Re: OT : so this is what our troops are dying for in Afghanistan !

On 17 Aug 2006 13:19:19 +0200, David Brown
<david@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

"Money" is not the same thing as "profit." At present, my company
needs a new reflow oven, a thermal imager, a good RF signal generator,
and we need to paint the roof, to reduce solar absorption and energy
use. Once we acquire these things, the IRS and the state of California
both consider them to be "profit" and both tax us accordingly. Well,
maybe we can expense the paint.


I'd have thought most of these were running expenses, along with other
investments in your company - profit is what's left after these are paid
for.

That's not the way it works. A reflow oven or a computer or a milling
machine is a capital asset, and subject to corporate income tax just
as if it were still cash in the bank; these things when purchased are
defined as "profit." We're allowed to depreciate them as they age, so
buying productive equipment is equivalent to making a long-term loan
to the government at zero interest. And we need a stash of cash to
fund inventory (which is also "profit") and to keep us alive if we
have a few slow months. Sometimes months we make money, some months we
lose. We pay the rent and the salaries and the bills and the taxes
every month.


I have no problems about making money that is of use to your
company, nor of making a profit - I only take issue at the idea of
overcharging customers with the aim of producing greater profit for
shareholders or top company officials.


I have no problem charging as much as I think my customers will be
willing to pay. To keep that number as high as possible, I
differentiate my products by making them insanely good. If they don't
like my stuff, they can buy something else.


All you have shown here is that money is necessary, and I agree with
that. Money is not a problem in itself - it is the pursuit of money
above all else that I object to.

Some people do that for its own sake, and enjoy it. I design
electronics and need money to do that well, and to pay the prople who
help me do it, and to pay for the building and the equipment we need.



Money is a lubricant that makes the
human world go round - it gives access to things we want or need, and
lets me eat pizza instead of code printouts. But when we aim for money
as an end in itself, instead of other things in life (some of which are
free, others are attained through money), then we have lost our way.

Well, some people really enjoy the challenge of making money, as an
end in itself. Even multi-billionaires keep pushing, because they
enjoy the game. But it doesn't hurt others that they own huge piles of
pieces of paper, mostly stock certificates; in fact, without rich
people who have more than they need, we wouldn't have investment.

If a billionaire ate a billion dollars worth of food every year, he
*would* hurt other people. But most billionaires actually stick to a
sensible diet. But having large integers stored in the computer
records of banks costs the average worker nothing, and in fact helps.
And corporations don't have feelings at all, can't enjoy their
"profits", and shouldn't invoke jealousy. Irrationally, they do.


After all, is lubricant itself a great thing, or is it the activities
made better and easier through its use that are the main attraction?


If an oil company increases prices during shortages (I don't think there
actually *were* shortages after the hurricanes - but lets assume there
were), then that's one way to control demand and avoid running out.
What matters is the company's attitude, and what is done with the money.
When you take that money and invest it (such as re-building and
improving damaged infrastructure), that's fine - when you gloat over
your profits and give bonuses to your shareholders and top company
employees, that's profiteering.


Your position is bad economics hence bad morality. A capitalist,
profit-oriented economy has proven to be the besy way out of poverty.
You and I luxuriate in the bounty of such an economy and can afford to
scorn it for sport if it pleases us. But the dirt-floor poor of the
world haven't that luxury... they will remain poor until they get more
productive, and the surest path to productivity is to own businesses
that make real profits and can afford to grow.


All things in moderation - that's all I'm really saying. Profits are
fine - "excessive" profits are not. As you have said, economies that
are not capitalist based are not nearly as successful or happy for their
people (although they can as good or better in some ways - compare
Cuba's health system with the USA's).

Their health system, like their literacy rate, is more propaganda than
reality.

But too much capitalism and
profit orientation is bad too - simply compare the poverty rates in the
USA and most European countries for examples. Norway may not be a good
example (you can argue that oil makes too big a difference), but compare
life in Sweden with that in the USA. There can be little doubt that the
USA is far more capitalist, while Sweden is more socialist, and there
can be little doubt that the USA has a vastly greater poverty problem
than Sweden. For the top layers in society, the American system is
perhaps better, but for the bottom layers, the Swedish system is best -
and the top layers have nothing to complain about there either.

Our "poverty problem" is the poverty problem of the world. We have
tens of millions of immigrants, legal and otherwise, who are
technically poor, but who have far better jobs and lives than they had
before they came here (if we throw them out, most are back soon) and
they send billions of dollars home to their families. Sweden doesn't
do much of this.

Sweden is an island of peace and whiteness, well insulated by culture,
ocean, and similar white countries on all borders. The USA is the
crossroads of the world, with porous borders to Mexico, South America,
the carribean, and even Asia. I live in a city that has no racial
majority, and is heavily latino, asian, Russian, and islander. Of
course more stuff is going on here. Of course we have poor people, but
their kids won't be poor.

John


.

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