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Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

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Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

BassAle said:
I've used unisex bathrooms What's the big deal? I know of one in Quebec City that's been around for like 15+ years (two stalls plus two urinals, and a couple sinks).
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It would cost money to retrofit into schools and other public buildings, and you know how conservatives feel about spending money. If it isn't on the military or police, then it's a needless waste. In fact, let's just get rid of public schools altogether, and let each school govern itself in all of its affairs - religious affiliation, bathroom gender, curriculum, whatever. Then, parents who can afford schooling for their children can truly decide where to send their kids. If they can't afford it - hey, the world needs fast food employees and Walmart stockers, too. 'Murica!!!!!!!! :rolleyes:
 
FadeToBlack&Gold said:
It would cost money to retrofit into schools and other public buildings, and you know how conservatives feel about spending money. If it isn't on the military or police, then it's a needless waste. In fact, let's just get rid of public schools altogether, and let each school govern itself in all of its affairs - religious affiliation, bathroom gender, curriculum, whatever. Then, parents who can afford schooling for their children can truly decide where to send their kids. If they can't afford it - hey, the world needs fast food employees and Walmart stockers, too. 'Murica!!!!!!!! :rolleyes:
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Male + female bathrooms = 2 unisex bathrooms. How much does a couple new signs cost?
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

How about this, we cut back a single F35 right wing landing gear and then we'll have enough money to change all the signs in the nation.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

FadeToBlack&Gold said:
It would cost money to retrofit into schools and other public buildings, and you know how conservatives feel about spending money. If it isn't on the military or police, then it's a needless waste. In fact, let's just get rid of public schools altogether, and let each school govern itself in all of its affairs - religious affiliation, bathroom gender, curriculum, whatever. Then, parents who can afford schooling for their children can truly decide where to send their kids. If they can't afford it - hey, the world needs fast food employees and Walmart stockers, too. 'Murica!!!!!!!! :rolleyes:
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Aren't those already the jobs of choice for someone with a degree in English or Art History?
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

joecct said:
Geez Flag - you went to RPI which has a reputation as a fine engineering school.

Design an automatic toilet lid closer. The world will beat a path to your door.
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Doesn't Tim Taylor from Home Improvement already have the patent on that? :p (episode 109 towards the end)
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

It seems like accountants and economists have a technical definition of "profit" that is different from the way most people understand the term "profit" and as a result, there is a great deal of unfortunate confusion in which people just talk past each other without having any sense at all of what the other people are trying to say.

If you lend me money, I pay you interest; and usually, you would want some security as well: if I default on paying you back, you want to at least get something back in return, be it a repossessed car or boat, or a foreclosed piece of real estate.

There are situations in which a person needs money, yet is unable to borrow on terms which would allow him to be in a situation in which his revenue exceeds his debt service payments.

In that situation, instead of lending money, other people invest in that person's business instead. Instead of earning interest, they receive a return on capital, which is called "profits." Just as you would not deny a lender the right to receive interest, you would not deny an investor the right to receive "profits" in this technical sense.


The problem is not that people earn "profits", it is how much they earn relative to what is a "reasonable" return on capital, and whether they earn their profits legally; and in many cases, whether they are good "citizens in their community" or not.


When people say they are complaining about "profits," nearly every time, their complaint actually is:
-- it is beyond "reasonable", or
-- they obtain them illegally, or
-- they are the opposite of "good citizens in their community," they hurt people.


Ironically, "profits" are the consumer's best friend: for whenever "profits" are available, so also is an opportunity for someone else to come along and do it better and/or cheaper.


If "excess profits" bother you, then you should support anti-trust enforcement (like I do). The more competitors, the narrower the "excess profit" margin, and the returns on capital become more "reasonable" than before.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

I worked with a person once who had taken $10,000 and a great idea, and built a $15 million company. He had two friends, each of whom invested $15,000 alongside him at the beginning, each of who received 20% stake in the company in return. They each turned $15,000 into $3 million. I asked the person how he felt about it, and he replied, "They earned it; not only did they invest their money, their ongoing insight and guidance and coaching was invaluable. I could never have had the success I did without them."

Without knowing how much time they invested every year, or what it was worth, it's hard to calculate a true rate of return. Let's say their ongoing oversight and involvement was worth $10,000 annually. That works out to a compound pre-tax return of 20% annually.

Is that "unreasonable" in this case?

Well, the invention took a device used very widely in engineering, and made it cheaper, more efficient, and more durable: it created a great deal of value for every customer who bought it in terms of cost savings and improved efficiency. Those customers of his then used his device in production, so that their customers paid less for those products than they otherwise would have.
 
FadeToBlack&Gold said:
Not at all surprising. Their upper management is a joke ever since Jobs kicked the bucket. No innovation or vision at all, just happy to collect profits from hipster d-bags, and Boomers who think Android is too difficult to figure out.
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Agreed that Apple is now more interested in profitable incremental change than innovation.

As for the "Android is too difficult," I myself wanted an iPhone for the longest time because my wife's iPhone 4 worked well as a phone when we travelled, yet my Android (Moto Xprt, Samsung Note 2, Moto Droid Turbo) (all work phones) were utter trash and didn't work well (or hardly worked right) and had issues requiring the removal of the battery to unfreeze the system.

Today, I have a Samsung S7 Edge which I chose over the iPhone 7 because Android AND Samsung got their sh** figured out. They made a phone that can receive calls (not that anyone actually uses a smartphone for that reason anymore) and work when its supposed to.

Apple has done well selling the iPhone based on "it just works." Android/Google is working on it on two fronts by finally building their own (Pixel/Nexus), and by Samsung being innovative.

And how is Motorola, who was owned by Google for five years, still so terrible at building phones?
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

An economic profit is a gain in excess of "normal" profits, generally measured as profits greater than current rates of return in either the bond market or stock market. Basically, an economic profit is only seen after consideration of opportunity costs.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

St. Clown said:
An economic profit is a gain in excess of "normal" profits, generally measured as profits greater than current rates of return in either the bond market or stock market. Basically, an economic profit is only seen after consideration of opportunity costs.
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Exactly.


But what newspapers report as "profit" is any gain above break-even, even if it is well below a "normal" profit level.

Then some of them can demagogue the issue and get people all worked up about it.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

FreshFish said:
Exactly.


But what newspapers report as "profit" is any gain above break-even, even if it is well below a "normal" profit level.

Then some of them can demagogue the issue and get people all worked up about it.
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That's because there's a difference between an accountancy profit, which is what 99% of people consider to be a profit, including the IRS, and what economists consider a profit because economists measure social profits.
 
Re: Completely Unwoven: Business, Economics, and Tax Policy 4.0

Pew Research released the Middle Class numbers.

The American middle class keeps shrinking.

"The share of American adults in middle-income households also decreased, from 55% in 2000 to 51% in 2014," Pew Research Center reports. "At the same time, the share of adults in the upper-income tier increased from 17% to 20%."

...

Here's the breakdown of how much you have to earn each year to qualify as middle-income, depending on the size of your family:

Household of one: $24,042 to $72,126

Household of two: $34,000 to $102,001

Household of three: $41,641 to $124,925

Household of four: $48,083 to $144,251

Household of five: $53,759 to $161,277
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