The computer manufacturers have very low margins , the grocery stores have very low margin.
WTF: a business is profitable or not.
Your statements are foolish and ignorant. If the U.S. were struck with an EMP that disabled the nations computer infrastructure and then the government tied the hands of the manufacturers for a certain amount of time, you can damn well be sure there would be a bail-out package to get our systems back up and running. Likewise with a biological attack on our food supply.
The problem is not the most businesses are not profitable: the problem is that people are greedy - the only thing that satisfies them is the.com era day-to-day valuations.
This statement is baseless. For better or for worse, greed drives capitalism, and without either you'd be sucking trash from a disposal outlet for dinner. If you'd rather live in a country that lacks a stable government, economy, or has wealth to speak of, I heartily encourage you to move to Afghanistan oh, say, right about a week from now.
You are correct: I misspoke. Airlines are a low-margin, _high_ cashflow business, but that cash is on hand for a very small amount of time and, hence, runs out quickly.
The real question we should be asking would center on why *Corporate* people don't have to play by the same rules as *REAL* people. If I were to make the same demands I expect the roar of laughter to see me out of the building. So why is business allowed to act immorally, and even expected to..?
I'm not certain exactly what you're referring to, but if it's the airlines' demands, let me explain:
The airline business is a VERY low margin and low cashflow business. That means that, though they make billions in revenues, the airlines don't clear that much actual profit (relative to their revenues) and always have very little cash on hand.
When an event such as the attacks on the WTC takes place and the government puts restrictions on air travel (i.e. the FAA forces all flights to be grounded) and overall safety is at risk (i.e. evidence that more attacks could be planned makes it a good decision to keep flights grounded), the airlines do everything they can to keep going. If these events cause them to run out of the tiny amount of cash they currently have, they're going to ask the government for help, and the government is probably going to give it to them.
Why? Becuase if they go under, you are going to suffer. You are going to have to take the train, bus, car, mule, whatever. That will cause a massive destabilization of our business infrastructure, and will hurt our economy even further. It's the government's job to protect (and guide) the economy to recovery, so don't complain when they do that job.
Large corporations, such as the airlines, that are centerpieces to the economy will get preferential treatment by the government because lack of such treatment has major consequences on the country's well-being.
On the other hand, one person's need for preferential treatment isn't going to mean a damn thing to the overall economy, so you won't get any help.
"...In my own self plug, my own key sits at #1555 with an MSD of 5.4901. I'm just back from a key signing party though, so we'll see how it moves next month..."
Mom: Johnny! What's that smell?
Johnny: What? It's nothin'...
Mom: Come over here. Let me see your eyes.
Johnny: C'mon, cut me some slack...
Mom: They're as red as an apple! Johnny...were you at one of those 'key signing' parties again??
Johnny: No Mom...Leave me alone!
Mom: What did I tell you about hanging around those crypto friends of yours. Are you back on PGP again?
Johnny: Go away! I hate you! You don't understand! *snort*
Mom:: If you're not careful you're going to catch something one of these days!
This is one of the most frustrating aspects of an economic downturn -- the fact that companies abandon all but the most lucritive markets in an effort to please the shareholders. Sure, making games for the consoles is a MASSIVE market, but I still believe in the merits of the coin-op arcade games and would find it sad to see other companies exit the business.
Why the love? A few reasons:
Despite the advances in console graphics/playability, arcade games are *still* the leaders in graphics/sound. A $10,000 machine dedicated to a single game knocks the socks off a PS2/XBox any day.
Unbeatable playing experience. I'm sorry, but no PS2/Xbox driving game with a gamepad (or even a force-feedback wheel clipped on a desk) will ever be more immersive and realistic than a sit-in coin-op driving game with a real gearshift, pedals, speakers blasting into your ears, and a 50" screen in front of you. Likewise for shoot-em-ups (realistic force-feedback guns, like House of the Dead 2) and even fighting games (an arcade joystick on Ultimate MK3 is undeniably more fun to play with than a good console joystick.)
I didn't say "my kids", I said "kids" as in, "in general"... And that was just one example.
Sure, talking to people face-to-face is always the best way to learn about something, but not the only way. My point is that TV, and therefore TV advertising, is ONE of the many important ways we learn about out society and our surroundings.
I'm 22, and I don't have kids to talk to, and I can't really think of a better way to quickly figure out what kind of things little kids are into these days than turning on some Saturday morning cartoons (or Nickelodeon, etc.) and watching the ads.
Despite the benefits that targeting advertising brings (more stuff that's more relevant to you), I think we'd be missing out on what has really become an an important aspect of American culture (as lame as that sounds.)
Advertising is the medium through which many of our cultural "themes" get passed. Let's say you're an older guy (50+)...how would you feel, for example, if you never actually saw a Mountain Dew or MTV ad? Wouldn't you want to know what kids these days are up to?
I WANT to know what other people are buying -- I'm curious about "what's out there". When I was a teenager, how else would I have ever discovered what the hell this "douche" thing was if I didn't ask my girl friends what the "that not so fresh feeling" actually meant?:)
I remember a few months ago I went out to L.A. for the first time (I live in Boston) and I was AMAZED at the sheer number of 'Get Bigger Breasts' or 'Dr. blah-blah's Plastic Surgery Center' etc. ads that were on TV and the radio (and I'm not kidding.) It was a way for me to get a snapshot, as lame as it is, of what's important to some people out there.
That kind of information is important, and I'd feel significantly more out of touch without it.
Costless collaring is a great thing, especially these days.
A word of warning to all of you: If you are so lucky as to actually make money on options in a company you work for, do a costless collar. Don't be a fool and gamble your money away.
Here's a story to drive home the point:
A friend of mine is a top broker in the private client group of a NYC-based investment bank. One of his new "products" he's been selling is the costless collar strategy, and, obviously, he's been doing quite well.
One client he was pitching a year or so ago was a CEO of a then-pretty-good Internet company. The CEO held 8 million shares of stock, which was trading at around $64 a share. My friend was offering a costless collar to hedge this guy's stock, and he responded simply: Not interested. How about a portion of your shares? Not interested. In fact, his words were these:
"I'm worth almost $500 Million now, and I know my stock's going to 150. I want to be a billionaire."
Well, his stock's at $0.09 now, and his company filed for bankrupcy. Of course, he borrowed against his options, so his net worth is something in the neighborhood of -$50 million, which is nice for him.
Anyway, you get the point. Don't be stupid. Enjoy what you get.
It must not be compared with a PC which just runs a bit faster after an upgrade. A P300 only runs about 3 times faster than a P100. A SuperCPU-C64 runs 20 times faster than a stock C64!
Wow!! That's amazing! If these guys are as good at making CPUs as they are at math, then we're in for some fun......;)
In that case, I reject RMS's argument -- that's like telling Coke to stop selling Cola and instead focus on their food division because they might make more money there (not actually true, but you get the point)
It is neither his nor any of our business to tell companies how to most effectively make money.
If you think that selling services is a better business to be in, then fine -- go start a services company and prove all the software companies in the world wrong. That's one of the beautiful things about America.
If you disagree with the philosophy of closed-sorce/for-sale software, fine. I happen to like the Open Source/Free Software models a lot -- but I recognize their limits and applications, and profitable commercial software is not necessarily one of them.
Though I agree with other points RMS makes and that Mundie is wrong about a lot of the negativity towards the GPL, there is a fine point made here: Free Software is not for every company, and Open Source is not for every company.
It really is quite a simple matter of economics: If your sole buisness is to provide software, then giving it away for free is not an option. If your sole business is NOT to provide software (but, say, hardware for example), then giving away software might be OK. I know this is a dramatic oversimplification of the argument, but it's a point nonetheless.
Open Source is a vital model for *certain* communities -- and the "i want to make money selling software" community is not one of them.:)
AMD reportedly has been offering "practically free" licenses to companies willing to adopt its standards. And while he would not provide the specific financial terms of its deal with Transmeta, AMD's Weber said the licensing fees at this point are not important.
"We see this is as a strategic deal, not a revenue deal," Weber said.
Translation: "We ain't getting much cash for this here deal."
But, believe it or not, I think that's the right move in this case. AMD realizes that revenue generating partnerships at this stage of the game isn't what's important -- AMD is not going to win by taking a few extra dollars here and there. AMD is going to win by taking market share and growing its brand.
I do fear, however, that we're going to see another Cyrix 486 problem (i.e. the rumors of "slightly different x86 architecture, not quite compatible with Intel/Windows, not gonna buy it.")
Well, my first problem is that the FTP server for downloading the JWS file seems to be/.'ed, so I can't get that and can't install SwarmCast, which would have solved the problem in the first place. Hmph...ironic, in a Catch-22 kinda way, isn't it?;)
I was *extremely* lucky to have had a chance to attend a talk by Douglas when he visited MIT at the end of last year.
He was as funny, witty, and charming in person as he was in his books (and then some!). What a blast that was....he did a reading from 'Last Chance to See' and, of course, ad-libbed well beyond that.
What I'm most disappointed about was that he won't have the chance to see the HHGTTG movie finished. He talked about the trials and tribulations of getting a 'cult' movie produced in mainstream Hollywood -- so many of us would appreciate the film, yet so many would leave the theater with a resounding "huh?" (I say, screw those people!;)
I think, if I recall correctly, that he said a script was done (thank goodness... I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it), so maybe we'll yet have an opporunity to see what will certainly be a wonderful movie experience
I'm a sadder guy today....Douglas was my hands-down favorite author and I'll miss him...
Yeah, we hams have a lot of cool gadgets that were quite ahead of conventional acceptance of things.
WeFAX, or weather fax, is another popular mode usually found on HF (high-frequency, or the more popular 'shortwave') bands. You can hook up your SoundBlaster card to a receiver and decode the signals from the weather sats directly. Pretty cool stuff. There's also SSTV (slow-scan television) so we have that too. All the cool bases covered.:)
I was going to comment on this and ask how long this has been around...
"Autopatch" as it's called, was something I had a lot of fun with when I first became a ham back in 1991. This was well before cell phones were anything close to mainstream (especially with 8th graders, as they are these days)
The "cell" site you're talking about is actually a repeater, which is a popular ham way of extending the range of a radio and congregating on a frequency (same concept as an ethernet repeater)
I remember bringing my 2m handheld to school and showing everyone how I could make phone calls from anywhere by patching through on the local repeater. I remember one kid saying how badly he wanted to become a ham, and my having to explain that there's a bit more to amateur radio than making pseudo phone calls (and half-duplex ones, at that)
Anyone know when the first repeater -> phone autopatch arrived on the scene?
Now, after the "bubble burst", that cash isn't around any more, Greenspun's getting out of the game and leaving his backers to carry the can
Actually, you're completely wrong. Phillip isn't leaving anyone to carry the can but himself. If you actually read the story, you'd see that his actions were to remove the VCs from power and have nobody but himself and his founding team to "carry the can".
He's trying to save his company because he cares about it, not run away from it like a coward as you imply.
Whether he or his VCs are better able to perform this task is up for debate. Philg obviously argues that he's correct, and the VCs obviously argue (or, rather, sue) that they're correct.
I think this whole notion of cryonics is a wonderfully optimistic and exciting prospect, but I am extremely skeptical as to whether any of the current practices or organizations can last in the long-run, if only from a pure business perspective.
Look at it this way: In order to be frozen, one must be involved in one of these organizations, as the article discusses. These organizations involve resources to maintain themselves and their "members".
The NYT article mentions that Timeship will need to have be "energy self-reliance (solar or geothermal), as well as resistance to natural and man-made disasters like earthquakes and terrorist bombings."
But no mention is made of *business* self-reliance.
How long is it going to be until our medical knowledge progresses to the point where we can un-freeze the people currently frozen and "fix" them? 50 years? 100 years? 300 years?
And how many technology businesses do you know that have been around for that long?
Unfortunately, unlike a cemetary, a cryonics business involves continuous financial need and maintainance, as well as personnel training (who's going to un-freeze all of these people/things?).
Even with organizations like Stasis (non-profit that's supposed to solve this problem), who's to say that they're going to be around in 300 years? One of the guys in the Cryocare annual even says:
"Paul said he simply disagreed that a non-profit company is more secure than a for-profit company."
Your company deserves to go out of business. They're throwing money away with 1st-class tickets, and that's plain dumb.
I don't know about Philly to Aus, but here are some comparable prices: (all assuming last-minute business purchases)
Boston -> London R/T Coach: $2400
Boston -> London R/T Biz: $6500
Boston -> London R/T 1st: $11000
I imagine Philly to Australia is significantly more on all sides. And considering that first-class is not significantly better than business class, your company is lame.
Slashdot Mirror
Oh, also...airlines aren't the only ones getting help:
? tag=nbs
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1004-200-7240474.html
The computer manufacturers have very low margins , the grocery stores have very low margin.
.com era day-to-day valuations.
WTF: a business is profitable or not.
Your statements are foolish and ignorant. If the U.S. were struck with an EMP that disabled the nations computer infrastructure and then the government tied the hands of the manufacturers for a certain amount of time, you can damn well be sure there would be a bail-out package to get our systems back up and running. Likewise with a biological attack on our food supply.
The problem is not the most businesses are not profitable: the problem is that people are greedy - the only thing that satisfies them is the
This statement is baseless. For better or for worse, greed drives capitalism, and without either you'd be sucking trash from a disposal outlet for dinner. If you'd rather live in a country that lacks a stable government, economy, or has wealth to speak of, I heartily encourage you to move to Afghanistan oh, say, right about a week from now.
You are correct: I misspoke. Airlines are a low-margin, _high_ cashflow business, but that cash is on hand for a very small amount of time and, hence, runs out quickly.
nlh
The real question we should be asking would center on why *Corporate* people don't have to play by the same rules as *REAL* people. If I were to make the same demands I expect the roar of laughter to see me out of the building. So why is business allowed to act immorally, and even expected to..?
I'm not certain exactly what you're referring to, but if it's the airlines' demands, let me explain:
The airline business is a VERY low margin and low cashflow business. That means that, though they make billions in revenues, the airlines don't clear that much actual profit (relative to their revenues) and always have very little cash on hand.
When an event such as the attacks on the WTC takes place and the government puts restrictions on air travel (i.e. the FAA forces all flights to be grounded) and overall safety is at risk (i.e. evidence that more attacks could be planned makes it a good decision to keep flights grounded), the airlines do everything they can to keep going. If these events cause them to run out of the tiny amount of cash they currently have, they're going to ask the government for help, and the government is probably going to give it to them.
Why? Becuase if they go under, you are going to suffer. You are going to have to take the train, bus, car, mule, whatever. That will cause a massive destabilization of our business infrastructure, and will hurt our economy even further. It's the government's job to protect (and guide) the economy to recovery, so don't complain when they do that job.
Large corporations, such as the airlines, that are centerpieces to the economy will get preferential treatment by the government because lack of such treatment has major consequences on the country's well-being.
On the other hand, one person's need for preferential treatment isn't going to mean a damn thing to the overall economy, so you won't get any help.
nlh
Well, the site appears to be totally slammed.
So....Google to the rescue!
Here is google's cache of the main page.
Here is google's cache of all the pictures from the site.
Enjoy...
nlh
I was playing around and found some interesting results that may give insight into the algorithm they're using.
j pg
r t2/78-04.jpg
When entering the phrase "gang bang", these are two of the images on the first page of results:
http://www.fatfrogproaudio.com/images/sat_trucks.
http://www.uio.no/~johanjp/sorgenfri/bilder/sorte
Makes ya think, no?
nlh
"...In my own self plug, my own key sits at #1555 with an MSD of 5.4901. I'm just back from a key signing party though, so we'll see how it moves next month..."
Mom: Johnny! What's that smell?
Johnny: What? It's nothin'...
Mom: Come over here. Let me see your eyes.
Johnny: C'mon, cut me some slack...
Mom: They're as red as an apple! Johnny...were you at one of those 'key signing' parties again??
Johnny: No Mom...Leave me alone!
Mom: What did I tell you about hanging around those crypto friends of yours. Are you back on PGP again?
Johnny: Go away! I hate you! You don't understand! *snort*
Mom:: If you're not careful you're going to catch something one of these days!
This is one of the most frustrating aspects of an economic downturn -- the fact that companies abandon all but the most lucritive markets in an effort to please the shareholders. Sure, making games for the consoles is a MASSIVE market, but I still believe in the merits of the coin-op arcade games and would find it sad to see other companies exit the business.
Why the love? A few reasons:
Long live the coin-op arcade game!!
nlh
whoa....folks...this is something called "humor" (in its more rare form -- something called "sarcasm") ... chilllllll out.
nlh
I didn't say "my kids", I said "kids" as in, "in general" ... And that was just one example.
Sure, talking to people face-to-face is always the best way to learn about something, but not the only way. My point is that TV, and therefore TV advertising, is ONE of the many important ways we learn about out society and our surroundings.
I'm 22, and I don't have kids to talk to, and I can't really think of a better way to quickly figure out what kind of things little kids are into these days than turning on some Saturday morning cartoons (or Nickelodeon, etc.) and watching the ads.
nlh
Despite the benefits that targeting advertising brings (more stuff that's more relevant to you), I think we'd be missing out on what has really become an an important aspect of American culture (as lame as that sounds.)
:)
;)
Advertising is the medium through which many of our cultural "themes" get passed. Let's say you're an older guy (50+)...how would you feel, for example, if you never actually saw a Mountain Dew or MTV ad? Wouldn't you want to know what kids these days are up to?
I WANT to know what other people are buying -- I'm curious about "what's out there". When I was a teenager, how else would I have ever discovered what the hell this "douche" thing was if I didn't ask my girl friends what the "that not so fresh feeling" actually meant?
I remember a few months ago I went out to L.A. for the first time (I live in Boston) and I was AMAZED at the sheer number of 'Get Bigger Breasts' or 'Dr. blah-blah's Plastic Surgery Center' etc. ads that were on TV and the radio (and I'm not kidding.) It was a way for me to get a snapshot, as lame as it is, of what's important to some people out there.
That kind of information is important, and I'd feel significantly more out of touch without it.
Of course, there's always AdCritic.
nlh
Costless collaring is a great thing, especially these days.
A word of warning to all of you: If you are so lucky as to actually make money on options in a company you work for, do a costless collar. Don't be a fool and gamble your money away.
Here's a story to drive home the point:
A friend of mine is a top broker in the private client group of a NYC-based investment bank. One of his new "products" he's been selling is the costless collar strategy, and, obviously, he's been doing quite well.
One client he was pitching a year or so ago was a CEO of a then-pretty-good Internet company. The CEO held 8 million shares of stock, which was trading at around $64 a share. My friend was offering a costless collar to hedge this guy's stock, and he responded simply: Not interested. How about a portion of your shares? Not interested. In fact, his words were these:
"I'm worth almost $500 Million now, and I know my stock's going to 150. I want to be a billionaire."
Well, his stock's at $0.09 now, and his company filed for bankrupcy. Of course, he borrowed against his options, so his net worth is something in the neighborhood of -$50 million, which is nice for him.
Anyway, you get the point. Don't be stupid. Enjoy what you get.
nlh
From the site...
It must not be compared with a PC which just runs a bit faster after an upgrade. A P300 only runs about 3 times faster than a P100. A SuperCPU-C64 runs 20 times faster than a stock C64!
Wow!! That's amazing! If these guys are as good at making CPUs as they are at math, then we're in for some fun......;)
nlh
In that case, I reject RMS's argument -- that's like telling Coke to stop selling Cola and instead focus on their food division because they might make more money there (not actually true, but you get the point)
It is neither his nor any of our business to tell companies how to most effectively make money.
If you think that selling services is a better business to be in, then fine -- go start a services company and prove all the software companies in the world wrong. That's one of the beautiful things about America.
If you disagree with the philosophy of closed-sorce/for-sale software, fine. I happen to like the Open Source/Free Software models a lot -- but I recognize their limits and applications, and profitable commercial software is not necessarily one of them.
nlh
Here here....
:)
Though I agree with other points RMS makes and that Mundie is wrong about a lot of the negativity towards the GPL, there is a fine point made here: Free Software is not for every company, and Open Source is not for every company.
It really is quite a simple matter of economics: If your sole buisness is to provide software, then giving it away for free is not an option. If your sole business is NOT to provide software (but, say, hardware for example), then giving away software might be OK. I know this is a dramatic oversimplification of the argument, but it's a point nonetheless.
Open Source is a vital model for *certain* communities -- and the "i want to make money selling software" community is not one of them.
nlh
"We see this is as a strategic deal, not a revenue deal," Weber said.
Translation: "We ain't getting much cash for this here deal."
But, believe it or not, I think that's the right move in this case. AMD realizes that revenue generating partnerships at this stage of the game isn't what's important -- AMD is not going to win by taking a few extra dollars here and there. AMD is going to win by taking market share and growing its brand.
I do fear, however, that we're going to see another Cyrix 486 problem (i.e. the rumors of "slightly different x86 architecture, not quite compatible with Intel/Windows, not gonna buy it.")
Well, my first problem is that the FTP server for downloading the JWS file seems to be /.'ed, so I can't get that and can't install SwarmCast, which would have solved the problem in the first place. Hmph...ironic, in a Catch-22 kinda way, isn't it? ;)
nlh
I was *extremely* lucky to have had a chance to attend a talk by Douglas when he visited MIT at the end of last year.
;)
... I wouldn't trust anyone else to do it), so maybe we'll yet have an opporunity to see what will certainly be a wonderful movie experience
He was as funny, witty, and charming in person as he was in his books (and then some!). What a blast that was....he did a reading from 'Last Chance to See' and, of course, ad-libbed well beyond that.
What I'm most disappointed about was that he won't have the chance to see the HHGTTG movie finished. He talked about the trials and tribulations of getting a 'cult' movie produced in mainstream Hollywood -- so many of us would appreciate the film, yet so many would leave the theater with a resounding "huh?" (I say, screw those people!
I think, if I recall correctly, that he said a script was done (thank goodness
I'm a sadder guy today....Douglas was my hands-down favorite author and I'll miss him...
nlh
Check it:
http://slashdot.org/askslashdot/01/03/29/1718204.s html
Yeah, we hams have a lot of cool gadgets that were quite ahead of conventional acceptance of things.
:)
WeFAX, or weather fax, is another popular mode usually found on HF (high-frequency, or the more popular 'shortwave') bands. You can hook up your SoundBlaster card to a receiver and decode the signals from the weather sats directly. Pretty cool stuff. There's also SSTV (slow-scan television) so we have that too. All the cool bases covered.
de k2kd
nlh
I was going to comment on this and ask how long this has been around...
"Autopatch" as it's called, was something I had a lot of fun with when I first became a ham back in 1991. This was well before cell phones were anything close to mainstream (especially with 8th graders, as they are these days)
The "cell" site you're talking about is actually a repeater, which is a popular ham way of extending the range of a radio and congregating on a frequency (same concept as an ethernet repeater)
I remember bringing my 2m handheld to school and showing everyone how I could make phone calls from anywhere by patching through on the local repeater. I remember one kid saying how badly he wanted to become a ham, and my having to explain that there's a bit more to amateur radio than making pseudo phone calls (and half-duplex ones, at that)
Anyone know when the first repeater -> phone autopatch arrived on the scene?
nlh
Now, after the "bubble burst", that cash isn't around any more, Greenspun's getting out of the game and leaving his backers to carry the can
Actually, you're completely wrong. Phillip isn't leaving anyone to carry the can but himself. If you actually read the story, you'd see that his actions were to remove the VCs from power and have nobody but himself and his founding team to "carry the can".
He's trying to save his company because he cares about it, not run away from it like a coward as you imply.
Whether he or his VCs are better able to perform this task is up for debate. Philg obviously argues that he's correct, and the VCs obviously argue (or, rather, sue) that they're correct.
nlh
I think this whole notion of cryonics is a wonderfully optimistic and exciting prospect, but I am extremely skeptical as to whether any of the current practices or organizations can last in the long-run, if only from a pure business perspective.
Look at it this way: In order to be frozen, one must be involved in one of these organizations, as the article discusses. These organizations involve resources to maintain themselves and their "members".
The NYT article mentions that Timeship will need to have be "energy self-reliance (solar or geothermal), as well as resistance to natural and man-made disasters like earthquakes and terrorist bombings."
But no mention is made of *business* self-reliance.
How long is it going to be until our medical knowledge progresses to the point where we can un-freeze the people currently frozen and "fix" them? 50 years? 100 years? 300 years?
And how many technology businesses do you know that have been around for that long?
Unfortunately, unlike a cemetary, a cryonics business involves continuous financial need and maintainance, as well as personnel training (who's going to un-freeze all of these people/things?).
Even with organizations like Stasis (non-profit that's supposed to solve this problem), who's to say that they're going to be around in 300 years? One of the guys in the Cryocare annual even says:
"Paul said he simply disagreed that a non-profit company is more secure than a for-profit company."
I'm a skeptic.
Any thoughts on this?
nlh
Your company deserves to go out of business. They're throwing money away with 1st-class tickets, and that's plain dumb.
I don't know about Philly to Aus, but here are some comparable prices: (all assuming last-minute business purchases)
Boston -> London R/T Coach: $2400
Boston -> London R/T Biz: $6500
Boston -> London R/T 1st: $11000
I imagine Philly to Australia is significantly more on all sides. And considering that first-class is not significantly better than business class, your company is lame.
nlh