Certainly, labor costs are a problem, but I think that the costs of the parts is a bigger problem that won't get solved any time soon.
Take the BMW example in the article. The car cost $30k new, so the damage must have been $16 at least. Say that all six airbags went off, and using the numbers in the story ($1k per bag, and "even more" for the sensors -- call it $1.25k), the labor costs were around $13.5k. That's astronomical, to be sure, and it's the number that gets your attention. But look at the parts...these figures mean that the cost of the airbags & sensors is $2,500 or so.
That may not seem like a lot, but think about it. If you figure that transportation costs, dealer profit eat up $1,000 of the car's price (it's coming from Germany, after all), that means that the airbags come out to around 8.6% of the car's total value. Does anybody really believe that the airbag system cost BMW that much? Of course not, I'm sure they spent less than a fourth of that. This highly profitable parts market is one of the reasons that I can lease that $30k BMW for $299 a month.
The invisible hand of the market may be able to fix the labor problem, but it can't directly address the parts problem because this information isn't generally known. Maybe articles like this one will cause people to take a harder look at the real cost of owning different cars when they are shopping for new ones.
Bear in mind, however... there was no permanent federal income tax until 1913. Country did just fine for almost 140 years with no income tax except in dire situations...
For a large part of the history of this country, no income tax was needed because the federal governement made most of its money from the sale of land. This is how foreign wars got paid for, and how most of those pretty buildings in Washington, D.C. got built.
Think about it -- after the federal government bought the Louisiana Territory in 1803 (for example), where did all that land go? A bit of it stayed in the federal government's hands, some was converted into national parks, but the bulk of it was sold to farmers, homesteaders, and commercial interests. The same thing happened every other time a large amount of territory was added to the U.S. The federal government made enough money off of these land sales that taxes were not necessary except in dire situations (i.e., the Civil War).
Once the U.S. stopped adding landmass, it was just a matter of time until the money from land sales stopped pouring in -- this happened in the early 20th Century. This is one of the reasons (along with the Great Depression and World War II) why income taxes came soon after.
So it's a mistake to say that the federal government had no money and did nothing before income taxes...it was just that somebody else was paying the bill.
I think you're on to something here. Back in the eighties, when I was in college, the business majors were real MS-DOS bigots. The other personal computers of the day, Macs, were for toys for losers who just didn't get it.
This article shows that this MS-centric bigotry is alive and well in corporate America. From the business major's perspective, those other OSs are not real OSs because they aren't intended for real work, i.e., the stuff they do.
I'm not so sure that this is a good idea. Take the Japanese, for example (which is, I believe, the country targeted in Tom Clancy's book) -- they have lots of barriers to U.S. and other foreign products...as a result, Japanese consumers pay more for rice, cars, etc. than they would in a truly free, competitive environment. The main reason for their protectionism is to foster exports -- Toyota can sell me a Camry here in the U.S. for cheaper than it could if it had to realistically compete against Ford at home in Japan. Thus, in effect, the Japanese consumer is subsidizing the American consumer. If they want to do this, why should we stop them?
I didn't come up with this argument, Milton Friedman did. But the real solution to this is the the Japanese consumer waking up and deciding that he/she isn't going to take this anymore. If Japanese carbuyers knew what the real cost of a Toyota car was to an American carbuyer, things would probably change...
As for India and China, it's just a matter of time before they get "India-d" themselves. $1/day probably looks pretty sweet to somebody living in war-torn Ivory Coast.
My favorite M16 memory: as anyone who has fired the M16 knows, this weapon ejects the spent shell casing out of the right side. This is not a problem for right-handed shooters, but left-handed shooters get red-hot pieces of metal whizzing inches from their faces unless they use a deflector. The deflector the army supplies (or at least, supplied when I was in the army in the early 90's) is a cheap little plastic thing that attaches to the weapon and deflects the spent shell casing 90 degrees so it's not in your face. My left-handed buddies were always complaining about these deflectors and their tendency to fall off.
Anyhow, late in basic training we were conducting a live fire exercise , learning how to advance on a posititon while alternately covering each other; adding to the excitement of this exercise was live machine gun fire shot in our direction at about 40 inches above the ground (strong incentive to keep your head down). One of my platoon mates (I'll call him Lefty) was taking his turn with his buddy. As usual, Lefty was using his deflector.When he got about halfway up the course, Lefty's deflector fell off; the next time he fired, he got a face full of hot shell casings. One of them got lodged between his face and his helmet chin strap. It must have hurt a lot, because he started screaming...he didn't stop the exercise, though, and completed it as assigned. After we were all finished, the drill sergeant chewed us out for not having as much enthusiasm for the exercise as Lefty, who was a "born killer." Lefty got the top score for that exercise...
I remember seeing a presentation from Phoenix a few years ago...can't tell you what it was about (NDA), but just imagine some really cool features that could be available if the bios were appropriately enabled. We're talking really useful stuff. It never took off b/c the motherboard manufacturer (most of whom are in Taiwan) didn't want to spend any more money on the bios than they were already spending.
So I predict that this product will get a lot of coverage by the press but will not be adopted by the motherboard manufacturers. Selling those guys a better bios is like selling General Motors a cool new-design lug nut for its wheels.
One point that isn't brought out in the article is the history of this argument (i.e., Cohen's IP defense). Was this defense raised during the original trial and dismissed, or is Cohen raising it now for the first time? In the former case, it would then warrant an appeal as Cohen would be arguing that the trial court erred in precluding this defense or restricting him from presenting it properly (whichever is the case). If it's a new argument for the defendant, however, procedurally he's barred from raising it on appeal. I wish this fact (has Cohen raised this argument before?) was covered in the articles, as it matters a great deal...
Still, as the article points out, Cohen is not complying with the trial court's judgment so his chance of winning on appeal is exactly zero as he has "dirty hands"...
I don't think that Microsoft gives a rat's ass how anybody skins Windows XP. They make no extra money if you re-skin XP or if you don't.
I think this change is aimed at making Windows Server more appealing to large enterprise users (including government users) who have internally-developed "line of business" applications (to use Microsoft's term) that they don't want to rev each time a new version of Windows or Visual Studio (and their corresponding new DLL versions) comes out...
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Certainly, labor costs are a problem, but I think that the costs of the parts is a bigger problem that won't get solved any time soon.
Take the BMW example in the article. The car cost $30k new, so the damage must have been $16 at least. Say that all six airbags went off, and using the numbers in the story ($1k per bag, and "even more" for the sensors -- call it $1.25k), the labor costs were around $13.5k. That's astronomical, to be sure, and it's the number that gets your attention. But look at the parts...these figures mean that the cost of the airbags & sensors is $2,500 or so.
That may not seem like a lot, but think about it. If you figure that transportation costs, dealer profit eat up $1,000 of the car's price (it's coming from Germany, after all), that means that the airbags come out to around 8.6% of the car's total value. Does anybody really believe that the airbag system cost BMW that much? Of course not, I'm sure they spent less than a fourth of that. This highly profitable parts market is one of the reasons that I can lease that $30k BMW for $299 a month.
The invisible hand of the market may be able to fix the labor problem, but it can't directly address the parts problem because this information isn't generally known. Maybe articles like this one will cause people to take a harder look at the real cost of owning different cars when they are shopping for new ones.
Bear in mind, however... there was no permanent federal income tax until 1913. Country did just fine for almost 140 years with no income tax except in dire situations...
For a large part of the history of this country, no income tax was needed because the federal governement made most of its money from the sale of land. This is how foreign wars got paid for, and how most of those pretty buildings in Washington, D.C. got built.
Think about it -- after the federal government bought the Louisiana Territory in 1803 (for example), where did all that land go? A bit of it stayed in the federal government's hands, some was converted into national parks, but the bulk of it was sold to farmers, homesteaders, and commercial interests. The same thing happened every other time a large amount of territory was added to the U.S. The federal government made enough money off of these land sales that taxes were not necessary except in dire situations (i.e., the Civil War).
Once the U.S. stopped adding landmass, it was just a matter of time until the money from land sales stopped pouring in -- this happened in the early 20th Century. This is one of the reasons (along with the Great Depression and World War II) why income taxes came soon after.
So it's a mistake to say that the federal government had no money and did nothing before income taxes...it was just that somebody else was paying the bill.
It's percieved as some toy OS...
I think you're on to something here. Back in the eighties, when I was in college, the business majors were real MS-DOS bigots. The other personal computers of the day, Macs, were for toys for losers who just didn't get it.
This article shows that this MS-centric bigotry is alive and well in corporate America. From the business major's perspective, those other OSs are not real OSs because they aren't intended for real work, i.e., the stuff they do.
I'm 39, you insensitive clod!
Shouldn't a cluster of Xboxes be referred to as a "collective?"
I'm not so sure that this is a good idea. Take the Japanese, for example (which is, I believe, the country targeted in Tom Clancy's book) -- they have lots of barriers to U.S. and other foreign products...as a result, Japanese consumers pay more for rice, cars, etc. than they would in a truly free, competitive environment. The main reason for their protectionism is to foster exports -- Toyota can sell me a Camry here in the U.S. for cheaper than it could if it had to realistically compete against Ford at home in Japan. Thus, in effect, the Japanese consumer is subsidizing the American consumer. If they want to do this, why should we stop them?
I didn't come up with this argument, Milton Friedman did. But the real solution to this is the the Japanese consumer waking up and deciding that he/she isn't going to take this anymore. If Japanese carbuyers knew what the real cost of a Toyota car was to an American carbuyer, things would probably change...
As for India and China, it's just a matter of time before they get "India-d" themselves. $1/day probably looks pretty sweet to somebody living in war-torn Ivory Coast.
Libel and slander are not crimes. They are tort offenses.
My favorite M16 memory: as anyone who has fired the M16 knows, this weapon ejects the spent shell casing out of the right side. This is not a problem for right-handed shooters, but left-handed shooters get red-hot pieces of metal whizzing inches from their faces unless they use a deflector. The deflector the army supplies (or at least, supplied when I was in the army in the early 90's) is a cheap little plastic thing that attaches to the weapon and deflects the spent shell casing 90 degrees so it's not in your face. My left-handed buddies were always complaining about these deflectors and their tendency to fall off.
Anyhow, late in basic training we were conducting a live fire exercise , learning how to advance on a posititon while alternately covering each other; adding to the excitement of this exercise was live machine gun fire shot in our direction at about 40 inches above the ground (strong incentive to keep your head down). One of my platoon mates (I'll call him Lefty) was taking his turn with his buddy. As usual, Lefty was using his deflector.When he got about halfway up the course, Lefty's deflector fell off; the next time he fired, he got a face full of hot shell casings. One of them got lodged between his face and his helmet chin strap. It must have hurt a lot, because he started screaming...he didn't stop the exercise, though, and completed it as assigned. After we were all finished, the drill sergeant chewed us out for not having as much enthusiasm for the exercise as Lefty, who was a "born killer." Lefty got the top score for that exercise...
I remember seeing a presentation from Phoenix a few years ago...can't tell you what it was about (NDA), but just imagine some really cool features that could be available if the bios were appropriately enabled. We're talking really useful stuff. It never took off b/c the motherboard manufacturer (most of whom are in Taiwan) didn't want to spend any more money on the bios than they were already spending. So I predict that this product will get a lot of coverage by the press but will not be adopted by the motherboard manufacturers. Selling those guys a better bios is like selling General Motors a cool new-design lug nut for its wheels.
One point that isn't brought out in the article is the history of this argument (i.e., Cohen's IP defense). Was this defense raised during the original trial and dismissed, or is Cohen raising it now for the first time? In the former case, it would then warrant an appeal as Cohen would be arguing that the trial court erred in precluding this defense or restricting him from presenting it properly (whichever is the case). If it's a new argument for the defendant, however, procedurally he's barred from raising it on appeal. I wish this fact (has Cohen raised this argument before?) was covered in the articles, as it matters a great deal...
Still, as the article points out, Cohen is not complying with the trial court's judgment so his chance of winning on appeal is exactly zero as he has "dirty hands"...
IAAL...
I don't think that Microsoft gives a rat's ass how anybody skins Windows XP. They make no extra money if you re-skin XP or if you don't.
I think this change is aimed at making Windows Server more appealing to large enterprise users (including government users) who have internally-developed "line of business" applications (to use Microsoft's term) that they don't want to rev each time a new version of Windows or Visual Studio (and their corresponding new DLL versions) comes out...
Maybe Hollywood shouldn't force its paying customers to watch commercials on DVDs.