How many times have you wanted to say something like:
“my 2¢’s worth”, instead of $.02; 45°, 90°, etc. How about ¼ or ½. I don’t think there are any others, like 3/8, 1/128.
Believe it or not, it’s relatively easy. I must confess that I’m not familiar with how this is done on a MAC and so I apologize to those MAC users. Perhaps a proficient MAC user can chime in?
In order to use these codes, your PC computer must have a separate numeric keypad on the right side. To enter the following, press and hold down the Alt while typing the numbers to the right of the desired sign. When you release the Alt key, the symbol should appear; continue typing as usual.
This is known as the Extended ASCII Character Set. Here are some examples
Currency:
¢ Cent sign 0162
£ British Pound 0163
€ Euro currency 0128
¥ Japanese Yen 0165
Æ’ Dutch Florin 0131
¤ Generic currency symbol 0164
Miscellaneous:
© Copyright symbol 0169
¯ Registered symbol 0174
â„¢ Trademark 0153
° Degree symbol 248
½ symbol is 171
¼ symbol is 172
Copy & Paste: Move the cursor via the mouse to the text, Click the left mouse button and drag it across what you want to copy to highlight it, and press Ctrl+C to copy it to the clipboard. Move the cursor, via the mouse to where you want it and press Ctrl+V to paste it.
I hope you enjoy this bit of twaddle (God I love that word). Most appreciative to whomever invented it! Now Lataxe, you can insert your £ wherever you want! I must refrain.
Best Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 2/8/2007 9:09 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres
Replies
If you don't want to have to remember all of the keystrokes, you can also go to Start, Accessories, System Tools, Character Map. They're all in there. You can create a shortcut and have it on your desktop, too.
Thanks highfigh,
Way to go!Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Thanks, Bob, for the list. I learned the ° sign here at Knots but never persued the rest of them. Has always irritated me that the ¢ symbol no longer exists on the keyboard. There seem to be 2 ways to get the degree -- I use Alt+0176
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
"I hope you enjoy this bit of twaddle (God I love that word).
Now Lataxe, you can insert your £ wherever you want!"
Twaddle I guess is an old British'ism I've been using around here and elsewhere for many years. I can't remember a time in my life when twaddle wasn't in use.
The £ sign is right above 3 on British keyboards, and the mighty US $ sign sits above 4-- although the $ nowadays is getting perilously near to being a basket case currency at present exchange rates of close to $2/£1. Slainte.
Richard Jones Furniture
Hi, from this side of the pond Scotland that is, nay bother Jimmy. in chemistry we use a twaddle every day it is for mesuring the density of liquid hope this is of some use to you
Some more trivia...
In the Royal Navy, degree's Twaddle was used as a measure of brine density in evaporators used to produce drinking water.
Bill
Although the first choice of spelling in both cases was Twaddell for the testing of s.g. Perhaps named after the originator. Thanks to forestgirl in the prepost I can now express the abbreviation.
°TW.
Aint life grand.
Thanks for the spelling information. It's been over 25 years since I've been involved with ships.
Greetings Munchkin1. I will be going to Scotland in March. Staying in Edinburgh for a couple of days and then driving a bit for a few days. We call in meandering, no particular destination in mind. Do you recommend any wood craft galleries, artisian shops or tool suppliers in your area? Regards, Mike
Sir Richard,
<<although the $ nowadays is getting perilously near to being a basket case currency at present exchange rates of close to $2/£1. >>
Things must have been really bad back around 1900 when the exchange rate was somewhere around £1 = $5!!!
;-)
.
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Tschüß!<!----><!---->
Mit freundlichen holzbearbeitungischen Grüßen aus <!----><!---->dem<!----> <!---->Land<!----> der <!----><!---->Rio Grande<!----><!---->!!<!----><!---->
<!----> <!---->
James<!----><!---->
<!----> <!---->
Semper Paratus!<!----><!---->
Pro Patria!
Ah, James, the early days of the rise of the mighty dollar. Robber barons and rapacious business practices. It set the foundations for the last hundred years or so of rising domination.
How much longer will it be before the Chinese unhook themselves from the dollar and go their own way to become the world's dominant economy? It's no good sneering at Chinese made machinery. They're getting better and better at it, so their domination seems invetable. We western economies will never win that fight unless we regress to primitive (i.e., employer favourable) labour laws again.
I guess they'll be challenged by the Indian rupee for the biggest financial clout.
It won't be long I suppose before the Americans too have to suffer the genteel decline that we Brits have been through.
Nothing lasts forever and once upon a time the world map was covered in big splashes of red.
I just wish I could get my darned dollars out of the US (where I lived for ten years) and repatriated to the UK at a favourable exchange rate to do something useful with the money, sort of ha, ha-- a bit ironically expressed I suppose.
After all, when I moved to the US in 1993, UK pounds were a basket case and the exchange rate sucked. Now it's the other way about! Slainte. Richard Jones Furniture
SgianDubh,
Your comment about regressing to primative ie employer favorable labour laws again..
frankly that's about as backwards thinking as possible. If you look back at when America was at it's peak, we did so because of our massive middle class. They created a tremendous demand for things and tht demand drove America to build great modern factories tofill that demand..
Union membership was as High as 39% and because of that the pay of thers were high.. that relative wealth allowed a extremly strong economy..
Today America has only 7% of her employees in Unions and Unions no longer establish the pay rates for the nation.. Without those higher pay rates, fewer middle class are capable of buying fine things including furniture. Thus there is lower demand and the cycle continues..
Too much wealth is in the hands of too few people due to recent tax policies. Since politicains are purcheased not by the middle class but by the wealthy those laws are not likely to change untill a world wide deprsssion once again forces change..
Will China replace the US as a source of fine furniture? Well their labor costs are signigficantly lower (but rising quickly) however they need wood and untill Russia comes on line with it's forests it will import wood from the US and elsewhere, with all those attending costs..
In addition furniture styles of the Chinese will remain to be dramatically differant.. Will there be a place for Wallmart quaility furnitue from China? Sure! It has for at least a decade and before that cheap furniture was made all over the globe..
As too the dollar to pound ratio, I suspect the dollar is due for real shellacing, so far the cost of the war in Iraq is off table just like we did during Vietnam.. As the world realized just how deep were were in debt, the dollar was pounded with 18% inflation or worse!
Far better to take your losses now than in the future when it is certain to be far worse..
On the understanding you are referring to successful politicians, have you ever met a poor one? We are reaching the point where they do the buying in any country, and we are not likely to hear of Lord Jones.
mufti,
Wealth is a sliding scale.. Politicians may be "wealthy" but not on the scale of those who buy them..
I live near the Cargills,, They own the largest privately held company in the world. since it's privately held nobody knows just how extensive their wealth is. Just as a brief idea, 95% of the barge traffic on the Mississippi is theirs..
They own it, they own the tug boats, the barges, and the cargo.. annually the army corp of engineers spends billins of dollars making the barge traffic run faster and thus cheaper.. whoo do you suspect pays for all those improvements on the locks and dams on the Mississippi? You do.. that's right the tax payer! Is your orange juice any cheaper? How about the bowl of ceral? Do your corn flkes cost less this year than last year?
Barge traffic is a tiny sliver of their holdings..
You could be right frenchy. I'm no economist and it was an off the cuff remark I made about robber barons and rapacious employment laws.
Still, I think many of us guess that the US is probably reaching the end of its period of world domination. A new world order looks like it's on the way and, like we Brits, the Americans might at some stage have to get used to being largely irrelevant and comparatively toothless.
Time will tell, but no country or economic power remains top dog forever. You only have to look at the stories of the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Mongols, Gauls, Inca's, and even us Brits for confirmation of that. There were no doubt individual or particular causes for the decline of each of those super-powers, but that just goes to show that yet another cause for the decline of yet another super-power over the next few decades is possible.
You may be right though. Perhaps it's time I took my US dollars (stockpiled in the US at the moment) and repatriate them to the UK while the going is only as economically unfavourable as it is-- and before it gets much, much worse, ha, ha. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
SgianDubh,
Thank you for your response.. As for America reaching the end of it's world domination, that really depends..
What is really unique about America is that we are a nation of immagrents..
It took a lot to get here I don't care how you arrived, be it thru Ellis Island, Across the Bering land bridge or on the Mayflower. To get here you had to have ambition..
America is settled by those with the ambition gene dominant.. As long as we continue to attract ambitious people America should excell at achievement..
In addition we are blessed with an abundance of farm land, large tracts of totally vacant land, and a lot of undeveloped resources.
The currant tax laws are written to benefit those who have wealth as compared to those who create wealth. If such tax laws continue then it is extremely unlikely that America will continue to be the haven of bright, hard working, ambitious, people it traditonally has been..
fenchy,
In my opinion our economic downfall will be that we continue to export our natural resources, only to buy them back in finished products. Especially in wood.
We have some of the finest craftsmen/artisans in the world. As fellow woodworkers we are eager to corroborate with others across the world to perfect our craft.
Therein lies the comfort that I enjoy most about Knots; everyone contributes to make it better.
Good grief, I'm getting old!
Regards,
Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Edited 2/10/2007 9:25 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres
Edited 2/10/2007 9:36 pm ET by KiddervilleAcres
Bob,
In my humble opinon that is due to a couple of things.. first is that American companies are only interested in short term profits, not long term growth.
There are darn few major companies who have invested as much in equipment as a typical chineese company invests.. far from a small hut with a wizened old man crafting a product, computors drive equipment to utilize the maximum yeild from a given piece of wood..
American production however tends to be that wizened old man crafting by hand a product. No wonder the Chineses can pay a premium for our wood, give it not one but two ocean voyages and sell it back to us at a profit..
I was just at my favorite sawmill to buy some more balck walnut.. at the same time a group representing the Chineese offered the owner of the mill a contract to buy all of his black walnut and cherry at a price more than twice what I had been paying. what's more the price was in the field, their crews would cut the tree harvest the logs and transport it. to the railroad sites where it would be loaded aboard trains bound for ports heading to China or Tiawain.
Needless to say I came home without my wood!
Second the laws in China favor investment over profits.. Laws here In America favor profit over investment..
元 or 円 or £ or € ???I think you and frenchy are on to something; I read just the other day that China and Japan are approaching a trillion $ (each) in US debt holdings.What happens if either start to move some of that into Euros, or some other currency -- or if Hugo Chavez starts demanding that his oil sales ($200 mil/day to the US) be paid in Euros. The storm clouds are gathering, and if I were you, I think I would be looking to get those dollars you mentioned outa here asap. On the brighter side, historically, the US has been able to shore up the ship when it started to list, and get it headed off in the right (or at least, better) direction. Witness "trust buster" Teddy Roosevelt and his New Deal cousin. The thing is, our top of the heap capitalists have always been rapacious robber barons, as you say, but in the past at least, they have have been smart enough to acquiese when the golden egg sprung a few cracks.Now if we can just find a way to cure some of our politicians of their megalomanic jingoism...............********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
nikkiwood,
"The storm clouds are gathering, and if I were you, I think I would be looking to get those dollars you mentioned outa here asap"
..and put them where? Is there a better safer country in which to invest? Perhaps a country with less corruption, more stability, and demonstrated ability to adapt and remain competitive. Which country has the lowest inflation, lowest taxes, best growth, etc., etc. .. The rest of the world has decided the US is best for their investments.
Yes, the production model has changed and shifting due to supply chain efficiency. But don't forget that about 2.5 billion people are currently being lifted out of poverty in those countries...they have many needs....and with the internet, know what they want.
Edited 2/11/2007 4:42 am ET by BG
BG
I realize that you need to accept certain tennants such as America is the safest place to invest in, however that isn't true always and it certainly isn't true now..
America is going to have some great big runaway inflation in the very near future.. We have a war that is"off Books" and that debt needs to be paid. Since no politicain of either party wants to be accused of rasing taxes, they will stumble along as they usually do and inflation will become bigger and bigger.
IF you'd like an example look at the debt we ran up fighting the Vietnam war, and never raised taxes to pay for it.. During Nixons term inflation became rather intence. Enough so that when Ford Became president he walked around with WIN buttons on (whip Inflation Now) Finally addressed By Carter thru raised taxes it's one of the factors that turned him out of office..
Reagan ran up a huge debt ending the cold war but it was too large for this country to prosper with. Bush (sr) raised taxes to cover that cost and because of that he lost the election in spite of having won a no cost Gulf war with absolutely minimum causualties.
When Clinton followed the debt paying trend started by Bush (sr) and raised taxes again to pay off our obligations. Money poured into America because the world knew America was once again a sound investment.. That flood of money drove up the stock markets and drove down interest costs..The result was prosperity.
Just like you have to pay your debts, countries need to pay theirs. They do one way or the other.. either by raised taxes or by high inflation.
If there is going to be high inflation foriegners will remove their assests. They know that no matter how high the rate of return they will get socked by the rate of exhange.
Look at the Euro for a classic example. in the 1900's the Euro sold for about 90 cents on the dollar, after 2000 it started to sell for more than a dollar. As our inflation continues the rate of exhange will continue to worsen.
If you doubt that there is real inflation look at the price we pay for commodites. Gold oil, plywood, FCOJ, etc.. Or look at your own realestate.
Frenchy:The river systems, including locks and dams have been publicly funded since the first days of the existance of the Republic, under President Washington. Navigable water was the only good means of interstate travel, and it was considered wise and in the public interest to have it be public and free than to have various private interests bottlenecking transportation and charging big fees like the Rhine barons of the middle ages. You might argue that the rivers should NOW change to a user-fee based system, but you can't argue that corporate lobbyists or craven politicians had anythig to do with the status quo.As to getting money out of here, that is a double edged kind of thing. On the one hand, many foreign markets offer significant growth opportunities. On the other. the accounting and corporate governance standards almost everywhere else (even much of Europe) fall well short of what is accepted in the Anglo-American world. There is right now a major global effort to move to universal transparency and common standards, but until then, you are hard pressed to assess an investment anywhere outside the English-speaking world. Then there are the questions of stability, liquidity, and depth of markets. We and the British (City of London and Edinborough) are the only places to go. As it happens, the British are investing heavily in the USA, as well as elsewhere. There is no flight of foreign capital away from the USA. Ask yourself why.FInally we worry about inflation. The real story about the post-Viet Nam inflation is that Lynndon Johnson browbeat the Federal Reserve into monitizing the deficit (inflating our way out of debt, or so he thought). At one point he had a meeting with the Fed Chairman and after asking all the assembled aides to leave the room, PHYSICALLY threw the Chairman against the wall and screamed at him that his his sound money policy was killing American boys. The Chairman rolled over for LBJ, but in his memoirs, he recalled his complicity as a very shameful thing. Today's Fed is not going to monitize the debt. They are committed to sound currency. That is why rates have gone up, plain and simple.
Joe Sulivan,
The vast majority of river traffic is owned by Cargill. Cargill profits from it. When locks are increased in size it's so Cargills tugs spend less time at each lock and dam.. Thus increasing cargills profits.
It's a game only the Cargills can play.. they contribute money to both parties and the few million they spend to buy access is a wise investment, even tax deductable.
But once elected that access allows them the ear of the elected politicain, with his ear they can craft legislation that is favorable to Cargill.
I don't for a minute suggest that Cargill does anything illegal.. They are a good corporate citizen who's focus happens to be on profits.. All legal and proper!
The family members aren't in the newspaper with drunken sex orgies or making big spalshy headlines.. they are almost invisable. Because of that the two families will continue to prosper.. I wish them well..
But that is the problem. The laws are being written to benefit the few not the majority.
Let me give you a tiny sliver of how the laws could be changed to benefit the population as a whole..
Northern rivers tend to flood every spring.. red River, Mississippi, Minnesota, etc.. every spring we have really high waters that either floods or threatens to flood.
Why not dig tunnels to drain off the flood waters, run them under the freeways so there isn't a problem with access, and run them to the arrid southwest.. land there needs only water to be extremely productive. dump the excess flood water into a valley someplace and pump it to wherever it can be best used.. Minnesota is high enough that gravity would do most of the work..
We'd employ 10's of thousands of workers between building the machines and digging the holes etc..
Once we are finished with Minnesota there are a lot of other rivers that flood where a sizeable flood tunnel would be a benefit..
Think of the million of acres of wasteland that would become productive land.
It ould cost less to build than we spend every year on one aircraft carrier alone!
With regard to inflation. It's not like it can be stopped..
Look at what we pay for commodites, look at what your own realestate is going for.. Do you actually think that your house is really worth that? I paid $107,000 for my house, in December the bank appraised it at $1.8 million. (when finished 2.3 million)
My neighbors all paid similar prices for their property and today theirs are worth in excess of a million dollars..
We are in a basic stagflation just like Ford and Carters era.. Only sound fiscal policy will see us out of the trouble and with the war costing us billions of dollars and no decrease in domestic spending the inflation is leaking out.. Politicans will be certain to make a major issue of it during the next election and we will be forced to face facts.
Frenchy:
Once again, the river policies were written a couple of hundred years before Cargill existed. They are merely benefitting from a policy that clearly was in the overall national interest at the time. As to whether that policy should change, I haven't the faintest idea.
Land values are indeed absurd. My 800 sqft log cabin 240 miles north of you (about which you and I spoke on another forum) went from being worth about the $50,000 I paid my grandmother 10 years ago, to nearly $350,000 now. You are right, it does not make sense. It is a bubble. It will burst. What you should really worry about is that fact that in Minnesota and nationwide, the property-tax-financed branched of government have ratcheted their FIXED monthly expenses up to match the revenue from the bubble values. WHat will they do when values drop?
Must say, I don't know boo about the cost of tunnels or the price of aircraft carriers. No opinion there, except that the idea does seem to be a bit of a reach.
All that said, we are NOT in stagflation or anything close to it. Without going into excruciating detail, I have just finished two and a half months or so of intensive study of the economy in order to publish some articles on it. I have reviewed data from the Federal reserve, the Bureau of the Census, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Conference Board, and various private sources, in addition to chairing a roundtable of major industrial forecasters and planners. Here are a few salient points:
a) We are not experiencing much inflation and probably won't
b) Unemployment is low, and the job marlket is very tight in most places.
c) We are not recessionary. The economy is growing, just more slowly that for the last two years.
d) There is a small chance of recession, but quite small.
e) The housing markets are in trouble for the very reason that you described above -- the bubble, which is now shrinking back. Housing will continue along this year, but will not grow much. However, we are seeng a declining rate of growth or possibly no growth, as opposed to a downturn.
f) There is a belt of near recessionary territory ranging from more or less the end of lake superior all across the bottom of the great lakes. It gets worse as you go east. Even there, though, there are major econimic sectors and large metro areas that are doing fairly well.
All in all, we do not have stagnation, we do not have inflation, and we certainly don't have stagflation.
Joe,
Yes it's absoluely true that Cargill takes advantage of the policies already in place.. Nobody is suggesting Cargill is doing anything wrong, they are playing the game as the rules are written.. However the rules are written to benefit established wealth rather than those who are creating wealth..
Realestate is not a bubble, they've been saying that since before I was born and the fact is that real estate is a direct reflection of market forces.. Today America has 300 million people. When I was born it was slightly more than half of that, continueing at todays rate, America will pass 400 million before I die.. there is no more land being made! So price rises. (or the dollar becomes worth less)
Not every property is valued at real value.. The east and west coast because of demand both have higher values than can be sustained.. however land won't suddenly drop to little or nothing.. People who own property will continue to need a place to live and if their house is overvalued they will simply wait it out if they can.. Yes a few properties sold for more than they will sell for in the future, but most simply won't sell at a loss..
When the cost of goods and services goes up that is inflation.. gas, realestate, most commodites, have risen rather dramatically in the past few years..
Wages have not been materialy increased and in fact the last two quarters they went backwards, to be sure for full legal definition we need three quarters in order to prove a trend.. I admit being premature.. yet adjusted for inflation American workers haven't had a real pay raise since the 90's
Unemployment is low it's fact, however if you've followed recent trends since 2nd quarter of 06 new job creation has declined
In addition the "off Books" policy of the Iraq war fools few, the debt we've acquired will drive inflation. As interest costs increase new housing starts drop. Since 20% of the nations economy is directly tied to new housing starts that is a significant factor in future economic conditions..
As for flood tunnels, it's a well established policy in suburbs of flood water tunnels to control flooding..(They are called several things such as storm drains flood drains etc.). all I am suggesting is instead of trying to contain flood waters we divert them to where the water is a valuable resource..
I'm not equipped -- by knowledge or experience -- to argue the point.But I take it you're not bothered, and will therefore continue to whistle a happy tune?********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
nikkiwood,
I did not mean to imply I was whistling a happy tune. On the contrary, with 2.5 to 3.5 billion people understanding they ain't got it so good...that is potentially real trouble. No, my comments were meant to simply point out the larger picture instead of chanting the mantra of Keynes economics which died 30 years ago.
so is this to say you feel a government should no longer attempt to guide an economy through its monetary and tax policy?********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
nikkiwood,
Monetary and Fiscal policy are tactical tools to help manage whatever economic theory is in place. I'm talking something more like a new economic architecture which we've seen time and time again radically change the factors of production; land, labor and capital. Usually the winds of change have been driven by technology...it changes the relationship between the factors.
A good example is Sgain's story about his boyhood and Baltic Birch...which was partically brought on by all the wood being burned so people could stay warm, etc.... And while the powers to be were comtemplating new sources of wood, balance of trade, ya-do, ya-da...in the north of England a guy was inventing a steam engine that would get the water out of the coal mines...which lead to the industrial revolution in England....and no more wooden ships.
I am not sure this is such a productive discussion anymore, but for what it is worth, history and the current statistics support Sgain and BG.
For Frenchy -- if you are comfortable with statistics, try chasing down some of the sources I told you I examine. They will tell you a rather differnt story from what you now accept as fact. Email me privately and I will even give you links to the data pages, and a link to the roundtable I conducted in Chicago.
Bottom line -- things just aren't that bad, and the USA is still a good place to live and hold your money. Look at the balance of emigration. How many p[eople are struggling to get out of here as opposed to those struggling to get in.
I realize that the housing downturn is hard on some people, and I am certainly sympatnetic. However, in most places as I pointed out before, it is not a collapse, but rather a decline in the rate of growth. Even with NO growth, in fact, even with a true downturn, there will be tens of thousands of houses built.
Read the statistics, read the leading indicators, and read what the best forecasters have to say. It will make you feel better.
Joe,
I guess we are in sort of agreement. Currantly there isn't an actaul downturn (well except in the housing market) However as I indicated we have a giant war to pay for that is "off Books".. That will come due!
The dollar has a lower rate of exchange today than in 2000 Look at your newspaper for that rate and remember it was around 90 cents to the euro in 2000
The DOW adjusted for inflation still has yet to return to 2000 levels as other leading indicators.
If you aren't paying a dollar a gallon more for gas today than you were in 2000 tell me where you are and It will be worth my driving there to buy gas..
How much does a loaf of bread cost near you? It's a chunk more than in 2000 I'll bet!
You told me that your property inflated as well. Same preoperty just the dollars worth less!
Re "russian forests" availability to chinese furniture makers:those are mainly softwood; I don't think pine, fir or russian mdf is much of a threat on the high-end market.
Jeema,
which much of the Russian siberia are softwoods the steps however contain a great deal of hardwood some of which is quite diserable, the real problem is the lack of roads in the region..
So you don't see a connection between the high union wages and the rise of the price of American made goods?Also, don't forget about the millions of American kids who just can't bring themselves to go to school, stay and graduate and keep up with what's happening in the workplace. The technology and knowledge needed for a lot of the jobs in the past was a lot lower than it is now. Look at the factory work here- it's not the same as when someone could quit school at 16 and get a good paying job if they were willing to work hard. Look around- people don't want to work hard anymore. For those jobs, we have legal and illegal immigrants because they'll do what is needed. Milwaukee was called "the machine shop for the world" because we had so much manufacturing here. A lot of that is gone and, while different jobs are replacing the ones lost, there are a lot of people who never recovered from losing their way of life because they didn't need the same education at the time but are unable to advance now. This city isn't an isolated case but the Japanese automakers didn't come here to set up their new factories.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Edited 2/15/2007 12:26 pm by highfigh
highfigh,
High union wages?
How soon we forget.. prior to the unions (by the way I've never been a union memember) the wages paid to workers reflected the whim of the owners.. not the cost of living..
If Union wages were high it's because,
1
the cost of living was high,
2
Management could make even more money by rising wages.
The unions could be defeated.. it's called a lock out and while the company and workers both suffered, the workers with fewer resources were bound to cave in sooner..
Do you know what some of the wage/benefit packages cost manufacturers? When a union worker gets their wage, full health insurance, pension, vacation, disability and everything else you can think of paid with no employee contribution, it can be over $100/hr per worker. True, some companies are cutting back or eliminating some bennies but if that company's product becomes too expensive to sell with US labor, it's gonna go offshore. Do you expect a company to eat the wage increases? I wouldn't do it if I owned or ran the company. I don't suppose you break even at the end of the year, do you? What do you do if your costs go up- eat it or find a way to make more money? The same people working with my dad when they went on strike bitched about the cost of things going up in the middle seventies and the quality of what they were making was so bad the company was almost broken up and sold off, piece-by-piece. The quality problems were directly caused by the way the corporate management ran the company, a part of AMF, which then caused the workers' attitudes to turn to absolute crap. Remember all of the Buy Union/Buy American bumper stickers? If the majority of people can't afford to buy that way, the prices have to fall if the same companies want to compete in this market. Otherwise, a foreign company will come in and blow their doors off. They can't pay the same wages and charge really low prices so the labor is outsourced. People are pizzed off and out of work but almost never plan for a situation like this. Everyone just has to go azzhole and applecart in debt in this country. There are ways to not go broke on low to medium wages- people see the stars and everyone buying everything in sight and they want to have it all, too. God forbid someone with a less than amazing skill set should take an occasional course to expand their knowledge base. Yeah, it takes a few hours every week but in the end, they'll be better able to change with the times. Might even have a sense of self-satisfaction and make more money. Oh, the horrors!One side always looks at it as "I need more money because the cost of living is going up" and the other side as "we need to raise our prices because our costs have increased". They're both right.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
highfigh,
In most cases those benefits were given in lue of wage increases.. General Motors had a good year and the contract was up so naturally the workers wanted a slice of the profit they helped to create.. in order to make the quarterly reports look good management offered benefit increases instead of wage increases and the workers flet that was a fair trade so they accepted..
The trouble is when you live by the quarter you also die by the quarter.. At some point the benefits started to cost more and what was once such a good deal for management turned around and bit them..
Now management wants to renige on the earlier deal, forgetting that they were able to extract a great deal of money because of the deal. Workers made the same wages and management cleaned up!
To put it in simple terms workers to a pay increase of benefits instead of cash.. they traded a dollar now for a few cents but that few cents spread over the future would amount to several dollars.. Management took their hundreds of dollars now and retired leaving future management holding the bag.
The British Empire declined in part because it was built on colonialism. The colonies were a constant source of trouble and eventually won their freedom leaving the U.K. without a source of cheap raw materials and labor.
Despite leftist rhetoric, the US was not built on the same system of colonies. I do see the ascendency of the Chinese but not because of the decline of the USA. They will have prosperity for the near future because they are partially adopting capitalistic profit motivated economics.
However ( and Frenchy listen up ) they will pay a heavy price in the future with health care ( lots of smokers and they haven't admitted an AIDS problem ), environmental damage ( have you seen their skies ) and unrest from lack of personal and religious freedom.
MG, those are certainly well rehearsed arguments for the decline of the British Empire.
Like me, you seem unsure what the cause of the USA's decline will be, but it seems inevitable that eventually it will do just that. As I said before-- nothing lasts forever, so the top dog position currently held by the US will end, but who knows when, and why. Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
By "well rehearsed" do you mean invalid? I know that the situation had to be more complex than that, but it is nevertheless part of the truth.
No, I am reasonably sure of the cause of our decline. We have become frivolous and have no backbone to see things through. We have a short attention span. The Chinese have a 50 year short term outlook while we tire of something in less than 18 months. If contemporary Americans were participating in WWII we would be speaking German east of the Mississippi and Japanese west of the Mississippi.
I shake my head when I see people line up to be humiliated on American Idol. If I was an enemy of the USA that site would give me comfort...freaky, whining, self absorbed, irresponsible, celebrity infatuated gender confused twits.
"By "well rehearsed" do you mean invalid?"
Not at all MG. I simply meant that the discussion is well known. Take another example, i.e., 'The Baltic Problem'. Timber sources for building houses, ships, etc., were dwindling in <!----><!----><!---->Great Britain<!----><!----> during the 17th. century. In 1662 the first book on tree management and conservation, ‘Silva, or A Discourse of <!---->Forest-<!----> Trees, and the Propagation of Timber in his Majesty’s Dominions’ was written and published by John Evelyn.
In part this may have been prompted by the necessary timber trade that by this time was occurring between <!---->England<!---->, later <!----><!---->Great Britain<!----><!---->, and the Baltic countries. This trade had two major flaws in the minds of the British government. It resulted in a trade deficit to the benefit of the <!---->Baltic states<!---->. The British had no goods to trade with the Baltic countries and had to pay for the important naval stores. Second, the supply was not secure because the Baltic countries were not under British control and could sell their products to the highest bidder if they chose to.
Throughout the 1600’s and 1700’s the British tried to find means of bypassing the insecure Baltic timber trade. The colonies of north America were seen as potential solutions with attention focused on <!---->New England<!---->. This was found to be less than ideal because the cost of importing timber across the <!---->Atlantic<!----> was much greater than buying from the Baltic countries.
Another solution might have been to build ships in New England and sail them to the <!---->British Isles<!---->. <!---->New England<!----> had developed a shipbuilding industry of its own by the early 1700’s anyway, and there were suggestions from British based merchants, ship builders and colonial timber producers to develop the practice. This, however, was against British government policy which had never favoured manufacturing in the colonies—rather, the preferred colonial model meant that raw goods should be sent to <!----><!---->Britain<!----><!----> for manufacture and re-export, even to the supplier colony-- mercantilism in action really.
The difficulties for the British government with timber supplies continued throughout the 18th century. American independence didn’t help matters from the British point of view and the Napoleonic Wars in the early 19th century threatened Baltic timber supplies. Canadian timber was a partial solution. Canadian imports grew substantially but this was largely fuelled by an increasingly punitive import levy on Baltic imports—as much as 275% by 1807. The quality of the Canadian product was generally inferior but the trade was profitable due to the high tariffs imposed on Baltic timber.
All the above illustrates the problems the British Empire had, and arelargely in line with your earlier post. Slainte. Richard Jones Furniture
Sgian Dubh,
I have a very clear idea of what will cause America's decline if that should come about..
two things.
First America's love with the big powerfull military.. We currantly have 16 aircraft carriers steaming around the world at a cost in excess of 2 million dollars a day each!
That number is only operating costs and does not include such things as depreciation and war and tear or the cost of the carrier itself.. (plus all the planes and other equipement aboard) We launch million dollar Tomahawk missles at $300 mud huts like they were popcorn. America does not know how to have a military that is not going to bankrupt it.
The second thing is our currant tax code shifts much of the burden of running the country onto our overworked middle class. Making progress even more difficult. forcing both parents to work just to pay the bills and their children to come home to be unsupervised. That lack of supervision has real long term costs, far beyond the increase in juvenile crime and pregancy..
The very wealthy on the other hand are capable of shifting income around and minimising their tax obligation.
I'm not speaking about the probasketball player with a 20 million dollar a year contract.. That's really only upper class, not the really wealthy, old family money wealthy..
frenchy, I wonder if either of us will still be around to see the outcome you predict due to the pressures you describe, ha, ha? Slainte.Richard Jones Furniture
SgianDubh,
Well with regard the expense of our military, it needs to be addressed sooner rather than later.. We can no longer continue to build cold war solutions to global terror problems.. An Aircraft carrier is of little threat to a terrorist..
As for the tax laws.. I seriously doubt much will happen simply because American elections are mainly paid for by the very rich, once paid for a smart politicain will do as he's told..
so laws are unlikely to change radically..
The USN currently operates 11 aircraft carriers.
INdeed.
And they are threats to terrorists -- not perhaps, the sneaking in-country type, but the big operations as Bin Ladin found out in Afghanistan. However, even if they were no threat at all to terrorosts, and I don't accept the premise, but even if it were true, there are many threats in this world that are not terrorists. N Korea, and Iran are two big ones. A resurgent Russia under former KGB control could be another, but for the deterrence of our fleet and our ground forces. The very openness of the sea lanes in the face of small rogue states and pirates depends on the fleet.
I agree with everything you said, but Frenchy also has a very good point. I guess to simplifiy it, we can not have an open check book with the department of defense. I just can't help by not trusting the federal govt. You could say I am a cynical sob. Regards!
You and I agree, and indeed, Frenchy does have a point. The cost of the war will have to be paid. It is not all off thebooks, though. Most is in the budget, which is one reason why the budget is in deficit. That said, the deficit has declined by about half in the last three years -- a little reported fact.
I don't trust the government at all, BTW. Any government. Towards the end of the Soviet Union, Gorbachef had a recorded meeting with the head of the Italian Communist party. One of the issues they discussed, believe it or not, was the growth, expense and non-responsiveness of the bureaucracy. We have that problem, too. Programs never die and rarely get reformes, This is true in the DOD as well as anywhere else. The careerists have their plans and agendas and expect us to pay for them. To a large extent, if I understand him, Frenchy is right about this, too. DOD -- along with ALL other agencies, is bloated and expensive, and hard to reform. The war in some ways makes at least that worse.
The real thng to fear is serious inflation. We don't have it now. Prices of individual commodities always rise and fall according to supply and demand. Copper and cement and such went up because of higher global demand, AND our housing bubble. Housing here is settling back, which reduces demand, which has caused lumber to drop and copper to drop, etc (to say nothing of the additional production spurred by the higher prices). However, general inflation is under control. It exists, but is maneagable. This is due to the resolve of the Federal Reserve Board.
If you look at my earlier posts, Lyndon Johnson browbeat the Fed of his day into cutting loose on monetary restraint, in effect, to inflate his way out of the cost of the war. The result was the wild inflation of the Carter years, which could only be corrected by the hard restraint of the early Reagan years, and the resluting recession. We must watch the Ded and support their efforts to stablize the currency. If we do that, we will not have another post-war inflation.
Joe Sullivan
Small rogue states and pirates can be dealt with by patrol type ships. like the coast guard uses not trillion dollar carriers.
The trouble with spending massive amounts on new carrier building is that the weapin system itself is as obsolete as the battleship was..
Battleships last made a differance in the battle off Juteland. Since then virtually all battleships sunk were sunk by planes! Yet America continued to use them clear up thru the gulf war! ships that cost more than a million dollars a day to operate and that does not count the cost of tomahawk missles ($1.1 million) or 16 inch shells $16,000 1945 dollars!
Planes can fly around the world within flight refueling and we no longer need to send carriers that cost in excess of $2 million dollars a day to operate to keep the sea lanes open..
Frenchy:L
It is unlikely that we will agree on military policy, or that anyone else will want to read our debate, so I will respectfully decline to respond concerning carriers.
Joe Sullivan,
What you just said in the post right above reflects my thoughts exactly. I like the Navy, heck I served t for 9 years and am extremely proud of my service. That does not mean I need to be blind to it's shortcomings..
You pointed them out well. Any career officer wants to someday run his own ship. the fewer big ships there are the less chance for promotion and advancement.
I could talk about the Airforce or Army but I never served so I speak only about things I understand.
Right now in the Navy there is some bright forward thinking officer who's figured out how to use pilotless drones or some other new technology to do a task currantly done by much more expensive systems. If he pushes too hard to realize those potential savings look at all those who will fight him.. Billy Mitchell was just that sort of person.. Look at what happened to his career and history proved him right!
President Eisenhauer warned us all about the military industrial complex. Carreer military officers allied with industrial might make a formable weapon (heck it won us WW2) but it can just as easily bankrupt us..
Our military budget must reflect both what we can afford and what we need.. like any decision it the end it winds up a compromise..
"Since then, virtually all battle ships sunk were sunk by planes!"
Have you made a comparison of the number of battle ships sunk by planes compared to the number sunk by submarines? Submarines can be pretty effective.
tinker2
Most battleships had pretty thick belt of armour for torpedo protection. While submarines had an impressive recording sinking shipping and lighter surface ships I stand by my general statement that most battleships were sunk by airplanes.. I could go look the exact details up for you but that stuff is all sealed up in the attic and will remain so untill spring..
Oh need to dig up the details. I was just wondering. I recall reading of a lone submarine in WWII that brought down a huge aircraft carrier on its maiden trip, and no allies realized it existed. I enjoy reading about WWII details as you must also.
Edited 2/13/2007 6:57 pm ET by tinkerer2
Tink, you got it correct, they caught her leaving the yards to go to another port for outfitting (I think under tow) and hit her with 4+ fish. If you get to Groton Ct, there is a plexi map of the Pacific with a white rising sun flag at every site that our ratty old diesel boats sank a merchantman , a rising sun with rays for the war ships and there is almost no clear space on the (bigger than 4x8') map. Our sub guys sank 80% of their merchant marine and 20% of their war ships at a cost of over 50 of our subs with 80 to 120 crew each. "...missing in action, presumed lost..." was the phrase in those days.
You should read "Blind Man's Bluff", it's more up to date in paper back, for a view to the game that my crowd played in the (hah) cold war. Let me know what ya think.
All the best, Paddy, MM-1(SS), world traveler, sailor extraordinary, teller of stories, able musician, singer of love songs, chef in the best traditions and trust worthy companion and guide for young women.
"the white rising sun"
Why don't the have the "white sinking" sun? Ha Ha. That would be interesting but I don't know if I'll ever get up Connecticut way again. I would like to get a large book that was fairly complete describing each major battle. Sounds like, for a young feller, that you are really well versed in that history. I was in third grade when Pearl Harbour occurred. At the time, my only thought was that we had to win that war. Since that time I've become interested in the details.
Edited 2/14/2007 6:46 pm ET by tinkerer2
Tink, ya only have a few on me, 07/04/1942, but I have put on some miles. Rode two old boats in trainning, qualified on a nuc fast attack + two or so years an did patrols on a polaris "boomer" (boring duty but good for married Johns or if you needed time to study). We have a dozen or so WWII guys still with us in my Sub-Vets org. and while we did some really tight business, these guys get OUR respect that borders on veneration. It's a small miracle that they surrived, they had true grit, that was a tough piece of business.
There are books about the war patrols and others like the Sea Owl. Check the Navy pubs . All the best, Paddy
Paddy,
Another submarine guy!! :-)
Used to have a next-door neighbor when I was stationed in CA that was a former nuke power tech on LA class boats out of way-North Scotland (Gold Crew). He told me that you sub guys look at the sea-going world in a little bit different way than the rest of us -- There are two kinds of boats: submarines and targets....
Yer landlubber friend in the desert...
;-)
.<!----><!----><!---->
Tschüß!<!----><!---->
<!----><!---->James<!----><!---->
<!----> <!---->
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that...."
--A.C. Clarke
James, yup, we do have a rather myopic or monocular view of the sea going world. We even have a tee shirt with a shadow graphic shape of a WWII boat and the text "There are only two types of ships" on the front and a large graphic of a freighter framed in the circular reticle(cross hairs) of a periscope view with the text"submarines and targets" on the back.
I actually wore it on a cruise on the Celibrity Century when we married off my eldest daughter in the botanical gardens in Jamica. Every day the oncoming officer of the deck( bridge watch) would tour topside prior to starting the noon to 1600 watch . One day he saw the shirt as we were at a topside bar getting our lunch libation and very politely asked me to refrain from wearing that shirt as it may cause some concern with older guests. I agreed and got a privat tour of the bridge on his watch.
BTW, the wedding was a smashing success with 19 wedding guests riding the boat and a total of 27 at the event. "Sadly" the other 300 aunts, uncles and assorted rug rats who we had never seen (and don't know) could not make it. I saved a bag full of dough so two weeks later I did fund a first class picnic - ribs, chicken, dogs, burgers and all drinks- catered, including another cake. A great time was had by all.
Enjoy, Paddy, the parsimonious.
ps. that was the first time that I rode a capital ship that I wasn't driving. pfh
Paddy,
I can see how the OOD might be a little concerned with your T-shirt.... But, it did get you the private tour of the bridge and (I presume) an opportunity to swap lies....er.....sea stories -- yeah, that's it: sea stories. ;-)
Took a tour of the Bowfin at Pearl Harbor several years ago; talk about cramped!!!! I've been told that accommodations are a bit better these days, but still pretty tight.... Don't know how you guys did that for 90+ days at a time....but am glad that there were/are those who thought/think that sort of thing's fun! (Then again, there are them loony-tunes -- like me -- that think that stuff like jumping out of one of the Air Force's perfectly good airplanes and touring the West German countryside in a 14-ton armored Winnebago is a good time.... No accounting for taste, eh?)
___
Your daughter's wedding sounds like it was a good time for all, even if the other 300 folks couldn't quite make it for the boat ride.... ;-)
Enjoying the snow? We got about 6 inches here -- nothing in comparison to what folks are getting in the Great Lakes Region and the NE -- but most of it has already melted.
<<ps. that was the first time that I rode a capital ship that I wasn't driving. pfh>>
Nice to be able to just ride every once in a while, isn't it?
.<!----><!----><!---->
Tschüß!<!----><!---->
<!----><!---->James<!----><!---->
<!----> <!---->
"I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that...."
--A.C. Clarke
James, micro snow here on Eastern Long Island but yesterday AM I had to chisel off a ¼" of ICE to get into my 150. PM temps -4 to -7, by 1400 it is 14 to 18F . My digs in E. TN were 52F this afternoon when I had a chat with my neighbor. A regular heat wave. I can't wait to get out of here. The good Lord willing. This is my LAST ugly winter. All the best, Paddy
Best of luck PADDY.
I've been thinking about moving south myself, Virginia or the Carolinas, to get more time in the shop. Either that or I'm going to have to get warmer!
Regards,Bob @ Kidderville Acres
A Woodworkers mind should be the sharpest tool in the shop!
Hi RJ/All,
I've got the same concerns - the debt owed by the US (and our country) will be called in at some stage, and I'm hoping that it's not in my childrens' lifetime. As a kid, I was brought up to save and pay cash, debt was a last resort. I shudder when I see how much national debt we owe - on a per capita basis, I think all of us owe about $50-60K at the moment.
When the debts are called in, I'd imagine that this will set a new world order.
What I found even more interesting was that this speech by Vladimir Putin made a two line commentary on our 5:00am news bulletin (ABC - the equivalent of the BBC over here) and nothing later in the day, while it didn't even rate a mention on our commercial channels.
This, I think, will set the tone of world affairs for the next few years.
article 1
article 2
article 3
google search on US response
Cheers (if this is the right word at the end of this one,)
eddie
MGMaxwell,
I certainly don't claim that China is perfect, far from it.. America can and will prosper with China's assent.. You see China's massive population needs to eat.. She never has been able to feed herself well and her whole 5000 + year history has gone from fiest to famine. As recently as the late 60's 30 million Chineese starved to death due to Moa's failure of the great leap forward. That little fact has been quietly hushed up.. It's what lead to her adaption of some capitlastic policies..
America is the bread basket of the world. We have excess capacity, land that is fallow because it's not profitable to grow on. If you drive thru the midwest you will note millions of nonproductive acres that given a market could once again be profitable..
China is adopting foolish economic principals because raw material is more important to her than pure business would seem practical..
She bought much of the Masaba Iron range here in Minnesota.. Iron mines that were closed because American firms could not produce a profit with them. China Mines the ore using American labor, ships it thru the great lakes, and to China, where it manufctures goods and sells them to the world including back here to Minnesota!
She does so while producing a profit!
Wages in China are rising rapidly.. If American wages rose as rapidly we'd all be making millions of dollars a year,, Store clerks would complain because they only earned 2 million last year! That increase has to catch up sooner or later. At this rate they will be in the same position Japan is inside less than a decade.
For the Mac users in Knots, it couldn't be easier to use symbols in your posts, particularly if you use the Safari browser.
Assuming you are in the posting box, just go to "Edit" and the last menu item will be "Special Characters…" Select it and a box will appear with all the typical symbols organized by category, e.g, Math, Arrows, Currency Accented Latin (a must!), etc. Select your character and click the "Insert button in the lower right corner of the window.
I have attached a screenshot of the window.
Hastings
That's interesting ................... but how do I "lift" them out and use them?I tried copy/paste, but it won't work.********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Nikkiwood:Are you using Safari as your browser?
Are you in the message posting window/page of Knots?If yes, then just go to the edit menu – special characters, choose the item and it will insert wherever your cursor happens to be: Here's an example? ?Å??Remeber you have to use the "insert" button; no copy/paste involved.If you're not using Safari, let me know what browser you are and I'll see if I can find how you would do it.Hastings
??¢?????????That seems to work fine, as long as I'm using Safari -- which I am now.But I use Firefox as my default, and these "special characters" don't seem to exist in the drop down Edit menu. Are they someplace else?Thanks for the help.EDIT: I just noticed that the symbols did not print above. What's up with that?********************************************************
"It is what we learn after we think we know it all, that counts."
John Wooden 1910-
Edited 2/11/2007 3:23 pm by nikkiwood
Nikkiwood:If you open the character palette in Safari, you can use it in Firefox to insert symbols and characters.
To get permanent access to the palette:
"To access Keyboard Viewer:
Choose Apple menu > System Preferences and click International.
Click Input Menu, then select the checkbox next to Keyboard Viewer.
Select the On checkbox next to the language whose keyboard layout you want to use.
Choose Show Keyboard Viewer from the Input menu on the right side of the menu bar (the one that looks like a flag)."
If you click on the US flag on the RHS of the menu bar it will allow you to toggle the character palette.Now many of the characters don't seem to render. I think the following will because they are ASCII:
$¢¢£¥????????I don't think the following symbols will work:©¯????????By following the above instructions, you can use FireFox and the Character Palette but not all the characters will show up on a browser because of the way they are encoded (a much more complicated topic).Hope this helps.Hastings
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