherently different from animals, perhaps, a creation of some alien species or some divine God?
Actually, killing the strongest and most capable of reproducing would lower the populations of animals. A nearby reservoir/conservation HAD to let hunters in to squelch the extreme over population of deer in the past 10 years. It worked really well.
I'd be staunchly against your proposal of hunters killing young, sick, or old animals due to one fact:
1. They are less useful (less good meat, trophies, furs)
And I don't think anyone wants more wolves or bears in the woods.
If I'm buying a widget for a dollar and sell it to customers for 2 dollars, and the I find a different manufacturer who can sell me the widget for fifty cents, why would I be required to pass along the savings to anyone? That's fine in a "free" market where the many competitors would do the same thing BUT sell the widget cheaper to various consumers and put you out of business or drive your prices down.
Government contracts aren't a free market. Since there is ONE consumer and a very small pool of vendors.
In this case, a company can pay to be a preferred supplier even though they are more expensive and perhaps of less quality or equal quality to other suppliers.
The big factor is the lack of competition that these paid and potentially secret "strategic alliances" create in this environment.
Re:Why do this?
on
AMD's New DRM
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· Score: 3, Insightful
Of course Americans don't consider those countries as "free." It's called branding. Corporations do it all the time and so do governments.
If you truly believe that people should shoot themselves in the head for believing something, please shoot yourself in the head.
*shoots self in the head*
The fact you think certain things in the professional world are not even slightly tied with politics (and no I don't just mean repubs VS. dems) speaks volumes about your wisdom.
I don't know but the corporations I know of are not only made up of humans but they are also RUN/CONTROLLED by humans. It's a collective of individuals working together. I can see why this collective can be given rights as a whole (business entity), whereas something not made up of humans, say the Earth, apes, or grass cannot be given human rights.
A chimp isn't an artificial entity. In fact, it's some other non-artificial completely independent from humans being.
Ah so you know not how to use PowerPoint. Last I knew you could pace out or time the bullets when you wanted them to be displayed (manually or on a timer). Hell, you can even control the pace of the slides too!
Nonsense. I do most of my own maintenance and repair work. Stuff that I can't handle, my mechanic can. I'm not sure where this "complexity" myth comes from. Not to mention that an electric vehicle would actually be LESS complex, and require less maintenance.
Right, because you do all your repair work on your car I guess that makes sense that the entire spectrum of consumers will be able to do the same? You're a dolt. I do my repair work in house too. Oil changes, tire changes, hell I know someone that does my brakes for free. Most people don't have that technical capability, don't know anyone that does, or they just don't want to bother with fixing their car themselves. Honestly, if you compare the fuel savings +. maintenance costs + initial purchasing costs + repair/parts costs a fuel saving gas car will save you more money than these fancy hybrids/electrics. And most people want to save money.
Who cares? If you smash it, it's the insurance company that pays for the repairs. At worst you may end up with a slight increase in insurance rates. Moreover, any accident requiring extensive internal repairs will probably be a write-off anyway, and cars which only require cosmetic repairs aren't going to be any harder to fix than they currently are.
Agreed on the smashing, but honestly, if parts break within the engine, which they occasionally do by themselves without crashing you will pay more for that special part and the repair work. What about all the electronics? How are you going to diagnose those problems and better yet fix them. Unless of course you possess the technical know-how on how to fix those special new components which I highly doubt many people will want to learn or already know, you won't be able to. Other fender bender type work will be as you said "aren't going to be any harder to fix than they currently are" but the engine parts will be special and more expensive. Guaranteed.
So offer better deals on leases instead. Or limit the warranty to 6 years instead of 20. Whatever. The point is, there's dozens of different ways you can make money off a product, and only a buffon would believe that car companies are suppressing new technology because they're afraid that they may have to change their business model.
I agree with you, but if there are dozens of business models and your company wants the best, how are you going to know which one will actually work. Remember, you aren't pitching this idea to the general populace or/. community, you're pitching it to managers, the board, etc. They want numbers, not nonsense and crap you can pull out of your arse.
Give me $100,000, 2 months, and a staff of 3. I'll spend a month partying in Cuba, a week recovering, and have a workable business model on your desk before the 2 months is up.
Bullshiat. If it was that easy, it would have been done by now.
Most of the machinery would be usable for the new vehicles. Much bigger changes in tooling have had to be made in the past, when transitioning to the use of new materials such as fibreglass, titanium, and carbon fibre, yet companies did it willingly. So he's wrong in his assumption that this would require a major retooling, and he's wrong in his assumption that companies aren't willing to retool when necessary.
Right because there are laws that made mandatory requirements to force companies to change their products, again, "when necessary." Also, you know that Ford has bought out many dealerships AND repair shops. Now they'll have to purchase new equipment, tools, and train personnel on how to fix the components of the car. I can tell you haven't done repair work on cars say from the 70s and then done some serious work on the cars of today. With the multitude of electronic gizmos, you need special machines just to diagnose the problem. Fixing it is a hell of a lot worse given the strange tools/equipment and labor required and even the positioning of the parts you need to get
Your post clearly demonstrates your lack of business knowledge. While your ideas sound good in your head, they wouldn't fair well in the real world.
it also leads to losing some profits because of intelligent customers who buy after-market parts instead. If an electric vehicle really cost so
much less to maintain, it'd be VERY easy to market - simply jack up your sticker price, but offer free maintenance for the next 2 decades. After-market products? They are still expensive, granted, they should be cheaper but after buying the parts who is going to repair your brand new 2006 electric vehicle? Certainly not that local garage. Most garages must be specialized in order to do certain repairs on those types of cars because of the variability and complexity on diagnosing and actually fixing them.
I mean, the car may be easy to MAINTENANCE, but what the hell is that? Oil changes? Tune-ups? If you smash your hybrid electric thingy ma bob, it's going to cost you a lot more to fix the car then a traditional one, given the scarcity of the products and the technical skill and tools needed to fix them. You're just plain wrong.
Also, you're sales pitch completely goes against what car manufacturers want. Cars have become dispensable. You smash it, and buy another. 20 year maintenance? They don't want people driving for 20 years with the same car. They want you to buy a new one A.S.A.P. Repeat customers are a huge value to business.
Jack up the prices? Then why would people want to buy it? You can't begin to tell me the high price and high cost of REPAIRS outweighs routine maintenance like trivial oil changes and gas savings.
It's not hard to develop a workable business model around a vehicle which has low maintenance costs, and you'd make a killing in the long run. Do you know how complicated it would be to develop this model? Have you ever developed a business model on such a grandiose scale? Can you imagine the sources and information you'd have to piece together to project fossil fuel prices? And pitch that to your manager? The board? The costs of so much research? This would take a year just to DEVELOP the plan, nevermind implement it...and the costs? HAH! Good lord you'd need a massive project team for that one. Nevermind you'd be pissing off your partners, you know, the fuel industries and suppliers like current parts manufacturers. It ain't that easy buddy.
If you radically change your manufacturing process to produce a better car, you lose your investment in the current equipment
I don't know where you're getting that idea, but it's wrong. Do you understand capital acquisitions and depreciation and ROI? How is he wrong?
Slashdot Mirror
As far as accounting goes, those costs are on the books when they are incurred. Thus, these maintenance costs (I'm assuming the .05 cents is some figured related to the cost of operation/maintenance) are not "upfront" costs.
However, the costs associated with building the damn thing, transporting it to a location, and installing it are included in "upfront" costs i.e. asset acquisition cost.
And technically, in an accounting sense, buying a nuclear power plant doesn't create an expense to an entity, only an outflow of cash. The asset gets depreciated and only a certain portion of the asset acquisition cost hits the books each month as a depreciation expense decreasing net income along with the maintenance costs.
Now in a finance sense well we need to take into consideration the lifetime cost and figure out the NET present value of the investment (estimate of future costs and cash flows in today's dollars). But then you have to assign some sort of expected rate of return and each year is discounted differently unless you estimate the same value every year for X years....
Such a brilliant post. Thank you, Michael Gmirkin.
And a Beatles quote to boot!
Right, and if that high school C student applied himself in high school, he could have gotten a scholarship for college! LOL!
Look, you don't have to prove to me that today's world is oh so complex. It isn't. It is just a set of different processes that actually simplify many things that were complex, were difficult or just took a long time to complete.
And also, if you think it is just blue collar jobs being outsourced OR being taken by foreigners working in our country you are very very mistaken. Heck, I work for an engineering company and we hire plenty of foreign engineers (mechanical, electrical, etc) and are currently looking to outsource some engineering in India! Our C students do have to compete more because of globalization. In many different disciplines.
I have no problem with C students or D students going to college and having a "second chance" at actually doing well. I just don't think we should reward such lackluster effort in high school on the taxpayer's dime.
Hmmm, this is what happens when you lower the bar.
We're competing globally, so now the best of the best foreigners are winning over our C average. Yep, that piece o' paper can't mask the fact that an average Joe is just an average Joe.
Pushing our average through college with taxpayer monies still doesn't help them compete with the brightest from other countries if they are just average.
I could see helping those students to head on out to a trade/tech school, so they can become trailer truck drivers or welders, but c'mon!
It's getting to the point where the college degree is a relatively unimpressive feat in today's world.
Should every child go to college? Or should every capable child go to college.
A C average is nothing to be excited about. Funding like this should be reserved for putting our brightest in college.
Good thing they didn't approve this.. yet.
Ah yes, time to open up a new business market. I mean, it's not like your software is a bloated piece of garbage, which doesn't really clean or prevent any viruses that you can't get from something like AVG http://free.grisoft.com/ which is free. I seriously hope we aren't contracting our government IT security to THAT company.
Ice is back with my brand new invention
Yes, they are quite quiet..
Right, it hasn't, but then again England isn't the U.S.
England is 93,278 sq mi
U.S. is 3,539,224 sq miles
Most people here in the U.S., and I am one of them (and apparently you are not), have long commutes to work. That is, driving 45 minutes to 1.5 hours to get to their job ONE WAY. I do it because I make a lot more money at my work than I would if I worked locally in a podunk town.
As an example. I fill up my tank twice a week. Say a year or so ago prices were around $2.20 per gallon:
$2.20 x 15 gallons x 2 times a week x 4 weeks in a month = $264 monthly transportation costs
I just filled up yesterday and paid $2.91 per gallon:
$2.91 x 15 gallons x 2 times a week x 4 weeks in a month = $349 monthly transportation costs
So I'm paying $85 bucks more a month to get to work. Meaning I spend $1020 more in a year just to get to work.
Gas hits $4 a gallon and I'm paying $480 a month - JUST TO GET TO WORK.
But I'm just talking about the U.S. worker. What about shipping costs, you know, to transport all that crap we buy all over the U.S.? Yeah, those rise as well which increases prices of the goods that we buy. You'd be surprised how increasing transport costs will hurt the U.S. economy in all sorts of different ways.
Completely 100% true. Watch out for them crazies.
When you have "*DATA*" all it is, is *DATA*.
You should question the methods used to obtain said *DATA*.
You should also question the methods used to analyze said *DATA*.
Honestly, science is good and all, but it isn't the end all solution for all the world's problems. It lends us insight and may be persuasive on issues as grandiose as global warming, but this application of science is very much like explaining black holes.
Yeah we have some theories but who knows what 'discovery' tomorrow will bring that will totally change the theory of 'why.'
"She turned me into a newt! BURRRNN HERR!"
I LOVE mob rule! Politicians should in no way go against the general populous, no matter how stupid, unjustified, and/or emotionally charged the issue may be!
The reason for a federal and state two tier legislative branch is for faction vs. masses balance.
Listening to the masses isn't optional but legislating by the masses IS optional.
Consideration.
A contract isn't a contract if no consideration is involved.
That is, simply:
I do 'x' for you and you will do 'y' for me.
Actually, killing the strongest and most capable of reproducing would lower the populations of animals. A nearby reservoir/conservation HAD to let hunters in to squelch the extreme over population of deer in the past 10 years. It worked really well.
I'd be staunchly against your proposal of hunters killing young, sick, or old animals due to one fact:
1. They are less useful (less good meat, trophies, furs)
And I don't think anyone wants more wolves or bears in the woods.
I would actually prefer a two-way conversation over a one-way phone conversation.
The fact I only hear part of the conversation, quite frankly, irritates me greatly.
"Yeah?"
"Oh no he didn't?"
"Oh my GOD!"
"I like totally know what you mean."
Who wants to hear that crap? At least if the conversation is behind you, you'll be able to hear all the juicy details.
Government contracts aren't a free market. Since there is ONE consumer and a very small pool of vendors.
In this case, a company can pay to be a preferred supplier even though they are more expensive and perhaps of less quality or equal quality to other suppliers.
The big factor is the lack of competition that these paid and potentially secret "strategic alliances" create in this environment.
Of course Americans don't consider those countries as "free." It's called branding. Corporations do it all the time and so do governments.
If you truly believe that people should shoot themselves in the head for believing something, please shoot yourself in the head.
*shoots self in the head*
The fact you think certain things in the professional world are not even slightly tied with politics (and no I don't just mean repubs VS. dems) speaks volumes about your wisdom.
No.
Peak oil is coming. But that just means the peak rate at which we can extract it, you know, x millions barrels / day.
Oil will be around for a long time. So will coal.
Don't worry.
I don't know but the corporations I know of are not only made up of humans but they are also RUN/CONTROLLED by humans. It's a collective of individuals working together. I can see why this collective can be given rights as a whole (business entity), whereas something not made up of humans, say the Earth, apes, or grass cannot be given human rights. A chimp isn't an artificial entity. In fact, it's some other non-artificial completely independent from humans being.
Ah so you know not how to use PowerPoint. Last I knew you could pace out or time the bullets when you wanted them to be displayed (manually or on a timer). Hell, you can even control the pace of the slides too!
Oh my!
Nonsense. I do most of my own maintenance and repair work. Stuff that I can't handle, my mechanic can. I'm not sure where this "complexity" myth comes from. Not to mention that an electric vehicle would actually be LESS complex, and require less maintenance.
Right, because you do all your repair work on your car I guess that makes sense that the entire spectrum of consumers will be able to do the same? You're a dolt. I do my repair work in house too. Oil changes, tire changes, hell I know someone that does my brakes for free. Most people don't have that technical capability, don't know anyone that does, or they just don't want to bother with fixing their car themselves. Honestly, if you compare the fuel savings +. maintenance costs + initial purchasing costs + repair/parts costs a fuel saving gas car will save you more money than these fancy hybrids/electrics. And most people want to save money.
Who cares? If you smash it, it's the insurance company that pays for the repairs. At worst you may end up with a slight increase in insurance rates. Moreover, any accident requiring extensive internal repairs will probably be a write-off anyway, and cars which only require cosmetic repairs aren't going to be any harder to fix than they currently are.
Agreed on the smashing, but honestly, if parts break within the engine, which they occasionally do by themselves without crashing you will pay more for that special part and the repair work. What about all the electronics? How are you going to diagnose those problems and better yet fix them. Unless of course you possess the technical know-how on how to fix those special new components which I highly doubt many people will want to learn or already know, you won't be able to. Other fender bender type work will be as you said "aren't going to be any harder to fix than they currently are" but the engine parts will be special and more expensive. Guaranteed.
So offer better deals on leases instead. Or limit the warranty to 6 years instead of 20. Whatever. The point is, there's dozens of different ways you can make money off a product, and only a buffon would believe that car companies are suppressing new technology because they're afraid that they may have to change their business model.
I agree with you, but if there are dozens of business models and your company wants the best, how are you going to know which one will actually work. Remember, you aren't pitching this idea to the general populace or /. community, you're pitching it to managers, the board, etc. They want numbers, not nonsense and crap you can pull out of your arse.
Give me $100,000, 2 months, and a staff of 3. I'll spend a month partying in Cuba, a week recovering, and have a workable business model on your desk before the 2 months is up.
Bullshiat. If it was that easy, it would have been done by now.
Most of the machinery would be usable for the new vehicles. Much bigger changes in tooling have had to be made in the past, when transitioning to the use of new materials such as fibreglass, titanium, and carbon fibre, yet companies did it willingly. So he's wrong in his assumption that this would require a major retooling, and he's wrong in his assumption that companies aren't willing to retool when necessary.
Right because there are laws that made mandatory requirements to force companies to change their products, again, "when necessary." Also, you know that Ford has bought out many dealerships AND repair shops. Now they'll have to purchase new equipment, tools, and train personnel on how to fix the components of the car. I can tell you haven't done repair work on cars say from the 70s and then done some serious work on the cars of today. With the multitude of electronic gizmos, you need special machines just to diagnose the problem. Fixing it is a hell of a lot worse given the strange tools/equipment and labor required and even the positioning of the parts you need to get
I mean, the car may be easy to MAINTENANCE, but what the hell is that? Oil changes? Tune-ups? If you smash your hybrid electric thingy ma bob, it's going to cost you a lot more to fix the car then a traditional one, given the scarcity of the products and the technical skill and tools needed to fix them. You're just plain wrong.
Also, you're sales pitch completely goes against what car manufacturers want. Cars have become dispensable. You smash it, and buy another. 20 year maintenance? They don't want people driving for 20 years with the same car. They want you to buy a new one A.S.A.P. Repeat customers are a huge value to business. Jack up the prices? Then why would people want to buy it? You can't begin to tell me the high price and high cost of REPAIRS outweighs routine maintenance like trivial oil changes and gas savings. It's not hard to develop a workable business model around a vehicle which has low maintenance costs, and you'd make a killing in the long run. Do you know how complicated it would be to develop this model? Have you ever developed a business model on such a grandiose scale? Can you imagine the sources and information you'd have to piece together to project fossil fuel prices? And pitch that to your manager? The board? The costs of so much research? This would take a year just to DEVELOP the plan, nevermind implement it...and the costs? HAH! Good lord you'd need a massive project team for that one. Nevermind you'd be pissing off your partners, you know, the fuel industries and suppliers like current parts manufacturers. It ain't that easy buddy. If you radically change your manufacturing process to produce a better car, you lose your investment in the current equipment I don't know where you're getting that idea, but it's wrong. Do you understand capital acquisitions and depreciation and ROI? How is he wrong?