Home |
Search |
Today's Posts |
#41
![]() |
|||
|
|||
![]()
Mike Coslo wrote in message ...
N2EY wrote: In article , Mike Coslo writes: (Bill Sohl wrote): But in today's world, even telecom has cut back on training expenses. That is because they intend to get rid of every possible employee whenever possible. Why would you train people that aren't going to be working for you in a few years? The military does it all the time! Ad they aren't so worried about bottom line profit. Or the stock price, or bond ratings... Side note: These good folk could probably save money if they were to get a bill passed requiring all Americans to learn Indian language in school. That way they wouldn't have to train their new help to speak English. Which language of India? English is probably the most-spoken language there. Companies can not afford to support products for long terms and they MUST keep coming out with the latest products because if they don't, the consumer will pass them by. The irony of non-support for older products is that in some cases, cottage or niche companies are created to fill the void if there is sufficient consumer interest. This isn;t a new game. Back in the late 1950s, US automakers "redesigned" their cars every year. Most of the "redesign" was cosmetic, not functional. Their goal wasn't to make cars that would last - they wanted those who were the new-car buyers to come back into the dealerships every year. They almost succeeded - at one point, the average new-car buyer was back every two years, and it was very rare for a car to last 100,000 miles even with the best of care. Yet today the average car hit 200K miles or more. And the new car is so expensive that it darn well *better* make 200 K miles. They have become waay too expensive. Did you know that they are offering 7 year auto loans now? All the "innovative" techniques that the companies had to do over the years to sell cars as the price went up is reaching an end-game for them. Most people do not want to pay $500-$600 or more a month for a vehicle. Are cars *really* more expensive, adjusted for inflation? Back in 2001, my Honda Odyssey minivan cost about $26,000 new. How much did, say, the classic Ford Country Squire station wagon with the woodlike sides cost in 1964? How much has typical income increased in that time period? I don't have statistics in front of me, but I do know that when I started buying cars, a typical loan was 2 years. now they are doing 6 and seven year loans. Apples and oranges. The imporatan factoid is whether the prices have lagged or led inflation and real income. If the Squire was $2,600 in 1961 and a good middle-class income was $5K/yr, then today the Odyssey and a $50K income are sorta comparable. I say "sorta" because the percentage of income you actually get to take home today is less. OTOH, if you can keep a car 10 years today, compared to, say, 4 years back then, that has to be factored in. How long before that Squire was worth, say, 25% of its sticker price, compared to an Odyssey today? (btw, it's a 2001 Odyssey. One guess what it's called....) I just paid it off, and it's got a lot more usable life in it. So the total lifetime cost may be less in inflation-adjusted dollars. That's good to pay off a car in two years. Hopefully you got a good trade in, or your payments were pretty steep. A 0 percent loan with no down payment would be almost $1100 per month. ?? I had a good down and 3 year loan, and the payments were a little over $300/mo. Leasing looked good for a while, but of course you have no trade-in, and the lease company doesn't really want you to trade the thing in, they want you to buy-out. But oh those car payments! All depends on a whole bunch of unknowns like residual value, interest rate, repair cost, etc. I've leased two cars now, and did okay by both of them. For this go round, I wanted to buy, and to do that, I spent 10K less for the new vehicle than I did 5 years ago for my last one to keep the payments reasonable. What did you buy that was $10K *less*? Look at the ever newer, faster and more memory for PCs. Not just memory but every part of the machine - processor, drives, etc. However, these improvements are often done at the price of quality. Huh? Based on what information do you make that statement? Open up an old IBM PC, then open up a clone box built for cheap performance. I can send you pix of some I have in my garage. Agreed. But that's in large part because they are not meant to last that long. And because enough people buy on price alone. The old IBM's were meant to last. One of these days maybe we'll concentrate on writing good functional software and operatin systems that actually work, and then we won't have to get new computers every two years. Yep. That's exactly the point. Meanwhile, folks like me cherrypick the trailing edge for pennies. This Amidon 350MHz box cost me a lot less than $100, and most of that was for the CD-ROM burner and the modem. I do both. I have the latest and greatest for some of my uses, and I'm using an old P166 Thinkpad running Win95 for my rig computer. All depends on the job to be done. "Use it up Wear it out Make it do Or do without". The old PC laptops had very nice sound output, and were built well. Agreed. btw, on the issue of exporting jobs and inflation, check out: http://management.itmanagersjournal....&tid=85&tid=86 73 de Jim, N2EY |
#42
![]() |
|||
|
|||
![]()
N2EY wrote:
Mike Coslo wrote in message ... N2EY wrote: In article , Mike Coslo writes: (Bill Sohl wrote): But in today's world, even telecom has cut back on training expenses. That is because they intend to get rid of every possible employee whenever possible. Why would you train people that aren't going to be working for you in a few years? The military does it all the time! Ad they aren't so worried about bottom line profit. Or the stock price, or bond ratings... Side note: These good folk could probably save money if they were to get a bill passed requiring all Americans to learn Indian language in school. That way they wouldn't have to train their new help to speak English. Which language of India? English is probably the most-spoken language there. Companies can not afford to support products for long terms and they MUST keep coming out with the latest products because if they don't, the consumer will pass them by. The irony of non-support for older products is that in some cases, cottage or niche companies are created to fill the void if there is sufficient consumer interest. This isn;t a new game. Back in the late 1950s, US automakers "redesigned" their cars every year. Most of the "redesign" was cosmetic, not functional. Their goal wasn't to make cars that would last - they wanted those who were the new-car buyers to come back into the dealerships every year. They almost succeeded - at one point, the average new-car buyer was back every two years, and it was very rare for a car to last 100,000 miles even with the best of care. Yet today the average car hit 200K miles or more. And the new car is so expensive that it darn well *better* make 200 K miles. They have become waay too expensive. Did you know that they are offering 7 year auto loans now? All the "innovative" techniques that the companies had to do over the years to sell cars as the price went up is reaching an end-game for them. Most people do not want to pay $500-$600 or more a month for a vehicle. Are cars *really* more expensive, adjusted for inflation? Back in 2001, my Honda Odyssey minivan cost about $26,000 new. How much did, say, the classic Ford Country Squire station wagon with the woodlike sides cost in 1964? How much has typical income increased in that time period? I don't have statistics in front of me, but I do know that when I started buying cars, a typical loan was 2 years. now they are doing 6 and seven year loans. Apples and oranges. The imporatant factoid is whether the prices have lagged or led inflation and real income. If the Squire was $2,600 in 1961 and a good middle-class income was $5K/yr, then today the Odyssey and a $50K income are sorta comparable. I say "sorta" because the percentage of income you actually get to take home today is less. There are many methods of comparison. I don't know if my methods are apples and oranges. A person has a reasonable expectation of getting ahead by comparison to how they were doing X number of years ago. but how on earth would that be factored in. We have to have some sort of comparison, and I really doubt you can factor in all the differences between the years. Does this mean no comparisons are possible? OTOH, if you can keep a car 10 years today, compared to, say, 4 years back then, that has to be factored in. How long before that Squire was worth, say, 25% of its sticker price, compared to an Odyssey today? Yeah, and leases confuse the issue even more..... (btw, it's a 2001 Odyssey. One guess what it's called....) I just paid it off, and it's got a lot more usable life in it. So the total lifetime cost may be less in inflation-adjusted dollars. That's good to pay off a car in two years. Hopefully you got a good trade in, or your payments were pretty steep. A 0 percent loan with no down payment would be almost $1100 per month. ?? I had a good down and 3 year loan, and the payments were a little over $300/mo. Yes, you down payment was probably around half the price of the car, whether through trade/cash or combination of both. Leasing looked good for a while, but of course you have no trade-in, and the lease company doesn't really want you to trade the thing in, they want you to buy-out. But oh those car payments! All depends on a whole bunch of unknowns like residual value, interest rate, repair cost, etc. I've leased two cars now, and did okay by both of them. For this go round, I wanted to buy, and to do that, I spent 10K less for the new vehicle than I did 5 years ago for my last one to keep the payments reasonable. What did you buy that was $10K *less*? A Vitara. Been a wonderful little twerp so far. Gets good gas mileage, especially compared to what I had before. $16k, and has all the amenities the last vehicle did plus a CD player. The other choices in this type vehicle were from $23-30K. I got the chance to try it out in the snow today, and it's a real mudder, just like I hoped. Look at the ever newer, faster and more memory for PCs. Not just memory but every part of the machine - processor, drives, etc. However, these improvements are often done at the price of quality. Huh? Based on what information do you make that statement? Open up an old IBM PC, then open up a clone box built for cheap performance. I can send you pix of some I have in my garage. Agreed. But that's in large part because they are not meant to last that long. And because enough people buy on price alone. The old IBM's were meant to last. One of these days maybe we'll concentrate on writing good functional software and operatin systems that actually work, and then we won't have to get new computers every two years. Yep. That's exactly the point. Meanwhile, folks like me cherrypick the trailing edge for pennies. This Amidon 350MHz box cost me a lot less than $100, and most of that was for the CD-ROM burner and the modem. I do both. I have the latest and greatest for some of my uses, and I'm using an old P166 Thinkpad running Win95 for my rig computer. All depends on the job to be done. "Use it up Wear it out Make it do Or do without". The old PC laptops had very nice sound output, and were built well. Agreed. btw, on the issue of exporting jobs and inflation, check out: http://management.itmanagersjournal....&tid=85&tid=86 As I read it, the apparent answer is to turn ourselves into a third-world country. That sucks! I can hardly wait to hear who the coming inflation is blamed on! - Mike KB3EIA - |
Reply |
Thread Tools | Search this Thread |
Display Modes | |
|
|