Yeah, a crash. Diamonds aren't really all that rare and can be manufactured. There might be some fashion value in "gemstones from space", if it can be proven that they are lunar in origin by some kind of analysis.
That video is, quite literally, the band playing their instruments. Sure, they added some crappy after-effects and swooshy camera work, and the setting is a tree instead of a stage. But it is a zero-budget video with nothing but the band playing music.
Sound Garden "Fell on Black Days". Alice In Chains "Man in the Box" has a few cut-aways, but is about 95% the band playing. One of their others was "them playing in a pit" - don't remember the song.
Don't get me wrong, I hated crappy videos like that... but they were all over the place. That is part of the reason I stopped watching MTV.
The supply and/or demand is sometimes restricted by the whole thing being illegal, but only broadly.
No, quite specifically. Every decision has to be weighed against "getting caught". Every single decision. This will make the market behave very oddly.
Paying your gardener under the table is a black market transaction.
Then we are talking about two different things. I consider that tax evasion on the part of the gardener. There is nothing illegal in the US about paying a contractor to render a service. Tax evasion alone does not make a market "black". The price is still set by consent of both buyer and seller, the government is (mostly) not involved in regulating the transaction, and I can choose from a number of gardeners in a fiercely competitive and open marketplace. I'm free to share information with others about the reputation of the gardener. This scenario seems quite free and it is hard to even compare it to buying something that the government will throw you in jail for possessing, let alone selling.
Those are black markets, but they provide a more accurate valuation of the traded goods (including the currencies) than the official market.
Agreed... but it is simple arbitrage. Taking advantage of an artificial price discrepancy does not require much to be successful. It's still not a "free market" - it's just a bit freer than the price-controls that the government is trying to impose.
By who? This is exactly the mentality expressed by the top level poster, and exactly what I was disputing in the first place. How anyone could argue that a black market represents a free market is beyond me. The primary constraint of being undetectable just blows away many tenets of an ideal free market right off the bat.
You mentioned Aerojet Rocketdyne in your message. They are in CA, and it is where the Delta IV main engines are manufactured. Only the Atlas V uses the Russian engine. Anyway, since when does Lockheed or Boeing need to make every single part of something in order to profit enormously from it? They would be the natural recipients of a "giant space missile" contract. They regularly do space launches, build rockets, build satellites and space probes, and integrate navigation systems. They also make all of the nuclear missiles that we have in our inventory (Trident II is Lockheed, Tomahawk is Boeing).
In any case, I would hope that Russian help would also be forthcoming in any big expensive plan to save humanity.
Yes, Lockheed and Boeing have very little in the way of aerospace assets or missile technology. They would HATE a $100 billion crash program to shoot something out of the sky.
That does not really describe the USA anymore. Most of us don't pin too much nationalist pride on things like the tallest this or the longest that anymore. Hell, we didn't even bother maintaining a manned space program.
There is no way MTV would have rejected a Pearl Jam video in the early 90s. Contemporaries like Smashing Pumpkins "Cherub Rock" were just simple videos of the band playing.
What a load of pretentious crap. At the very least, film a video of yourself singing the song in concert. That way the TV viewer is no more influenced by the visual than the concertgoer. Considering Vedder's fight with Ticketmaster, he clearly didn't object to the concert experience.
I might suggest that manufacturing is harder than you seem to think it is. Months can be spent fine-tuning a single part in a complex product. That part might not even be available to other manufacturers. Process can be a very difficult part of manufacturing - simply getting the drawings is insufficient (though quite helpful).
That is a danger, but I think we would approach it as a one-off. We make capital equipment and so are used to ramping up and down. It's all fantasy-land anyway, since nothing ever came of it - I was just struck by the scale they operate at.
Yes, but inventory is going to be pretty tightly controlled by Apple. Foxconn couldn't just set up a little side business pumping out a few extras here and there without Apple noticing the missing parts.
That may be true but I can 100% guarantee the real designs were stolen and then manufactured by someone else. Happens to everything over there.
That is absolutely true. I know our designs go to our competitors and vice versa. That said, it would be extremely hard to produce some of the things Apple does - if you could even source the parts - while significantly undercutting their price. They really do push the envelope on miniaturization of the form factor. I suppose you could cheat if you used a bulkier layout and sacrificed battery size or something... but that is diverging from the design. The knock-off maker is going to want to avoid as much R&D as possible:)
They definitely do not. Apple is a huge customer. Just, startlingly huge. I once spoke to an Apple guy at a trade show. He wanted to know if our company could produce enough machines to assemble a part that they were musing about. We are the largest manufacturer in the world of the equipment that we make - something like 70% market share. I kind of laughed at first, since I figured there was no way they would tax our capacity. Then we started talking numbers, and it quickly became clear that we would have to resort to extraordinary measures to have any chance at meeting their demand. They are a massive operation, and if you are a vendor of theirs you don't need to share factory floor space with other customers - and certainly not knock offs of their products.
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Yeah, a crash. Diamonds aren't really all that rare and can be manufactured. There might be some fashion value in "gemstones from space", if it can be proven that they are lunar in origin by some kind of analysis.
That video is, quite literally, the band playing their instruments. Sure, they added some crappy after-effects and swooshy camera work, and the setting is a tree instead of a stage. But it is a zero-budget video with nothing but the band playing music.
Sound Garden "Fell on Black Days". Alice In Chains "Man in the Box" has a few cut-aways, but is about 95% the band playing. One of their others was "them playing in a pit" - don't remember the song.
Don't get me wrong, I hated crappy videos like that... but they were all over the place. That is part of the reason I stopped watching MTV.
The supply and/or demand is sometimes restricted by the whole thing being illegal, but only broadly.
No, quite specifically. Every decision has to be weighed against "getting caught". Every single decision. This will make the market behave very oddly.
Paying your gardener under the table is a black market transaction.
Then we are talking about two different things. I consider that tax evasion on the part of the gardener. There is nothing illegal in the US about paying a contractor to render a service. Tax evasion alone does not make a market "black". The price is still set by consent of both buyer and seller, the government is (mostly) not involved in regulating the transaction, and I can choose from a number of gardeners in a fiercely competitive and open marketplace. I'm free to share information with others about the reputation of the gardener. This scenario seems quite free and it is hard to even compare it to buying something that the government will throw you in jail for possessing, let alone selling.
Those are black markets, but they provide a more accurate valuation of the traded goods (including the currencies) than the official market.
Agreed... but it is simple arbitrage. Taking advantage of an artificial price discrepancy does not require much to be successful. It's still not a "free market" - it's just a bit freer than the price-controls that the government is trying to impose.
often considered
By who? This is exactly the mentality expressed by the top level poster, and exactly what I was disputing in the first place. How anyone could argue that a black market represents a free market is beyond me. The primary constraint of being undetectable just blows away many tenets of an ideal free market right off the bat.
How is a black market a "free market"? How can you have any more government "regulation" beyond completely forbidden?
You mentioned Aerojet Rocketdyne in your message. They are in CA, and it is where the Delta IV main engines are manufactured. Only the Atlas V uses the Russian engine. Anyway, since when does Lockheed or Boeing need to make every single part of something in order to profit enormously from it? They would be the natural recipients of a "giant space missile" contract. They regularly do space launches, build rockets, build satellites and space probes, and integrate navigation systems. They also make all of the nuclear missiles that we have in our inventory (Trident II is Lockheed, Tomahawk is Boeing).
In any case, I would hope that Russian help would also be forthcoming in any big expensive plan to save humanity.
Spend about 15 minutes on Wikipedia and then come back and re-read your comment.
Yes, Lockheed and Boeing have very little in the way of aerospace assets or missile technology. They would HATE a $100 billion crash program to shoot something out of the sky.
Ugh. I guess I just have to roll with these jokes.
Tired! Ha! I get it... Good Year?
That does not really describe the USA anymore. Most of us don't pin too much nationalist pride on things like the tallest this or the longest that anymore. Hell, we didn't even bother maintaining a manned space program.
If you speak "leet", like I do, those are the letter z.
That's not very original. They should call themselves the Dawg Pound or something.
There is no way MTV would have rejected a Pearl Jam video in the early 90s. Contemporaries like Smashing Pumpkins "Cherub Rock" were just simple videos of the band playing.
Woah, woah. Fear and hatred of children is firmly in the domain of Cowboys fans, not Republicans fans.
What a load of pretentious crap. At the very least, film a video of yourself singing the song in concert. That way the TV viewer is no more influenced by the visual than the concertgoer. Considering Vedder's fight with Ticketmaster, he clearly didn't object to the concert experience.
More seriously though, I'll never understand people who rely on Google's applications.
1. Good enough.
2. Free.
3. Familiar.
4. When they shut down, they usually give you a way to get your data.
Still, they aren't just a drop in the bucket - they are more like a liter in the bucket... that was my surprise.
I might suggest that manufacturing is harder than you seem to think it is. Months can be spent fine-tuning a single part in a complex product. That part might not even be available to other manufacturers. Process can be a very difficult part of manufacturing - simply getting the drawings is insufficient (though quite helpful).
I have a Mac.
Your comment made me chuckle, because clearly you bought a mechanical watch over a quartz watch for some unspecified aesthetic reason.
That is a danger, but I think we would approach it as a one-off. We make capital equipment and so are used to ramping up and down. It's all fantasy-land anyway, since nothing ever came of it - I was just struck by the scale they operate at.
Yes, but inventory is going to be pretty tightly controlled by Apple. Foxconn couldn't just set up a little side business pumping out a few extras here and there without Apple noticing the missing parts.
That may be true but I can 100% guarantee the real designs were stolen and then manufactured by someone else. Happens to everything over there.
That is absolutely true. I know our designs go to our competitors and vice versa. That said, it would be extremely hard to produce some of the things Apple does - if you could even source the parts - while significantly undercutting their price. They really do push the envelope on miniaturization of the form factor. I suppose you could cheat if you used a bulkier layout and sacrificed battery size or something... but that is diverging from the design. The knock-off maker is going to want to avoid as much R&D as possible :)
They definitely do not. Apple is a huge customer. Just, startlingly huge. I once spoke to an Apple guy at a trade show. He wanted to know if our company could produce enough machines to assemble a part that they were musing about. We are the largest manufacturer in the world of the equipment that we make - something like 70% market share. I kind of laughed at first, since I figured there was no way they would tax our capacity. Then we started talking numbers, and it quickly became clear that we would have to resort to extraordinary measures to have any chance at meeting their demand. They are a massive operation, and if you are a vendor of theirs you don't need to share factory floor space with other customers - and certainly not knock offs of their products.