You'll have to shop a bit (go look weekly for about a month) clones do go through there and you can probably get a second system (parts computer?). No warrenty, but if you're handy you'll be fine. As an alternate you could just pick up the genuine SUN version system more quickly and probably cheaply.
Wal-Mart has never put a gun to a company's head and forced them to sell there. Vlassic management went into bankruptcy because they were willing to trade off profitable pickle lines to grow their volumes at Wal-Mart. All that data is what Wal-Mart does best, identify what consumers want and deliver it to them. Don't blame the messanger blame the consumer.
I liked my time there, but left for lunches as everyone else turned lunch into the whine about the job time. Wasn't as good as the cherry orchard, but wasn't the worst place to work either. I was a blue vest, although they did want to train me for a the returns counter (I think the next step toward a CSM-after about 3 months). I was also training all the new cashiers pretty much every shift after the first month. I do think that Wal-Mart gives a ton of freedom to store managers, so policies could vary from store to store.
Are Tonka trucks still unbreakable? When I was a kid, I had one that was outside and abused for a decade and worked just fine. I hope they are still made from the good stuff.
While that is/was McDonald's corporate practice, in my experience Wal-Mart is more the type of store that is zealous about ensuring that you work 39 hours if you are good, and 19 hours if you are bad and hiring someone new to fill the extra required hours.
Salary info is less useful without a location compensator. 45k would entail pretty good pay for regular 40-50 and occasional 50-60 hour weeks in my location, 95k would be excellent, but in parts of the country 45 is subsistance wage and 95 is closer to the standard wage for the industry. Your point is valid, I don't think anyone has much sympathy for the investment bankers or non-partner attorneys (who may well work 90+ hours/week in their younger years) in exchange for a partnership later in life, which will basically allow them to retire.
How do you know a few ballot boxes don't fall of the back of the truck in a district that generally votes Liberal, Conservative, or Bloc Quebecois? That's really what all the fuss in the US is all about, probably 99.9% of our vote works very well but there are a few districts (that could swing an election-which is probably the problem you are refering to) that have hyjinks (from both sides-one side tries to boost voter turnout they other tries to reduce it and both occasionally bend and even break the rules in their actions). No one really worried about it until 4 years ago when elections became close enough for those votes to make all the difference.
Sure, the term is stuck in the middle. For a closer example compare IBM, HP, and Dell. You figure out a way to grow the current store base profitably without attracting Wal-Mart who has a much lower cost structure. If they push to the high end, their large current overhead has to go (think something more like a Tweeter or Magnolia Hi-Fi) smaller stores only in more densly populated areas. If they push to the low end, they have to match Wal-Marts pricing, which is difficult as walmart can spread their store and management costs over electronics, shampoo, clothing, and pet food while Best Buy has electronics. They are trying to use the relatively fat next few years (with a digital TV upgrade cycle) to prepare the company for a very difficult competitive situation facing them in the following years.
By law (that requires public companies to follow GAAP) they have to estimate the likely cost of anything that they can get a feel for (believe me if they didn't the second set of suits would cause much more pain than this penalty).
If economists wanted to accurately model the economy, they would have to beg for time on the Earth Simulator, since they only get a desktop PC (would you let a wild eyed libertarian who dresses like a flood victim use your super computer?) they have to cut the models down a bit.:)
It's quite a bit more devious than that. Low price pledges are signals to other competitors that you are ready to end a price war, or enforce a cartel decison. If you match low prices you can find out that one of your cartel partners is breaking their half of the bargain, and you didn't have to spend anything on cartel enforcement (your customers did it for you). That said, if you don't already have a cheap DVD player, a little birdy told me that they would have the cheapest ones on black friday. Best Buy's CEO (or one of the chiefs) is a firm believer that one of the best ways to boost profitability is to reduce the customers that don't make you any money and provide excellent service to those who make you tons. It's a bit like the difference between a Nordstrom's and Wal-Mart (grew up in the NW so Nordy's was the only high end retailer for a long time). One has free coffee, and salesfolk who kiss your butt. The other is doing volume business. The former makes up the services they offer with a markup, the latter makes a smaller margin on each sale, but has much, much lower overhead so they each net about the same amount on each dollar spent. Best Buy's goal is to become more like Nordstrom's but without pricing themselves out of the latter market. This is a very tall order, and we won't know if they succeeded for about a decade.
If it wasn't over in the Ars article, the WSJ (free today) has an excellent article about the whole topic. It's available here.
I think next time I go in I'll wear a name tag that says "Devil Customer". One tip to get them to id you as a Buzz, is to wear fraternity letters, nothing else says rich tool like those.
Haven't you guys heard of Dixiecrats? Very conservative white southerners who would normally be aligned with the more conservative elements of the Republican party, but are officially Democrats (orignally due to Northern Republicans foisting the Civil War on them). The election for local office in the south is between two democrats in the primaries, not the general election. So if you want to have any influence you register democrat. All you Californians and Northeasterners need to go see the rest of the country (you don't need a passport even if it seems a little foreign). Oh and you must travel beyond the borders of a national park, too, they're mostly filled up with others from your neck of the woods.
The exit polls have a very important use, after the election strategists can begin planning future campagns. Insights like we won big among 40-65 yo male former donkey farmers with vacations homes but lost among 20-40 females across the board, (perhaps we should scrap the pack animal subsidies and learn more about issues important to female voters) can be exceedingly useful in learning how to improve the next run. Without exit polls strategists would have an extremely difficult time learning who voted for the candidate, and hopefully why. Exit polls were never designed to forcast election results, but that's their most visible purpose. They work well in places like California or Utah, but the statistical assumptions implicit in sampling become exposed when the vote is 50.5-49.5 or other close results.
I am not positive but believe that our ballots were optical scan, but of the connect the arrow next to the name type. As an example:
>- -> (not voted)
>---> (voted)
AFAI could tell they were both officially in favor of civil unions (Bush hesitantly Kerry more promenantly). Neither came out with anything harsher than abortion is wrong, but that it should be legal. So there are semantical differences (which probably did count for a few hundred thousand votes in Ohio).
Odd that I've lived in pretty rural areas my whole life and found that rural folk (especially those who were born to families that have been rural for some time) are prepared to be self-reliant but extreemly willing to help their neighbors. One of the stereotypical pracitices of settlers was the barnbuilding. To many rural folk if you don't help out you'll starve. I'll bet you get more people stopping on the side of the road with a broken down car in Mont than in Mass, I hope I'm wrong. I will say that urban dwellers have a better understanding of how their actions will affect others (rural people are more oblivious).
The entire study of economics deals with the maximization of utility (or quality of life) which may or may not take a tangible form. Dollars are the short hand society generally uses to express their utility preferences most clearly. If a person says one (I am against outsourcing) but your spending does another (buys imported products) which one will you believe?
I think pump jockeys were mostly there due to government requirements that they be there ostensably for safety regardless of the minimum wage. Another example is a McDonalds, they invest heavily in capital (automatic friers, the burger cooker, and similar equipment) because it reduces the number of people they need to hire at current market clearing wages (sometimes minimum other times above minimum).
The best arguement against a minimum wage increase I've heard is that in the short run, you won't adjust hiring practices (capital takes time to deploy) so it places the entire burden of a progressive wealth distribution program (an idea that may be supported by the vast majority of the population) on a single class of people--those who employ minimum wage workers (and their customers). If you want to redistribute wealth do it with a negative income tax (like the EIC) or a more equal method rather than pushing the cost onto a small subset of the citizens.
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I always had great luck with Plextor's old (in the 2-4x) readers and writers.
You'll have to shop a bit (go look weekly for about a month) clones do go through there and you can probably get a second system (parts computer?). No warrenty, but if you're handy you'll be fine. As an alternate you could just pick up the genuine SUN version system more quickly and probably cheaply.
Wal-Mart has never put a gun to a company's head and forced them to sell there. Vlassic management went into bankruptcy because they were willing to trade off profitable pickle lines to grow their volumes at Wal-Mart. All that data is what Wal-Mart does best, identify what consumers want and deliver it to them. Don't blame the messanger blame the consumer.
I liked my time there, but left for lunches as everyone else turned lunch into the whine about the job time. Wasn't as good as the cherry orchard, but wasn't the worst place to work either. I was a blue vest, although they did want to train me for a the returns counter (I think the next step toward a CSM-after about 3 months). I was also training all the new cashiers pretty much every shift after the first month. I do think that Wal-Mart gives a ton of freedom to store managers, so policies could vary from store to store.
Are Tonka trucks still unbreakable? When I was a kid, I had one that was outside and abused for a decade and worked just fine. I hope they are still made from the good stuff.
While that is/was McDonald's corporate practice, in my experience Wal-Mart is more the type of store that is zealous about ensuring that you work 39 hours if you are good, and 19 hours if you are bad and hiring someone new to fill the extra required hours.
Salary info is less useful without a location compensator. 45k would entail pretty good pay for regular 40-50 and occasional 50-60 hour weeks in my location, 95k would be excellent, but in parts of the country 45 is subsistance wage and 95 is closer to the standard wage for the industry.
Your point is valid, I don't think anyone has much sympathy for the investment bankers or non-partner attorneys (who may well work 90+ hours/week in their younger years) in exchange for a partnership later in life, which will basically allow them to retire.
How do you know a few ballot boxes don't fall of the back of the truck in a district that generally votes Liberal, Conservative, or Bloc Quebecois? That's really what all the fuss in the US is all about, probably 99.9% of our vote works very well but there are a few districts (that could swing an election-which is probably the problem you are refering to) that have hyjinks (from both sides-one side tries to boost voter turnout they other tries to reduce it and both occasionally bend and even break the rules in their actions). No one really worried about it until 4 years ago when elections became close enough for those votes to make all the difference.
You might try looking up tonight, we've had pretty good shows since Sunday in the US (as far south as Nebraska). Hopefully you'll get lucky tonight.
Sure, the term is stuck in the middle. For a closer example compare IBM, HP, and Dell. You figure out a way to grow the current store base profitably without attracting Wal-Mart who has a much lower cost structure. If they push to the high end, their large current overhead has to go (think something more like a Tweeter or Magnolia Hi-Fi) smaller stores only in more densly populated areas. If they push to the low end, they have to match Wal-Marts pricing, which is difficult as walmart can spread their store and management costs over electronics, shampoo, clothing, and pet food while Best Buy has electronics. They are trying to use the relatively fat next few years (with a digital TV upgrade cycle) to prepare the company for a very difficult competitive situation facing them in the following years.
That's more or less what the airlines do to each other, only they call them fare wars.
By law (that requires public companies to follow GAAP) they have to estimate the likely cost of anything that they can get a feel for (believe me if they didn't the second set of suits would cause much more pain than this penalty).
If economists wanted to accurately model the economy, they would have to beg for time on the Earth Simulator, since they only get a desktop PC (would you let a wild eyed libertarian who dresses like a flood victim use your super computer?) they have to cut the models down a bit. :)
Precisely, I guess I didn't make that clear, it makes you good money while you can pull off the illusion. Not much of a long term strategy, though.
It's quite a bit more devious than that. Low price pledges are signals to other competitors that you are ready to end a price war, or enforce a cartel decison. If you match low prices you can find out that one of your cartel partners is breaking their half of the bargain, and you didn't have to spend anything on cartel enforcement (your customers did it for you). That said, if you don't already have a cheap DVD player, a little birdy told me that they would have the cheapest ones on black friday.
Best Buy's CEO (or one of the chiefs) is a firm believer that one of the best ways to boost profitability is to reduce the customers that don't make you any money and provide excellent service to those who make you tons. It's a bit like the difference between a Nordstrom's and Wal-Mart (grew up in the NW so Nordy's was the only high end retailer for a long time). One has free coffee, and salesfolk who kiss your butt. The other is doing volume business. The former makes up the services they offer with a markup, the latter makes a smaller margin on each sale, but has much, much lower overhead so they each net about the same amount on each dollar spent. Best Buy's goal is to become more like Nordstrom's but without pricing themselves out of the latter market. This is a very tall order, and we won't know if they succeeded for about a decade.
If it wasn't over in the Ars article, the WSJ (free today) has an excellent article about the whole topic. It's available here.
I think next time I go in I'll wear a name tag that says "Devil Customer". One tip to get them to id you as a Buzz, is to wear fraternity letters, nothing else says rich tool like those.
Haven't you guys heard of Dixiecrats? Very conservative white southerners who would normally be aligned with the more conservative elements of the Republican party, but are officially Democrats (orignally due to Northern Republicans foisting the Civil War on them). The election for local office in the south is between two democrats in the primaries, not the general election. So if you want to have any influence you register democrat. All you Californians and Northeasterners need to go see the rest of the country (you don't need a passport even if it seems a little foreign). Oh and you must travel beyond the borders of a national park, too, they're mostly filled up with others from your neck of the woods.
The exit polls have a very important use, after the election strategists can begin planning future campagns. Insights like we won big among 40-65 yo male former donkey farmers with vacations homes but lost among 20-40 females across the board, (perhaps we should scrap the pack animal subsidies and learn more about issues important to female voters) can be exceedingly useful in learning how to improve the next run. Without exit polls strategists would have an extremely difficult time learning who voted for the candidate, and hopefully why. Exit polls were never designed to forcast election results, but that's their most visible purpose. They work well in places like California or Utah, but the statistical assumptions implicit in sampling become exposed when the vote is 50.5-49.5 or other close results.
I am not positive but believe that our ballots were optical scan, but of the connect the arrow next to the name type. As an example:
>- -> (not voted)
>---> (voted)
I remember reading an article about this very subject in the NY Times in 96 or 97.
AFAI could tell they were both officially in favor of civil unions (Bush hesitantly Kerry more promenantly). Neither came out with anything harsher than abortion is wrong, but that it should be legal. So there are semantical differences (which probably did count for a few hundred thousand votes in Ohio).
Odd that I've lived in pretty rural areas my whole life and found that rural folk (especially those who were born to families that have been rural for some time) are prepared to be self-reliant but extreemly willing to help their neighbors. One of the stereotypical pracitices of settlers was the barnbuilding. To many rural folk if you don't help out you'll starve. I'll bet you get more people stopping on the side of the road with a broken down car in Mont than in Mass, I hope I'm wrong. I will say that urban dwellers have a better understanding of how their actions will affect others (rural people are more oblivious).
The entire study of economics deals with the maximization of utility (or quality of life) which may or may not take a tangible form. Dollars are the short hand society generally uses to express their utility preferences most clearly. If a person says one (I am against outsourcing) but your spending does another (buys imported products) which one will you believe?
I think pump jockeys were mostly there due to government requirements that they be there ostensably for safety regardless of the minimum wage. Another example is a McDonalds, they invest heavily in capital (automatic friers, the burger cooker, and similar equipment) because it reduces the number of people they need to hire at current market clearing wages (sometimes minimum other times above minimum).
The best arguement against a minimum wage increase I've heard is that in the short run, you won't adjust hiring practices (capital takes time to deploy) so it places the entire burden of a progressive wealth distribution program (an idea that may be supported by the vast majority of the population) on a single class of people--those who employ minimum wage workers (and their customers). If you want to redistribute wealth do it with a negative income tax (like the EIC) or a more equal method rather than pushing the cost onto a small subset of the citizens.