Remember a company called Loudeye? At one time (1999 to 2002) they were the LARGEST digital media company in the world. More music, more images than anyone else. Sure, they lost money on every stream they served, but they were HUGE, and were growing at record rates (like 2500% annual growth). At IPO (early 2000 IIRC) they were valued at $1.5 billion, making them one of the biggest "Internet companies" out there. By 2006, Nokia bought the whole thing for $60 million (about three pennies on the dollar, relative to their peak). And now? Loudeye.com doesn't exist.
LOTS of savvy investors back then, with lots of experience. But the market was irrational and thought - just like many people now - "this time it's different". Turns out it's not. At the end of the day, what matters is PROFIT, not revenue, not user base size, not "reach" or "brand awareness" or followers on Twitter. Profit. If you don't make one (or have the ability to pivot to profit within a single quarter, like Amazon) - you're not going to survive the next downturn. You're running on borrowed money, and when that stream dries up, you cannot continue on your own. You die. Or you end up like Loudeye and are purchased for a few pennies on the dollar and fade away.
That IS like 2001 - the focus on revenue, not profit. I don't know of a single unicorn ($1 billion+ valuation, pre-IPO stage) who's making profit right now. Turn off the flow of VC funds and they close - they cannot continue operations.
Back in the dot-bomb days it was the same thing. It was all about growing big, growing fast, and even if you lost money on every customer/user, you'd "make it up in volume". At the end of that era, most of the companies who had big revenues and negative cash flow either folded or scaled back so far they were sold for literally a penny on the dollar and faded away to obscurity. We'll see the same thing with the current crop of unicorns when the market crashes again. Those who can sustain themselves on existing revenues will survive. The rest will either go away completely, or end up being gobbled up by others for a fraction of their "value".
Heck, fly business/first class and have the airlines HAND YOU metal knives and forks for your meal. Sometimes including nice, serrated edged steak knives!
I sometimes get Mac Keynote presentations which are impossible to open on Windows. It either has to be printed out as a PDF or saved as a PPT format. Likewise with Numbers - useless as-is if you don't have OSX. I would love to know how to convert a Numbers file so that it can be opened and used on a Windows platform without using a computer running OSX.
On the other hand, Excel and PowerPoint are both available on Windows and OSX (as well as iOS and Android) and so files created with those tools pretty much open on all platforms.
You have control over options in terms of office productivity tools. Over flatulence and urination, not so much. Given that an Office365 subscription is around $10/month per user, the costs pencil out in favor of using a more commonly used format and avoiding conversion issues.
ARMs blew up the economy? Rates changed less than 1% from 2005 to the peak since then - and that's for 1 year ARMs (10 year ARMs have been much more stable).
If you had an ARM before the crash in 2008 and you were able to pay your mortgage before - you could continue to pay your mortgage afterwards. What blew up the CDS market was NINJA loans and 100%+ loan-to-value mortgages and 2nd and 3rd mortgages at 125% to 150% LTV rates - not ARMs.
As far as FICA, you don't pay it on $100K; you pay it on your adjusted mortgage. Assuming $100,000 annually, a mortgage interest amount of $1200 per month, a $1000 a monthly 401K deposit, and four exemptions, your AGI would be around $45,000 - meaning you'll pay an average of $280 per month for SS and FICA (7.62% of your AGI).
So - $9000/month is NOT enough to raise a family of 4 and still put a little aside each month? Oh, and I "got mine" by saving a little every month (I shoot for 8-10% of gross) and over the course of a few decades was able to pay off a house - and have a sizeable savings account as well. Whether I was making $3000/month of $15,000/month - I did the same. And I didn't bump up my expenses until I was damn sure my increased income was stable...
$1000 for two cars, gas and insurance? Right there is a major problem. Seattle is NOT that big of a city (I lived there for the first 35 years of my life). If you're spending more than $200 a month of gas, and more than $150 a month on insurance you're doing it wrong. And if you're carrying $650+ of car loans, you're doing it wrong as well.
10 year ARM mortgage rates are around 3.1%, not 4.5% - so that changes the payments quite a bit. With taxes, a $400K mortgage on a $500K home (you do a 20% down payment, right?) you'll be around $2000 a month total.
With a family of 4, a mortgage, and $1000/month into a 401K like you stated, inocome taxes will be a LOT less than what you quote - probably closer to $450/month, not $2000 a month.
Get the transportation budget down to $500 a month (which is still very high), get a current mortgage rate, and do real taxes, and your $2000/month for everything else is closer to $5000 a month. Which should be plenty for a family of 4 AND allow for a $1000/month savings.
Or you can get those new cars every few years, accept a high mortgage rate, and don't take all the deductions you're allowed and then complain about not making enough.
It can be done, I did it, I do it, and so do hundreds of thousands of responsible adults who life comfortable lives. Sure, I don't have a new BMW or Mercedes every few years, but I also have built up a savings account over the last decade that gives me a year buffer with ZERO change to my spending habits - 18 months if I pull back a bit.
Are they the only ones that win? Do they win everything?
My neighbor across the street has a house about the same size as mine. He buys a new BMW or Mercedes every year; I get 3-4 years out of my Ford. He has a top-of-the-line MotoGuzzi - I ride a mid-line Honda. He and his family vacation in Barbados - I make due with Cabo San Lucas and Hawaii. He's at work right now (and nearly every Saturday, and many Sundays), and I'm at home, relaxing with some music, the cats, and Slashdot.
Did he win everything? I dunno - but I do know that in an hour or so I'll go play a little basketball with his kids...
Amazon appears to pay white collar workers (the subject of this article) fairly well. If you cannot afford to keep a family of 4 on $9,000 per month, then you're doing it wrong. Yes, Seattle housing has gotten more expensive - but you can still find hundreds of houses for sale that would have 3+ bedrooms (so little Johnny and little Mary can have their own rooms), 2+ bathrooms, and are standalone homes - and are available for under $500,000 (meaning about a $2,000/month mortgage - should be simple for a monthly income of $9,000).
If the typical white collar Amazon worker cannot afford to feed their kids and pay a mortgage AND put away 10% of their income every month - then they really need some basic budgeting skills and self-control.
Limit your calories per day say 2000 and go for a 30 Min walk or bike ride. You can easily lose 20LB in 4 months. Besides who wouldn’t want to have great cardio and not get winded when picking up a trash can.
What do we gain by completely open borders? Should we allow anyone with a criminal background to come into the US? Personally, I think we should go back to the model of allowing massive legal immigration of the best and brightest.
Too many illegal immigrants take jobs for below-legal wages, fail to obey other laws (illegal immigrants are 10 times more likely to commit a crime as compared to legal immigrants), and tend to depress wages - especially painful for those on the lower end of the economic scale.
If illegal immigration is such a wonderful thing, can you share a country that has totally open borders and welcomes all, with not immigration check or control?
Buying more drivers. They give bonuses out to drivers, and the total amount is more than their cut of the fare - so they are basically subsidizing every ride. It's like the old 2000 dot-bomb days of losing money on every transaction but the plan is to make it up with volume...
I did the same thing as the GP, but in Shanghai, China. Called the cab company, complained about the route, they refunded the money (courier came over with 36 RMB) and placed the driver on a 2 day suspension. I guess Paris doesn't care about cab riders, but then - I've found most of those living in Paris don't care about anyone else anyway.
We spent a lot of money and time to LEGALLY bring my wife (Chinese national) into the US. We're getting ready to get a permanent green card for her, lots more paperwork and money. I have ZERO problem with LEGAL immigration. Illegal immigration? Sorry - that needs to be stopped immediately.
Really? You're about 12 years too late. They were profitable back in 2003, and could be profitable every single year if they so choose. Amazon's leadership chooses to spend most, if not all, their profit on infrastructure and new development, but cutting back on that a bit would put them solidly in the black every year.
A solid 1.1% per year, well below the historical average post WWII... Not sure I'd count that as a good thing, given it's within the margin of error of calculating inflation (meaning - we may have some real GDP growth or we may not, it's so close to the error we can't tell).
Slashdot Mirror
We make a deal with Idaho for their potatoes...
"Why don't we do it in the road". If you're going to quote the Beatles, get it right!
Remember a company called Loudeye? At one time (1999 to 2002) they were the LARGEST digital media company in the world. More music, more images than anyone else. Sure, they lost money on every stream they served, but they were HUGE, and were growing at record rates (like 2500% annual growth). At IPO (early 2000 IIRC) they were valued at $1.5 billion, making them one of the biggest "Internet companies" out there. By 2006, Nokia bought the whole thing for $60 million (about three pennies on the dollar, relative to their peak). And now? Loudeye.com doesn't exist.
LOTS of savvy investors back then, with lots of experience. But the market was irrational and thought - just like many people now - "this time it's different". Turns out it's not. At the end of the day, what matters is PROFIT, not revenue, not user base size, not "reach" or "brand awareness" or followers on Twitter. Profit. If you don't make one (or have the ability to pivot to profit within a single quarter, like Amazon) - you're not going to survive the next downturn. You're running on borrowed money, and when that stream dries up, you cannot continue on your own. You die. Or you end up like Loudeye and are purchased for a few pennies on the dollar and fade away.
That IS like 2001 - the focus on revenue, not profit. I don't know of a single unicorn ($1 billion+ valuation, pre-IPO stage) who's making profit right now. Turn off the flow of VC funds and they close - they cannot continue operations.
Back in the dot-bomb days it was the same thing. It was all about growing big, growing fast, and even if you lost money on every customer/user, you'd "make it up in volume". At the end of that era, most of the companies who had big revenues and negative cash flow either folded or scaled back so far they were sold for literally a penny on the dollar and faded away to obscurity. We'll see the same thing with the current crop of unicorns when the market crashes again. Those who can sustain themselves on existing revenues will survive. The rest will either go away completely, or end up being gobbled up by others for a fraction of their "value".
Heck, fly business/first class and have the airlines HAND YOU metal knives and forks for your meal. Sometimes including nice, serrated edged steak knives!
I sometimes get Mac Keynote presentations which are impossible to open on Windows. It either has to be printed out as a PDF or saved as a PPT format. Likewise with Numbers - useless as-is if you don't have OSX. I would love to know how to convert a Numbers file so that it can be opened and used on a Windows platform without using a computer running OSX.
On the other hand, Excel and PowerPoint are both available on Windows and OSX (as well as iOS and Android) and so files created with those tools pretty much open on all platforms.
You have control over options in terms of office productivity tools. Over flatulence and urination, not so much. Given that an Office365 subscription is around $10/month per user, the costs pencil out in favor of using a more commonly used format and avoiding conversion issues.
ARMs blew up the economy? Rates changed less than 1% from 2005 to the peak since then - and that's for 1 year ARMs (10 year ARMs have been much more stable).
If you had an ARM before the crash in 2008 and you were able to pay your mortgage before - you could continue to pay your mortgage afterwards. What blew up the CDS market was NINJA loans and 100%+ loan-to-value mortgages and 2nd and 3rd mortgages at 125% to 150% LTV rates - not ARMs.
As far as FICA, you don't pay it on $100K; you pay it on your adjusted mortgage. Assuming $100,000 annually, a mortgage interest amount of $1200 per month, a $1000 a monthly 401K deposit, and four exemptions, your AGI would be around $45,000 - meaning you'll pay an average of $280 per month for SS and FICA (7.62% of your AGI).
So - $9000/month is NOT enough to raise a family of 4 and still put a little aside each month? Oh, and I "got mine" by saving a little every month (I shoot for 8-10% of gross) and over the course of a few decades was able to pay off a house - and have a sizeable savings account as well. Whether I was making $3000/month of $15,000/month - I did the same. And I didn't bump up my expenses until I was damn sure my increased income was stable...
$1000 for two cars, gas and insurance? Right there is a major problem. Seattle is NOT that big of a city (I lived there for the first 35 years of my life). If you're spending more than $200 a month of gas, and more than $150 a month on insurance you're doing it wrong. And if you're carrying $650+ of car loans, you're doing it wrong as well.
10 year ARM mortgage rates are around 3.1%, not 4.5% - so that changes the payments quite a bit. With taxes, a $400K mortgage on a $500K home (you do a 20% down payment, right?) you'll be around $2000 a month total.
With a family of 4, a mortgage, and $1000/month into a 401K like you stated, inocome taxes will be a LOT less than what you quote - probably closer to $450/month, not $2000 a month.
Get the transportation budget down to $500 a month (which is still very high), get a current mortgage rate, and do real taxes, and your $2000/month for everything else is closer to $5000 a month. Which should be plenty for a family of 4 AND allow for a $1000/month savings.
Or you can get those new cars every few years, accept a high mortgage rate, and don't take all the deductions you're allowed and then complain about not making enough.
It can be done, I did it, I do it, and so do hundreds of thousands of responsible adults who life comfortable lives. Sure, I don't have a new BMW or Mercedes every few years, but I also have built up a savings account over the last decade that gives me a year buffer with ZERO change to my spending habits - 18 months if I pull back a bit.
Are they the only ones that win? Do they win everything?
My neighbor across the street has a house about the same size as mine. He buys a new BMW or Mercedes every year; I get 3-4 years out of my Ford. He has a top-of-the-line MotoGuzzi - I ride a mid-line Honda. He and his family vacation in Barbados - I make due with Cabo San Lucas and Hawaii. He's at work right now (and nearly every Saturday, and many Sundays), and I'm at home, relaxing with some music, the cats, and Slashdot.
Did he win everything? I dunno - but I do know that in an hour or so I'll go play a little basketball with his kids...
Amazon appears to pay white collar workers (the subject of this article) fairly well. If you cannot afford to keep a family of 4 on $9,000 per month, then you're doing it wrong. Yes, Seattle housing has gotten more expensive - but you can still find hundreds of houses for sale that would have 3+ bedrooms (so little Johnny and little Mary can have their own rooms), 2+ bathrooms, and are standalone homes - and are available for under $500,000 (meaning about a $2,000/month mortgage - should be simple for a monthly income of $9,000).
If the typical white collar Amazon worker cannot afford to feed their kids and pay a mortgage AND put away 10% of their income every month - then they really need some basic budgeting skills and self-control.
Even more fell off the roles altogether. Over 1,000,000 more dropped off the roles than found employment. It sounds like planning for long-term unemployment of more than 3 years is the right thing to do...
Gozilla breathes a sigh or relief... Nuclear power, sweet, lifegiving nuclear power!
Yes. Emprically proven by the Victoria's Secret models.
Limit your calories per day say 2000 and go for a 30 Min walk or bike ride. You can easily lose 20LB in 4 months. Besides who wouldn’t want to have great cardio and not get winded when picking up a trash can.
Some of us are trash men you insensitive clod!
What do we gain by completely open borders? Should we allow anyone with a criminal background to come into the US? Personally, I think we should go back to the model of allowing massive legal immigration of the best and brightest.
Too many illegal immigrants take jobs for below-legal wages, fail to obey other laws (illegal immigrants are 10 times more likely to commit a crime as compared to legal immigrants), and tend to depress wages - especially painful for those on the lower end of the economic scale.
If illegal immigration is such a wonderful thing, can you share a country that has totally open borders and welcomes all, with not immigration check or control?
Uh, your link to Tesla lists the price as $75,000 - not $57,500. Unless you want to include the rebates and "gas savings" calculations?
Buying more drivers. They give bonuses out to drivers, and the total amount is more than their cut of the fare - so they are basically subsidizing every ride. It's like the old 2000 dot-bomb days of losing money on every transaction but the plan is to make it up with volume...
I did the same thing as the GP, but in Shanghai, China. Called the cab company, complained about the route, they refunded the money (courier came over with 36 RMB) and placed the driver on a 2 day suspension. I guess Paris doesn't care about cab riders, but then - I've found most of those living in Paris don't care about anyone else anyway.
We spent a lot of money and time to LEGALLY bring my wife (Chinese national) into the US. We're getting ready to get a permanent green card for her, lots more paperwork and money. I have ZERO problem with LEGAL immigration. Illegal immigration? Sorry - that needs to be stopped immediately.
Great! No need for me to bring my passport, then, when I fly into the EU!
Really? You're about 12 years too late. They were profitable back in 2003, and could be profitable every single year if they so choose. Amazon's leadership chooses to spend most, if not all, their profit on infrastructure and new development, but cutting back on that a bit would put them solidly in the black every year.
Well, how do you want to measure economic health?
GDP is up ~8.5% since 2008.
A solid 1.1% per year, well below the historical average post WWII... Not sure I'd count that as a good thing, given it's within the margin of error of calculating inflation (meaning - we may have some real GDP growth or we may not, it's so close to the error we can't tell).
Well, when you're adding over $1 trillion a year in debt, you gotta do SOMETHING to keep the spending somewhat hidden...