Re: The Electric Car

On Oct 9, 2:32 pm, John Larkin
<jjlar...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Tue, 09 Oct 2007 17:18:32 -0000, Willie.Moo...@xxxxxxxxx wrote:
I was thinking about breaking down and buying a boat, the 158'
Laurison Mustang Sally was for sale recently by Rich Schaden of
Quiizon's subs, but I couldn't figure a way to make it pay. So, I
vacillated and someone else bought it. ah well.

I've known a few people who were very good at making money, in the
sense of making money for its own sake, without actually creating
anything.

Sounds like you have issues about money. Its impossible to make money
and not create value.

Absurd. You can steal it from retired old ladies.

That's not making money that stealing money.

You can sell
dangerous, useless crap.

That's not making money that fraud.

You can file class-action lawsuits, with
hired/bogus victims, make megabucks,

That's not making money, that is prosecuting fraudulent lawsuits.

and not help the class in any
useful way.

That's defrauding the court.

There are 9.5 million millionaires in the world that control $39.2
Trillion - how many of these and how much of this total do you think
is accounted for by the list of procedures you just created?

You can sell speed and heroin and kill people.

Well if the speed and heroin are substandard and poisons, then this
again is fraud.

You can
insert yourself between buyers and sellers and skim the action without
contributing anything.

You obviously know nothing about the retail function. If this person
isn't defrauding his buyers or sellers then he's performing a useful
service. If he is defrauding people, the market will circumvent
him.

Look its a classic example in the economics text books. Three guys
live in a valley, one is a lumberjack who because he has an interest
in baseball makes baseball bats in his spare time. Another is a pig
farmer and makes gloves in his spare time Another a cattleperson and
cotton farmer makes balls in his spare time. At the end of their
season there is a festival. Each has 3 balls 3 bats and 3 gloves.
They take the balls bats and gloves to market. And over drinks and
dance they trade a ball for a bat, a bat for a glove and so on, so
that each has 1 ball 1 bat and 1 glove.

Question: Are the three fellows richer after the transaction than
before?

Answer: Obviously, yes, because now they can play ball.

The trades took place irrespective of how much time or material was
put into each item. The value was created even though the total
number of balls bats and gloves in the valley was the same as before
the festival as after. The value was created by the distribution of
the same products. This is called the value of the retail function.
The actual making of the products is called the value of the
manufacturing function.

I'm taking time to explain all this to you because you clearly do not
understand how middlefolk work to create value. Now you do.

..
You can take bribes and throw contracts and
create huge negative value.

And you would be a crook by this process and again wouldn't be MAKING
money, you would be STEALING money, which makes the person engaging in
this activity a criminal subject to prosecution and total loss under
the law.

Again, Merrill Lynch Capgemini 2007 World Wealth Report has determined
that this year there are 9.5 million millionaires who control $39.2
Trillion worth of liquid assets - by far the single largest
collection of money in the world. How many would and how much would
you estimate was accumulated by the activities shown here?

You can invent bogus or useless
technology,

How does this enrich you?

sell lots of 3F stock, live high, waste it all

How does this make money for anyone (except the purveyors of high
living)?

. You can
manufacture cigarettes.

How does this enrich you? They wouldn't be made without buyers. As
it stands those buyers are well informed as to the risk. So, clearly
both engage in a free market to gain mutual benefit. One the dubious
benefit of engaging in an addiction to nicotine.

Similarly automobiles wouldn't exist without buyers, and they kill
more than a select group of folks who use automobiles. They kill the
entire planet. And their danger is under-reported and unappreciated,
largely due to the massive advertising budgets of the car
manufacturers. But they are VOLUNTARY transactions and as such
largely create huge values for those involved. After all, ever been
without a car for any length of time? Cars create huge value.


The list goes on.

And the point of the list is what precisely? It has nothing to do
with my original statement which is you must create wealth in order to
MAKE money. Certainly thieves and ne'er do wells throughout the ages
have STOLEN money in many ways shapes and forms. But they're not
making money, and theives by and large don't account for the massive
accumulation of wealth of the wealthy.

I ask you again, how much of the $39.2 trillion in liquid assets held
by the 9.5 million millionaires was MADE and how much was STOLEN -
using ALL the procedures on your list? How much would you estimate
was stolen (not made as I've defined it?)

That's the real question. Thieves and knaves have always existed and
likely will always exist - but how much of our total accumulated
wealth can be put down to this sort of foolishness?

Name a number - and I will tell you straight out- if your number is
any greater than 0.5% - half a percent - then I would say it is wildly
overestimated. Because that's what it is. The other 99.5% is MADE by
people on CREATE wealth - those people are called businessfolk.


That's what it means to make money. If you end
up with a lot of money in your pocket and have not created value, then
you are not a business person, you are a crook. That's the genius of
free-markets. All the exchanges are voluntary, so wealth is created
necessarily.

They seemed to mostly do it for sport, to be a winner and to
flaunt it.

Not true. People who are good at making money take it seriously and
ask themselves serious questions like where's the value?

You must know some different people from the ones I know.

Yes. People who are truly wealthy, not those who are posers.



As Larry Ellison [1] says, it's not enough that I win,
everybody else has to lose.

It appears you have a reference, but you don't really. I think your
belief reflects more your issues with money than reality about those
who make money.

See above.

Above? I don't see any references to anything that would confirm you
statements about Larry Elison.


Its been my experience that folks like Larry Ellison are more into win
win situations. He was selling one if old yachts down in Florida last
October and I did not get the impression that he was any different
than any other successful person in this regard. He's very concerned
about making a 'good' deal - meaning one where everyone is ahead at
the end of the day.

These guys, like many politicians, seem to often be sexual atheletes

Again you are projecting. You figure they have more wealth than you
so they also have more sexual opportunity than you. haha.. Fact is,
folks who make a lot of money spend time doing just that leaving less
time for play.

My comment wasn't a generalization. It was based on real people.

Larry Ellison in particular? What was the extent of your
interaction? Did you actually transact business with the man? Or are
you merely projecting your attitudes.

Not
always, of course.

So, you're lying some of time about this?

I'm certainly not jealous of promiscuous people;

Just rich ones?

I
find it sort of sad, actually.

For you or them?



too, again in the sense of scoring and winning.

Not so. More a sense of creating.

After realizing thet
they have mostly conquered half of the population, they often go after
the other half.

Again not so.

See above.

See what above exactly? You claim to know rich people and then say a
bunch of abusive things about them, and then say something very
specific about Ellison. You have nothing whatever to back any of it
up.

I knew one guy like this that made a huge fortune and
had literally thousands of sexual partners.

Sure we all do - they're called sports figures and rock stars. These
folks are atypical of most solid business sorts.

He never read an entire
book in his life,

Yet one of the success habits of highly successful people is a regular
reading regimen. I think you are confused between gangsters, public
figures and business folk. You may also be confused about being Rich
and being Wealthy. Oprah is Rich. Bill Gates is Wealthy. If Bill
Gates woke up one morning and found that he had as much money as
Oprah, he'd jump out of a window.

Bill has a lot of stock. I suspect that Oprah has a lot of stock.
Unless she keeps roughly a billion dollars in cash under her matress.

You miss my point. Oprah is an entertainer who sells her time and
attention - much as a top notch physician might sell her time and
attention. Gates has created tremendous value in business and as a
consequence had MADE a lot of money. Oprah's income could disappear
tomorrow if people found her PERSONALLY unacceptable for whatever
reason. Just as OJ was once beloved and now is not due to his
personal behavior. Those who have been highly paid for their services
due to specialized knowledge or their personality are unique, and they
do not account for the bulk of the wealth accumulated in the world.


and couldn't sit through a movie; there was nothing
in it for him.

You are taking a questionable anecdotal experience you are claiming
happened and applying it universally to all people inappropriately.

It happened.

What is this person's net worth right now? What is his income right
now? What is his outflow right now? What is the source of his
worth? the source of his income?

I've known a couple of rich people like this,

How rich? How did they get it? What is their source of income
today? Recall, I said Oprah is rich, but Oprah doesn't MAKE money and
she isn't WEALTHY in the sense that Gates or Buffet are wealthy. So,
in this terminology, is the person you speak of merely rich or truly
wealthy? Are they a beneficiary of luck, (win the lottery, inherit
wealth, get away with otherwise criminal activity, win at gambling,
find favor with the public and exploit it, win a beauty contest, etc.)
or did this person really and truly MAKE money and accumulate
WEALTH? Actors and actresses, media personalities, sports stars, all
make up about 4% of the $39.2 trillion - those who inherit something
like 12%, and those who are lucky (which includes criminals who got
away scott free) less than 1% - the balance of all the accumulated
wealth in the world was CREATED by those who MADE money by CREATING
something of value.

people who
only wanted to make a lot of money, any way that worked. I never
mentioned "all people."

What does this have to do with what I was talking about? YOU have
been saying spiteful things of me and impuning everything I say.
Why? This doesn't change the fact that directly connecting solar
panels to the AC power grid is a way to restrict and limit the use of
solar panels. IT IS FAR BETTER TO MAKE HYDROGEN FROM WATER AND BURN
THAT IN CONVENTIONAL GENERATORS - that is the only way to convert the
world to solar power, eliminate carbon emissions, and make lots of
money very quickly by creating huge amounts of value today.


We're mainly engineers here, not overly concerned about money. We
mostly like to build things.

I'm an engineer and I likely have built more stuff and better stuff
than you.

You can't know that.

I can believe it so it makes it true for me. Prove me wrong. You
have my patent numbers. I also invented the first computer based cash
register. The credit card scanner in the gas pump. A golf ball that
changes colors when you hit it to tell you how to improve your swing.
And these are only the things I've made money with. But I'll stand by
these.

What have you done?

I take pride in the fact that I have created substantial
wealth by creating products of substantial value.

John

[1] Funny how I always dislike guys named Larry. We have a friend who
used to be Larry, nice guy, but last year he changed his name to
Jerome.- Hide quoted text -

The issues you have with money bear no relation to those who actually
have created vast fortunes and true wealth. This is to be
distinguised from folks who are temporarily rich due to some factor
other than true wealth creation.

I have no issues with money or with wealth,

You speak about people you say you have known in such a spiteful and
disparaging way and attribute to them all manner of shortcomings - so
many that you feel sorry for them - you said that. haha.. You
certainly DO have issues with money. Big Time.

except

See and you know it.

that I acknowledge
both to be overhead that enables my being able to do good engineering;
but they are a pita nonetheless.

John- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Whatever... soon you'll be able to say whatever damn fool thing about
me that you want without fear of correction! haha.. I will be
dropping out of sight soon to do more serious work.

.

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