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03-10-2011, 12:02 AM   #31
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I'm glad I'm not one of your customers John.

PS. It's not called planned obsolescence anymore. That's a marketing disaster. I thought you knew?

Price point MTF is what is used today, oldtimer.

03-10-2011, 07:30 AM   #32
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QuoteOriginally posted by BigDave Quote
Planned obsolescence is actually planned innovation. If an older electronic/digital camera cannot be fixed, it may be due to the components no longer being available! SHould I be forced to carry electronic boards for an ever dwindling product population or would it be better to offer a discount to get you to upgrade? By upgrading it helps you (you get the new toy to play with, better, faster, more powerful) and it is better for the company because they do not have to carry expensive inventory (GeneV, correct me if I am wrong, but inventory that sits is also taxed as an asset, yes?)
Innovation can be planned with or without waste. There is very little disincentive for waste right now.

The point about inventory is a bit of an oversimplification, but there are a multitude of tax laws, enacted to stop some sort of fraud, which are counterproductive. Off the point, but I don't think the problem in the U.S. is that businesses are taxed too much in total, but that they are not taxed intelligently.

QuoteOriginally posted by BigDave Quote
As for the main part of the thread, Corporations are entities in that they operate in their own best interests. They operate for what is best for the COMPANY, not individuals. This is supposed to translate into what is best for the stock holders (but the stock holders can loose sometimes if the corporation needs to survive), and customers. This is the pure sense of it.

The problem is not the corporations, and remember, your local news stand may be an incorporated business, it is the people that run the corporations. More scrutiny must be set on them, the officers and directors, and they must be held to a higher degree of accountability. There should be a wall between personal and corporate assets, but if the wall is blurred by the officers, then the liability they face should increase exponentially! If anything needs to be tightened up I would agree that this would be a good start.
Your local news stand is not the same thing as BP or GM. As I've said before, anyone can incorporate a small private corporation. It changes very little about the way the business operated from when it was a sole proprietorship or partnership.

However, form a public corporation, and you are in a different ball game. Now the executives are just employees--with a lot of access to money from the shareholders. Public corporations have a lot of the disadvantages people see in governments. A public corporation can easily become a heartless and somewhat mindless financial statement machine distanced from any real human control by an owner.

I have seen the effects on well run companies which are privately held by the founders. When faced with litigation, the focus is on whether the settlement was fair in light of future liability. As a publicly held business, the focus is often entirely on which quarterly statement would reflect the expense.
03-10-2011, 07:41 AM   #33
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Re Pentaxians ruing planned obsolescence - Many of us choose Pentax for its backward compatibility. That is the one link we have to some permanence of our stuff. Very un-Buddhist too, to become attached to old Takumars and SMC-M's, no? And, isn't it a male trait to try to hold onto favorite (comfortable) clothes and shoes well past their prime? There is an emotional dimension to stuff that the rapid price point MTF thing doesn't support - instead I suppose is an appeal to our discoverer-hunter genes, where we can proudly be the first ones on the forum with the latest Pentax gizmo

---

What Gene says is very true - large corporations become very government like internally. People naturally focus on what's currently most important - quarterly for corporations, biannually for congress

Once past a certain size, corporations are run more and more on a spreadsheet basis - the person three levels up barely knows you, and knows almost nothing about those who work for you. The Customer is appealed to, but these appeals tend to be for in-fighting over budgets and project priorities...
03-16-2011, 11:27 AM   #34
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Hrm, interesting:

QuoteOriginally posted by Nesster Quote
Re Pentaxians ruing planned obsolescence - Many of us choose Pentax for its backward compatibility. That is the one link we have to some permanence of our stuff. Very un-Buddhist too, to become attached to old Takumars and SMC-M's, no?
No. Actually. Illusions of 'permanence' do not make distractions about the latest-and-most-ephemeral thing *better if they suck.*

One doesn't have to 'prove nonattachment' by insisting on shooting Holga, in some pretentious way of 'Only crap is good cause I say some absolute about how purist I am about shooting with crap, ,' or otherwise insisting on pretense of 'I don't care.'

Especially not when making things.

There's a dance, there, and that doesn't mean one insists on impermanence by consumer standards, it means, (to use more Pagan than Buddhist terms) there's a dance. One does not dance, however fleetingly, as though it must be thrown away, because only perfection would do, one dances as though every moment were a forever.

A good chisel should last generations. An old chisel may or may not be kept up well, but if it was made right in the first place, it can be made so.


Basically, moralizing about 'nonattachment' etc is a 'vice' of monotheistic Westerners, Buddhisty or not.


Especially in Japan, the idea is not that 'Perfection sucks' it's in a term I can't remember: you make the most perfect thing you can in everything you do and the flaw becomes the anchor of beauty.

Good old tools can be like that. Crappy tools may have been crappy from day one. You don't moralize about what's 'impermanent,' you put things in perspective, and you do well at making and using, directly.

In an impermanent world, by certain ideals, it's not worth doing anything slipshod or unseaworthy. Excuses tend to take more effort than doing it right the first time. Cutting corners for profit just pushes the results off on someone else, usually for the value of novelty.

In between, a lot of stuff ain't as precise as it should be while people argue about labels when some things we accept as normal now, a generation ago, we *just wouldn't pay the period equivalent of a grand for, full-stop, sorry, there.*


QuoteQuote:
And, isn't it a male trait to try to hold onto favorite (comfortable) clothes and shoes well past their prime?

Says who, and what things? By whose standards?

Some things aren't *meant* to last indefinitely or generationally.

Some things will be non-biodegradeable junk long after planned obsolecence frustrated you.

Basically, impermanence needs *no* help from any lowered standards in human endeavor.



QuoteQuote:
There is an emotional dimension to stuff that the rapid price point MTF thing doesn't support - instead I suppose is an appeal to our discoverer-hunter genes, where we can proudly be the first ones on the forum with the latest Pentax gizmo

You've lost me in some ways, here, at least trying to make gender-essentialist claims which would seem to be contradictory before we even get into saying it's somehow un-non-dualist to not be ..... Dismissive of good old glass?

Sometimes an old Tak may not smell so good, at first, but it's nothing compared to your sneakers.



---

QuoteQuote:
What Gene says is very true - large corporations become very government like internally. People naturally focus on what's currently most important - quarterly for corporations, biannually for congress

Once past a certain size, corporations are run more and more on a spreadsheet basis - the person three levels up barely knows you, and knows almost nothing about those who work for you. The Customer is appealed to, but these appeals tend to be for in-fighting over budgets and project priorities...
Well, corporations want to be governments, yes, don't let them take over Buddhism like they have certain other faiths.


'Nonattachment means: Buy more Crap!' is not where you want to see Buddhism go, and they already blew it with the Pagans.

03-16-2011, 12:00 PM - 1 Like   #35
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I think this quote could just about apply to many of the threads here.

Former Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Edward Ryan from the 1873 “There is looming up a dark new power. ... The enterprises of the country are aggregating vast corporate combinations of unexampled capital, boldly marking, not for economic conquest only, but for political power. For the first time in our politics, money is taking the field of organized power. The question will arise, and arise in your day though perhaps not fully in mine: Which shall rule -- wealth or man? Which shall lead -- money or intellect? Who shall fill public stations -- educated and patriotic free men, or the feudal serfs of corporate wealth?"
03-16-2011, 12:43 PM   #36
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Well, yaknow, Larry, By Jupiter, gird your loins.


Didn't say I was the *first* one to say so.

People forget, but nothing's forgotten.


Looking back and saying 'This is crazy" is something most people consider admirable in retrospect, but they sure take it out of you if you're any kind of timely. So here we are again.


What do you want to do *now?*

When this latest chain started they were inoculating the populace against the idea of 'Confiscating Wealth.' ....Funny how that came just before they got a lot of 'wealth' fraudulently, after all those claims of honesty.

Perhaps... if the budget's so bad they must take food from the mouths of babes, of a sudden, yet demand we make *more,* .... Perhaps... considering who literally made and are making out like bandits, 'confiscating' that wealth ought to be back on the table. Instead of dutifully being at each other's throats while half the national wealth is ...where....?


Crimes have happened. Big time fraud has happened. That's why Bush limited our ability to *sue* about it...


Now the Big money 'small government' guys claim they need centralized control to ...sell the public assets to corporations with money from *us* they *hand* to the corporations... Call it populism while *ignoring even those that voted for them saying 'Hells, no!'


Roll the words over your tongue a few times.

'Confiscating wealth.'

The big money wants to confiscate what's left of the *people's* wealth, and get us to blame each other to do it...

To fight each other over scraps while they demand *more* and *more* and *take* more and more, and promise it's 'good for us' while distracting us with the very social controls they claimed they *weren't* about, but still demand to o anyway....

Maybe 'Confiscating Wealth' came off the table too soon.

If we're *that* 'broke' in what looked like a perfectly-good country to *me* not so long ago, maybe the 'crisis' has everything to do where *half the damn wealth went.*

Maybe that deal's off. Maybe.... Enough's enough. Maybe... Honesty is not what we're dealing with at all.

Maybe it's where half the money went. After they gambled, they 'lost big,' but *they* win *we* lose, and are now supposed to suffer cause *they* say?


What?

Maybe if *they* like the way the country's going so much, they ought to ante up, instead of squalling for more and looting.


Maybe we should find out how much of this is substantial benefit from a federal *crime,* which if I understand Reagan's 'Zero tolerance' forefeiture laws in fact could make *all* the assets of these 400 fatcats, or corporate 'persons' *forefeit.*


Confiscating wealth. Hrm. You know, since the situation's so desperate as the GOP says, maybe we ought to look at that...

Double your money, America, (less brokerage fees, see fine print) guaranteed.

After all, seven million a year 'isn't rich,' and seven *thousand* a year 'isn't poor,' so clearly those 400 people would be just the salt of the earth, strange a metaphor as that is, totally content to live anywhere between, *and work hard for it,* right? cause of course, if it's that easy and anyone can do it with the drive, ambition and merit they've so clearly been favored with, they could do it *again,* right?

Last edited by Ratmagiclady; 03-16-2011 at 01:06 PM.
03-16-2011, 01:40 PM   #37
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QuoteOriginally posted by Ratmagiclady Quote
Confiscating wealth. Hrm. You know, since the situation's so desperate as the GOP says, maybe we ought to look at that...
Just make those who were negligent or directly knowingly involved to pay for what they have done...Petty thieves do pay and go to prison...while big not so-white glove thieves get tax money to pay for their mistakes...They should get all their wealth confiscated before we start feeling they should be shot..before there's enough desperate people to organize and strike where it hurts and in the way they trully deserve.

03-16-2011, 02:04 PM   #38
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QuoteOriginally posted by Coeurdechene Quote
Just make those who were negligent or directly knowingly involved to pay for what they have done...Petty thieves do pay and go to prison...while big not so-white glove thieves get tax money to pay for their mistakes...They should get all their wealth confiscated before we start feeling they should be shot..before there's enough desperate people to organize and strike where it hurts and in the way they truly deserve.
I like that idea! Why should the poor sap who burglarizes a convenience store pay with 5 to 10 of his life, while the "Masters of the Universe" get a slap on the wrist, if that? Shouldn't those who knowingly plunged the US economy into the toilet pay some price?

Last edited by grhazelton; 03-16-2011 at 02:05 PM. Reason: spelling, grammar
03-16-2011, 02:08 PM   #39
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QuoteOriginally posted by grhazelton Quote
I like that idea! Why should the poor sap who burglarizes a convenience store pay with 5 to 10 of his life, while the "Masters of the Universe" get a slap on the wrist, if that? Shouldn't those who knowingly plunged the US economy into the toilet pay some price?
Interestingly-enough, I was trying to tell people not too long ago how GWB's 'Tort Reform' had a great deal to do with just this sort of thing...
03-16-2011, 02:32 PM   #40
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I really didn't understand 'til now that "Small Government" means one person with unchecked authority to give the public's stuff to her/his friends!
03-16-2011, 02:38 PM   #41
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Private police concept is not so far ahead either.
03-16-2011, 03:49 PM   #42
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QuoteOriginally posted by Coeurdechene Quote
Private police concept is not so far ahead either.
Ahead? Not even kidding.
03-16-2011, 06:42 PM   #43
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Well, technology has taken the place of planned obsolescence. Call it what you want before, planned obsolescence or Price point MTF, but now, technology is moving at such a pace that the components you used 5 years ago (how about a year ago) may not be available today. So now there is a choice, redesign the boards to retrofit an older system or just come out with a new system and maybe offer a trade-in for the old one.

And watch the "oldtimer" comments you inexperienced wet-behind-the-ears kid! Remember, us older folks are dragging YOU right along with us! LOL.
03-16-2011, 07:15 PM   #44
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One of the things that I always come back to is the concept of “the Commons”, or that which we as a society choose to hold in common; things like transportation infrastructure, education infrastructure, health care, and civil protection infrastructures. These things are what we pay our taxes for-a safe environment to raise our children with clean air and water, safe food, a good education so they can do better in the next generation than we did.

The fact of the matter is, the richer you are, the more of the commons you used to get there; therefore you pay more taxes, to pay what you owe back to the commons.
This money is owed to “US” like any other debt, and those that have reaped the riches over the last thirty years need to pay their fair share back.

The Country is not broke, we are actually awash in money, and it’s just that only a small percentage of people have it all. They got it by getting their crony rat friends to change the laws a little bit at a time, just so as not to scare us too much and make us aware of the greatest crime ever committed. They actually got us to accept the concept that we should all race to the bottom and just accept our lives as slaves, and just be grateful for the scraps they allow us. We now vilify teachers and snowplow drivers as if this is where all our wealth has gone.

They want you to believe that privatizing government service will be good for us. (The Holy Grail of the Corporatist is government privatization-aka the new legislation in Michigan)

And they have gotten away with this all on a lie and a cheat and the knowledge that as long as they don’t wake the sleeping dog, they will get away with it.

The time has come for a constitutional amendment making clear that corporations are not people. This is the first and most vital step in getting our Democracy back.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=k5kHACjrdEY
VIDEO: America Is NOT Broke | MichaelMoore.com
Unequal Protection, Part I: Corporations Take Over
"We the corporations" | Move to Amend
03-17-2011, 08:38 AM   #45
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QuoteOriginally posted by Oso Quote
The time has come for a constitutional amendment making clear that corporations are not people. This is the first and most vital step in getting our Democracy back.
Hear, hear! If corporations ARE people, then their executives AND shareholders ought to be held responsible for the corporation's acts. When a mining disaster, such as the recent Massey Energy debacle, can be traced to subverting and/or ignoring safety regulations, why should the corporation be allowed to "make it right" with only a fine? The sort of corporate culture at Massey that led to their hideous safety record ulitmately can be attributed to the highest levels of management. Let's see the CEO and his minions do some hard time!

Privatization of utilities was mentioned. Some time ago Atlanta GA contracted the operation and maintenance of its water supply to a private concern, since "private business can ALWAYS do it cheaper and better than 'gummit'". After a few years the city threw them out, since they weren't doing proper maintenance. Now the city faces huge outlays to fix the mess.

Why is it automatically assumed that, even with profit as the motive, private is ALWAYS better?

And why is it always said that we should run the government and public services like a business? They are two very different critters.
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