US corporations (with a few exeptions) are largely owned (directly or indirectly) by US workers through pension funds. There are a few recent startups that are still owned by capitalists, but by and large they are owned by funds (which means indirectly you and me). Also neither labor nor capital's share of income in the US has moved out pretty narrow bands, labor is around 55%, capital is around 15% (taxes and government is the remainder) (this is over the last century). It was in a chart in Hunt's column a week ago, Thursday in the WSJ. Given that labor can exert more political pressure (votes) than capital (cash only) don't expect this to change in the future either.
FWIW, it appears that the US has three big advantages over other countries, stable financial markets (reducing the transaction costs of investing and acquiring capital), productive farmland (might not be too important to unemployed tech workers), and superior ability to start businesses and organize capital, talent, and effort. Our culture values risk taking and similar behaviors. We don't have an advantage in other areas. Both the German's and Japanese have cultures built around organization and institutional quality (I was amazed to learn that Japanese customers will not buy a package of spagetti if a noodle is broken). If we gravitate toward our strenghts, we will be farmers, financiers, and entremprenuers. At the extreme with all the manufacturing done somewhere else.
Obviously the extreme is a bit beyond what will actually happen, and our advantages could shift, the Euro is giving the dollar a run for it's money (no pun intended) as a stable store of value. If the EU creates a similar market structure (it will take time as investors must believe that the instutions governing the market will protect their capital) they could compete with us as a center of investment and financing.
Overseas wages are already climbing. Look at Japan it was once a low cost place to do manufacturing, in about 40 years (1950-1990) wages are higher than ours (in auto manufacturing) and the auto industry continues to exist in the US. Now they compete on productivity and quality.
From CNBC yesterday in a story about this, the labor suveys ignore employeers with fewer than 50 employees, and also do not count layoffs of less than 50 people.
Be sure you note that over the last two years the rupee has begun to strenghten vs the dollar (it's up 10% from 2 years ago). Also wage inflation in India was mentioned in a recent economist at 10%-12% (and the majority of the contribution was from tech jobs (other jobs were nearly flat). Assuming the offshoring continues it will continue to drive up the cost of hiring qualified Indian technology workers (phone support is probably hosed as it doesn't require a ton of specialized training most of the people calling you have degrees in a field other than technology, they just make more working in call centers).
If an overseas worker is considerably cheaper than an American one, if we eliminate the savings through taxation, overseas companies will simply form that capture the difference. Then the US company will evenutally go bankrupt (and wipe out even more jobs). Imagine how expensive a cheap Ford would be if all car parts were required to be made in America.
Realize that many technology jobs have been replaced by automation that lets a few people do work that many would have been required to do years ago. That's a much bigger factor than offshoring. If you want to protect yourself learn as much as you can about what others use your products to accomplish, even if you are no more efficent than an indian programmer in lines per hour, you have a tremendous advantage over him in making software that will do more for your company (because you can see how it is used).
A fable that I am stealing from an Econ prof goes as follows. Imagine a bright engineer announces a development that allows him to covert grain into cars. He buys tons and tons of grain, which goes into one end of his factory, and out the other end roll cars (at considerably less cost than Detroit can produce them). The machine is rather automatic, so while he doesn't hire too many people, there are a few jobs created in his machine. Everyone is amazed at his prowess, even Detroit who has to adjust to compete with this new competitor, they vow to become more efficent producers. A few years after he begins operation a bright, hungry investigative reporter gets the scoop of his (or her) lifetime, the factory does not convert grain into cars, it's a cover on a large boat dock (grain is exported and cars are imported). After he blows the lid of the story his cars are taxed, protested, and disliked. Why would it be alright to convert grain into cars through an industrial process, but not alright to trade for it? That's why I'm a free trader.
The pics appeared to me to be designed to be sterile and closely cropped to make the decision as hard as possible. If you go back and put the 10 correct answers in you can see 4 newer pictures, I got 4/4 on the first try but the real ones looked pretty fake to me (lighting cues mostly-light is too pristine in rendered shots).
I've always prefered a coalition based parlementary system. While not perfect, it usually forces the center left or right to woo both the middle and the far end of the spectrum to rule, and allows for significantly more diversity of opinions. There is a whole branch of economics that looks at inefficiencies in different voting systems, it's pretty interesting.
The execs are still responsible to their shareholders. The safe harbor provisions of securities law don't cover fraud. Darl and Co should buy mansions in Florida whicb has solid domicile protection in bankruptcy proceedings (you almost always keep the house regardless of cost). Which is why so many Tyco and Enron execs bought $10 million and up homes there just before the final hammer fell. Also, other debtors can attempt to go after corporate equity holders in cases of criminal circumstances, and depending on the laws in the state in which SCO is incorporated.
Alias has a prett neat quiz bettween real pictures and computer generated ones. If you've never seen it it's availible here. I first recall seing it more than a year ago, so it's not exactly still state of the art, but I don't think I did that well on the quiz.
I've never had much luck with 2000 and less than 256 mb of ram, it does seem pretty tolerant of slow CPU speeds (I ran it on a P2 with 384 MB just fine). My boss is running it on a P3 with 256 and it's pretty unresponsive once outlook and ie are open (not to mention any other office programs).
I would expect Linux feature rich desktops to have similar requirements to Windows, but thought the big advantage was if you don't need that you are not stuck installing/loading all sorts of features you do not need (use Ice or FVWM or something light).
Back in the day StarOffice 5.2 ran about 10 times faster on a Windows 95 install than on a Linux install, I still don't understand that one. Am I the only person who liked SO5.2 desktop replacement system? Not that I don't like OpenOffice (it's my main office suite).
One of the best places to see this is in financial markets. It used to be that you had to own a seat on the exchange, or be a heavyweight to get anything close to real time quotes. Now you can see level 2 quotes for free or nominal costs. That is a huge reduction in friction. It enabled proprietary trading (somthing that brokerage firms did with mainframes and millions of dollars) to be profitably accomplished by anyone with a PC and a decent internet connection. Some friction remains in the market (access to cheap capital, bid ask spreads, limited acess to the derivatives markets (especially short sides)) but buy and large you have tools similar enough to the big boys that trading can be profitable for individuals.
US expected livespan in 1900 was below 50 years. However, if you survived to your first year it incresed by almost 10 expected years (lots of young children died throwing down the average).
Heard an interesting story about the Lotus development of macros. They were a debugging tool that was in a close to final release for testing before someone realized these might be a useful feature in the final product.
Can you still buy it from Infrogrames(Atari). They didn't even have the much later Magic games last time I checked their list of software. I have all three tactical games, and love them (X-Com and Covert Action were my first computer games-before I owned a computer). And they are still two of my favorites.
I agree with you, but we're both probably spreadsheet experts. Have you ever seen a user with only basic training, and a limited understanding of math? They know certain things are possible (because they saw us do them) but to them the spreadsheet is not intuitive. To us they are. Once you grasp relative v absolute references (and cell naming) you are usually on your way to being unstoppable.
One thing that would be nice would be a sheet that had a different display for user input data and calc'd data (I have my own shorthand but wouldn't it be nice if the sheet just formatted them automatically?
My employer spend millions of dollars redesigning their database input and report forms so they would be the same as the old mainframe systems. Dumb to us, but most users were rendered helpless by something different, even if it was more efficient. Something that looks like what a user is comfortable with is sometimes more useful than a powerful, flexible, but different tool.
I'd buy a new one if they increased the speed. My 12C rocks, but is pretty slow on some calculations. It hesitates for simple calculations (2+2) and actually brings up a running display for ammortization and square root type problems (approximate iterative solutions). If they made one that hesitated for those I'd shell out for a new one, tomorrow.
That expense brought me to a love of math. I was 2 or 3 or so and caught fiddling with my dad's calc (early 80s). My folks thought I would break it or something so they found this Mr Professor kid's calc. Only a while later did they learn it was a little arithmetic quizz device not a calculator. I just sort of learned the arithmetic from it. I think I still have that thing somewhere.
Quite a few tech companies have no or a token amount of debt. The rating agencies (companies that assign a credit rating, like a FICO to companies) hate technology companies, they believe them to be very risky and give them low ratings. If MS had debt (even considering their cash flow, growth, size, and cash in the bank) they would probably be A-AA (well below anything with worse credit metrics in other industries). Nice to see another someone who understands accounting and finance on/.
In addition to this most public tech companies (especially software companies) have very low capital requirements and generate enough cash to cover their needs. Old semi companies (that aren't fabless) are the big exception to the rule.
The only places I like the distinction is material. Natural materials were harvested from plants or animals and spun. Artifical (man-made is better) come from oil chemicals (which depending on which origniation theory you prefer is either far removed from plant or animal matter, or comes from the heat of the earth). If you were to make polyester out of plant lipid, this method would rapidly become bunk.
It only really becomes important if your ironing or in a fire, natural materials might scortch or even burn but man made materials will melt to your skin or ironing board.
The intuitive case is a mortgage. Intuitive because most americans will experince leverage in a home purchase.
If let's say you have a $100,000 house that will be worth $110,000 next year (the math is easier). The simple return on the home is 10%. Also imagine that you have $100,000 in the bank.
If you pay cash for the home (equity financing for a business), your pre-tax and post-tax return is 10% (Assume you qualify for primary residence cap gains).
Now imagine that you financed the home with 50% debt (and bought two homes). You gambled on a balloon payment and got a 5% mortgage. Over the course of the year your homes are worth $220,000 and you still owe 100,000. You paid 5% in interest or $5,000, but got $1,500 back on your taxes. However your $100,000 equity postion is now $116,500. And your retun is now 16.5%. Same investment leverage multiplied the return. The curvature arises from the bank wanting additional interest as you start putting less capital into the mix. I doubt you would find a bank willing to loan at 5% if you wanted to buy a $10,000,000 apartment complex with $100,000 down. Also presuming that your first $100,000 is invested in the best home your 10th 100k might only go into a home that returns 5% or something closer to your cost of capital.
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US corporations (with a few exeptions) are largely owned (directly or indirectly) by US workers through pension funds. There are a few recent startups that are still owned by capitalists, but by and large they are owned by funds (which means indirectly you and me). Also neither labor nor capital's share of income in the US has moved out pretty narrow bands, labor is around 55%, capital is around 15% (taxes and government is the remainder) (this is over the last century). It was in a chart in Hunt's column a week ago, Thursday in the WSJ. Given that labor can exert more political pressure (votes) than capital (cash only) don't expect this to change in the future either.
FWIW, it appears that the US has three big advantages over other countries, stable financial markets (reducing the transaction costs of investing and acquiring capital), productive farmland (might not be too important to unemployed tech workers), and superior ability to start businesses and organize capital, talent, and effort. Our culture values risk taking and similar behaviors. We don't have an advantage in other areas. Both the German's and Japanese have cultures built around organization and institutional quality (I was amazed to learn that Japanese customers will not buy a package of spagetti if a noodle is broken). If we gravitate toward our strenghts, we will be farmers, financiers, and entremprenuers. At the extreme with all the manufacturing done somewhere else.
Obviously the extreme is a bit beyond what will actually happen, and our advantages could shift, the Euro is giving the dollar a run for it's money (no pun intended) as a stable store of value. If the EU creates a similar market structure (it will take time as investors must believe that the instutions governing the market will protect their capital) they could compete with us as a center of investment and financing.
Overseas wages are already climbing. Look at Japan it was once a low cost place to do manufacturing, in about 40 years (1950-1990) wages are higher than ours (in auto manufacturing) and the auto industry continues to exist in the US. Now they compete on productivity and quality.
From CNBC yesterday in a story about this, the labor suveys ignore employeers with fewer than 50 employees, and also do not count layoffs of less than 50 people.
Be sure you note that over the last two years the rupee has begun to strenghten vs the dollar (it's up 10% from 2 years ago). Also wage inflation in India was mentioned in a recent economist at 10%-12% (and the majority of the contribution was from tech jobs (other jobs were nearly flat). Assuming the offshoring continues it will continue to drive up the cost of hiring qualified Indian technology workers (phone support is probably hosed as it doesn't require a ton of specialized training most of the people calling you have degrees in a field other than technology, they just make more working in call centers).
If an overseas worker is considerably cheaper than an American one, if we eliminate the savings through taxation, overseas companies will simply form that capture the difference. Then the US company will evenutally go bankrupt (and wipe out even more jobs). Imagine how expensive a cheap Ford would be if all car parts were required to be made in America.
Realize that many technology jobs have been replaced by automation that lets a few people do work that many would have been required to do years ago. That's a much bigger factor than offshoring. If you want to protect yourself learn as much as you can about what others use your products to accomplish, even if you are no more efficent than an indian programmer in lines per hour, you have a tremendous advantage over him in making software that will do more for your company (because you can see how it is used).
A fable that I am stealing from an Econ prof goes as follows. Imagine a bright engineer announces a development that allows him to covert grain into cars. He buys tons and tons of grain, which goes into one end of his factory, and out the other end roll cars (at considerably less cost than Detroit can produce them). The machine is rather automatic, so while he doesn't hire too many people, there are a few jobs created in his machine. Everyone is amazed at his prowess, even Detroit who has to adjust to compete with this new competitor, they vow to become more efficent producers.
A few years after he begins operation a bright, hungry investigative reporter gets the scoop of his (or her) lifetime, the factory does not convert grain into cars, it's a cover on a large boat dock (grain is exported and cars are imported). After he blows the lid of the story his cars are taxed, protested, and disliked. Why would it be alright to convert grain into cars through an industrial process, but not alright to trade for it? That's why I'm a free trader.
The pics appeared to me to be designed to be sterile and closely cropped to make the decision as hard as possible. If you go back and put the 10 correct answers in you can see 4 newer pictures, I got 4/4 on the first try but the real ones looked pretty fake to me (lighting cues mostly-light is too pristine in rendered shots).
Ironic that Ralph Wiggam has the most insightful, thoughtful statement I've seen in this discussion.
I've always prefered a coalition based parlementary system. While not perfect, it usually forces the center left or right to woo both the middle and the far end of the spectrum to rule, and allows for significantly more diversity of opinions. There is a whole branch of economics that looks at inefficiencies in different voting systems, it's pretty interesting.
The execs are still responsible to their shareholders. The safe harbor provisions of securities law don't cover fraud. Darl and Co should buy mansions in Florida whicb has solid domicile protection in bankruptcy proceedings (you almost always keep the house regardless of cost). Which is why so many Tyco and Enron execs bought $10 million and up homes there just before the final hammer fell. Also, other debtors can attempt to go after corporate equity holders in cases of criminal circumstances, and depending on the laws in the state in which SCO is incorporated.
Alias has a prett neat quiz bettween real pictures and computer generated ones. If you've never seen it it's availible here. I first recall seing it more than a year ago, so it's not exactly still state of the art, but I don't think I did that well on the quiz.
Even Trogdor is somewhat believable as a dragon with a big human arm sticking off his back.
I've never had much luck with 2000 and less than 256 mb of ram, it does seem pretty tolerant of slow CPU speeds (I ran it on a P2 with 384 MB just fine). My boss is running it on a P3 with 256 and it's pretty unresponsive once outlook and ie are open (not to mention any other office programs). I would expect Linux feature rich desktops to have similar requirements to Windows, but thought the big advantage was if you don't need that you are not stuck installing/loading all sorts of features you do not need (use Ice or FVWM or something light).
Back in the day StarOffice 5.2 ran about 10 times faster on a Windows 95 install than on a Linux install, I still don't understand that one. Am I the only person who liked SO5.2 desktop replacement system? Not that I don't like OpenOffice (it's my main office suite).
It was no rumor, it was our first lecture in circuts class.
One of the best places to see this is in financial markets. It used to be that you had to own a seat on the exchange, or be a heavyweight to get anything close to real time quotes. Now you can see level 2 quotes for free or nominal costs. That is a huge reduction in friction. It enabled proprietary trading (somthing that brokerage firms did with mainframes and millions of dollars) to be profitably accomplished by anyone with a PC and a decent internet connection.
Some friction remains in the market (access to cheap capital, bid ask spreads, limited acess to the derivatives markets (especially short sides)) but buy and large you have tools similar enough to the big boys that trading can be profitable for individuals.
US expected livespan in 1900 was below 50 years. However, if you survived to your first year it incresed by almost 10 expected years (lots of young children died throwing down the average).
Heard an interesting story about the Lotus development of macros. They were a debugging tool that was in a close to final release for testing before someone realized these might be a useful feature in the final product.
Can you still buy it from Infrogrames(Atari). They didn't even have the much later Magic games last time I checked their list of software. I have all three tactical games, and love them (X-Com and Covert Action were my first computer games-before I owned a computer). And they are still two of my favorites.
I agree with you, but we're both probably spreadsheet experts. Have you ever seen a user with only basic training, and a limited understanding of math? They know certain things are possible (because they saw us do them) but to them the spreadsheet is not intuitive. To us they are. Once you grasp relative v absolute references (and cell naming) you are usually on your way to being unstoppable.
One thing that would be nice would be a sheet that had a different display for user input data and calc'd data (I have my own shorthand but wouldn't it be nice if the sheet just formatted them automatically?
My employer spend millions of dollars redesigning their database input and report forms so they would be the same as the old mainframe systems. Dumb to us, but most users were rendered helpless by something different, even if it was more efficient. Something that looks like what a user is comfortable with is sometimes more useful than a powerful, flexible, but different tool.
I'd buy a new one if they increased the speed. My 12C rocks, but is pretty slow on some calculations. It hesitates for simple calculations (2+2) and actually brings up a running display for ammortization and square root type problems (approximate iterative solutions). If they made one that hesitated for those I'd shell out for a new one, tomorrow.
That expense brought me to a love of math. I was 2 or 3 or so and caught fiddling with my dad's calc (early 80s). My folks thought I would break it or something so they found this Mr Professor kid's calc. Only a while later did they learn it was a little arithmetic quizz device not a calculator. I just sort of learned the arithmetic from it. I think I still have that thing somewhere.
RPN is just downright more efficent for multistep calcs. I miss the stack on my 48G--using a 12B (financial calc) for this stupid test.
Quite a few tech companies have no or a token amount of debt. The rating agencies (companies that assign a credit rating, like a FICO to companies) hate technology companies, they believe them to be very risky and give them low ratings. If MS had debt (even considering their cash flow, growth, size, and cash in the bank) they would probably be A-AA (well below anything with worse credit metrics in other industries). Nice to see another someone who understands accounting and finance on /.
In addition to this most public tech companies (especially software companies) have very low capital requirements and generate enough cash to cover their needs. Old semi companies (that aren't fabless) are the big exception to the rule.
The only places I like the distinction is material. Natural materials were harvested from plants or animals and spun. Artifical (man-made is better) come from oil chemicals (which depending on which origniation theory you prefer is either far removed from plant or animal matter, or comes from the heat of the earth). If you were to make polyester out of plant lipid, this method would rapidly become bunk.
It only really becomes important if your ironing or in a fire, natural materials might scortch or even burn but man made materials will melt to your skin or ironing board.
After that it's pretty much turtles all the way down.
The intuitive case is a mortgage. Intuitive because most americans will experince leverage in a home purchase.
If let's say you have a $100,000 house that will be worth $110,000 next year (the math is easier). The simple return on the home is 10%. Also imagine that you have $100,000 in the bank.
If you pay cash for the home (equity financing for a business), your pre-tax and post-tax return is 10% (Assume you qualify for primary residence cap gains). Now imagine that you financed the home with 50% debt (and bought two homes). You gambled on a balloon payment and got a 5% mortgage. Over the course of the year your homes are worth $220,000 and you still owe 100,000. You paid 5% in interest or $5,000, but got $1,500 back on your taxes. However your $100,000 equity postion is now $116,500. And your retun is now 16.5%. Same investment leverage multiplied the return.
The curvature arises from the bank wanting additional interest as you start putting less capital into the mix. I doubt you would find a bank willing to loan at 5% if you wanted to buy a $10,000,000 apartment complex with $100,000 down. Also presuming that your first $100,000 is invested in the best home your 10th 100k might only go into a home that returns 5% or something closer to your cost of capital.