To be accurate, Foxconn manufactures the kindles, along with some of the competing devices. Amazon designs and distributes them. Ever hear of Gregg Zehr? He cut his teeth at Palm and runs Lab126, where the Kindle family originated. For his 10th anniversary with the company Amazon gave him a special employee badge with a red border. I doubt he has seen his first million.
I would imagine the Amazon Basics line also enriches the economy of China.
Hardware for MS has been a mixed bag. Apple's walled garden has done much better. Speaking of Foxcomm...
He STOLE the code from the competitor, and sold it to IBM. After he made hundreds of millions, he settled for a fraction of what he made (he settled out of court)..
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Ancient history. Gate was never a competent coder. He could barely write BASIC. Just another "They trust me, stupid fscks" The original author of DOS died from head injuries. They are still looking for the murderer. Does Gates own a hammer? []'s
Its more complicated than that with the produce of a simple product like that being able to produce a billionaire in the hands of some with their competitors not able to achieve that sort of result. Quite a bit of the time its as simple as producing a better product that appeals to more than their competitors were able to do. Most obviously with Coca Cola and Pepsi etc compared with the vast number of others who also produced similar products. Same with McDs and Walmart, all of which did better than the competition in very competitive industrys.
You may be 100% right. Or not. What we don't know is what would happen if the company was not sold? If the plan and benefits you had were sustainable for years, then yes, you got screwed. OTOH, if the company would have incurred a lot of loss and potentially went out of business, they you got some partial salvation.
I semi-retired when I was about 40 and spent a year as a Forest Service volunteer at a ranger station that was the home of the Northern Region's pack stock. I designed a couple of self cleaning irrigation diversion dams, helped to build a couple of mountain bike trails, worked on a nature trail, and the educational trail at the visitors center. The guys I worked with are retired or dead but I still go out and wander around. Some of the signage has been replaced as it deteriorated in the last 30 years, but the stock tanks, ditches, and so forth are still there.
I found it very satisfying. In my present job, the code I wrote twenty years ago is still in use. For better or worse. It's embarrassing when a support person asks you about a configuration option you added in 2002 and you draw a blank...
That's an anomaly for me. The code I wrote in the 70's and 80's is definitely gone since the companies I wrote it for are gone.
Ralph Mowery snipped-for-privacy@earthlink.net wrote
But that isnt necessarily so true later.
But generous benefits arent the only way to make an operation like that viable.
Because that industry changed over time with most of it now happening in china where they don't need to offer anything like the same very generous benefits.
That's why apple doesn't even make any hardware in the USA anymore.
Nothing like that percentage of what people wear is polyester.
And now mostly comes from china.
For better benefits or because they didn't like the work ?
And now its mostly done in china and the consumers get much cheaper products and the US economy still works very well indeed.
I was thinking of those that have a physical presence in the community. I try to find local sources for items but it is becoming difficult. Yesterday I wanted to get a MP3 player to listen to audiobooks at the gym. I went to Target first. When I asked the kid where the players were he directed me to a display with a few items. I'm old enough to recognize a cassette player when I see one; apparently the Gen Z drone wasn't.
So i walked across the street to BestBuy. They had one. By that, I mean they literally had one player on the rack. I guess everyone streams music on their phones now.
I bought it, but the next step would have been Amazon. I live in a relatively small market area and there never was much of a selection but Amazon certainly hasn't improved the situation.
That certainly is a mixed blessing. I will have to say that so far Amazon hasn't been heavy handed with censorship and the cancel culture. That's when it gets scary, when only the authors who meet the purity standards find a marketplace.
You misunderstood what I said about the 99.5%. It was suppose to mean that the same material that is in a soft drink bottle is the same material in the polyester clothes.
In many of the areas the job was watching or waiting most of the time. One area 2 people worked together. Unless something unusual was going on, one was in the break area half the time. That is the company rule was no one in the break areas the first or last hour. After that it was do whatever you wanted as long as the job was done. One area the people alternated about 50 minutes in the break area and 70 in the production area. Another area it was 30 on the job and 30 in the break area. Even on some of the jobs, that time was mainly just watching the process.
There were almost no jobs in the area that paid as much or had as many benefits for the average person. Most quit for 2 reasons. They could not handle the rotating shifts. Or they did not want to give up 3 weekends a month and miss many of the holidays with the families. 3/4 of the people had to work Christmas and/or Thanksgiving every year.
A dying breed nowadays except for the supply of food etc.
I only do that now when the need is urgent.
Because most have enough of a clue to use amazon now.
Fark, I use the phone for that and have done ever since I had more than a very basic stupid phone.
Plenty still put them on their phone and play them that way.
I only listen to podcasts when out walking for exercise but its very convenient to have the phone completely automatically download the latest podcast that interest me so I can choose which one I want to listen to next.
And can have the google home mini and echo dot or the phone play the latest when waiting for something to happen around the house too. And have them keep track of what I have listened to already with the phone.
I do it the other way, always use amazon or aliexpress or ebay first unless the need is very urgent with a repair etc.
Me too.
It has improved it dramatically on what I can buy easily.
Sure, but that’s always been true with publishing.
In fact I havent seen it do that at all.
There are always ways around that, most obviously with blogs. Even the most rabid like IS still get to publish.
We even say that rabid bigot in New Zealand do his execution of so many muslims do that online tho that has now in theory been prevented.
I never got into the mechanics but I believe you could select the asset allocation, which put some skin in the game. Then you could check your balance online, and also see how each asset was performing. During the dotcom bubble the market was volatile enough to make frequent checking interesting.
My traditional IRA was essentially a fixed interest CD. When the good times were rolling the 401K rate of return was higher. When the music stopped, not so much.
For me the IRA was about the tax deduction more than anything else. I knew the person at the bank and every year I would joke with her about moving money from one non-interest bearing account to another. She'd make suggestions but picking up 0.5% is hardly worth doing the paperwork.
The first year when savings bonds went to electronic only I bought one of the I series that was indexed to inflation. That sounded like a good idea at the time. I think I bought it in '98 or so so it might not be too bad.
The IRA has come back to bite me with the RMD. I don't want it and don't need it but I'm damned well going to get it.
No, not day trading, just crowing about his wisdom in selecting assets.
The Kochs and many others buy up companies with large cash reserves and strip them dry - then sell them to companies who see value in the bones. Once the bones have been rendered there is nothing left. In other words many of these companies have NO interest in operating the company and "earning" any money or "creating" any wealth. They just see an opportunity to put more money in their pockets and the pockets of their friends - the workers and small investors be damned.
You mean it produces about the same caliber of "C" code as many recently minted "C" programmers??? With processor power and ram so cheap today nobody puts the effort into writing compact efficient code any more. Or properly documenting theior code either.
But very relevant to whether they actually "create" wealth. Zehr designed it - and got squat. Foxcomm builds it - and makes a small pittance. Amazon advertizes, markets, and delivers it. - and Bezos makes a killing.
ANd has killed the North American publishing business. Virtually all their printing is done on Chinese printing presses by Chinese citizens, in China.
Come to think of it, we've got some C code in our software that's pushing 30. Some of our oldest code was the best designed and implemented, and has changed very little in those three decades.
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