Workshop In An Alternate Homepower Environment

Several people have indicated the Current Accounts Ballance of Payments [trade] deficit was meaningless.

Among other problems, accumulation of U.S. dollars allows the purchase of U.S. companies, and the transfer of U.S. jobs. See Reuters article below for details of how the jobs at Maytag were traded for cheap imports. Another example is the sale by IBM of their line of personal computers.

The problem is not with the Chinese, they are just good business men and take an opportunity when it is available. The problem is with the people who made the opportunity available.

How much tax revenues will be lost to the U.S. and how much of a hit will the taxpayer take through the PBGC on the pensions?

========== Reuters article follows ======= Haier, equity firms bid for Maytag

By Doug Young 36 minutes ago

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Top Chinese appliance maker Haier and private equity giants Bain and Blackstone have bid $1.28 billion for Maytag Corp., trumping Ripplewood's offer for the ailing U.S. corporation.

Haier's global ambitions would be boosted with the addition of Maytag, the maker of washing machines and Hoover vacuums that has fallen on tough times amid rising costs and competition from low-cost makers.

Maytag said in a statement released late on Monday in New York that it had received a preliminary bid of $16 a share from a consortium comprising Haier Group, Bain Capital and The Blackstone Group.

That would be about 14 percent higher than a $14 per share offer by U.S. buyout firm Ripplewood Holdings LLC., part of a consortium whose members include Goldman Sach's GS Capital Partners and the J. Rothschild Group.

Under the Haier proposal, due diligence is expected to take six to eight weeks to complete, Maytag said in its statement. The group would look to Merrill Lynch to provide debt financing, it added.

"We continue to support the Ripplewood transaction," Howard Clark, Maytag's lead director, said in a statement.

"However, we also believe that it is incumbent on us to pursue this possibility of achieving a higher price for our stockholders."

No official counter offer had been submitted yet, a source familiar with the matter told Reuters. Bain and Blackstone declined comment. Haier has said it was interested in Maytag, but a spokeswoman would not comment further on Tuesday.

"Chinese companies don't have brand equity outside of China," a Tokyo-based analyst said.

"To build that themselves, in the same way the Toyotas of the world do it, is pretty hard. It's the intangible assets they're buying."

THE LONG HAUL

Their competing bid would also mark the first major attempt at an international acquisition by Haier Group, a state conglomerate that controls Shanghai-listed Qingdao Haier Refrigerator Co. Ltd. and Hong Kong-listed Haier Electronics Group Co. Ltd.

Haier Electronics had climbed 2.6 percent to HK$0.198 by 0611 GMT, vastly outperforming the market's 0.21 percent dip.

Haier is probably willing to pay a premium for Maytag because it could keep the company over the longer term for its brand, while Ripplewood would be more likely to sell in the long run, the Tokyo-based analyst said.

The consortium, whose Haier component came from Haier America Trading LLC, had expressed its interest in the run-up to a deadline last Friday for competing offers.

Maytag shares closed up 7 cents at $15.23 in Monday trading in New York. Its shares are up about 5 percent since word first emerged last week that Haier and others were considering rival bids for the company.

Haier is a well-known name in China, commanding 26 percent of the domestic refrigerator market and 17 percent of the air conditioning market at the end of 2003.

It is also one of the nation's few brands to make headway in foreign markets, cornering nearly half the U.S. compact refrigerator market and more than half that for wine coolers.

OVERSEAS M&A

Haier's foray would follow similar moves by some of China's biggest firms as they look beyond their domestic strongholds.

Generally, Chinese companies have picked up struggling businesses in mature industries, hoping to use their growing prowess as low-cost manufacturers to turn those assets around.

Earlier this year, Lenovo Group Ltd. purchased the PC-making unit of IBM for $1.25 billion. It later brought in private equity firms Texas Pacific Group, General Atlantic LLC and Newbridge Capital LLC, which contributed $350 million as part of the deal.

TCL Corp. has also been active, buying the cellphone-making assets of France's Alcatel S.A. and the TV-making assets of France's Thomson

But the Chinese move abroad has also included some stumbles, such as an aborted takeover of struggling British carmaker MG Rover by top car maker Shanghai Automotive Industry Corp.

Oil company CNOOC Ltd. has expressed possible interest in U.S. oil company Unocal Corp., and China's Minmetals Corp. has expressed interest in Canadian mining firm Noranda Inc.

(Additional reporting by Godwin Chellam in Shanghai, Chawadee Nualkhair in Tokyo and Michael Flaherty in New York)

Reply to
F. George McDuffee
Loading thread data ...

And the doomsayers were saying this about Japan when a Japanese businessman bought pebble beach in the 80's. He subsequently sold it back to an American consoritium for a significant loss.

scott

(Note that quoting an entire article from reuters is not considered fair use. An excerpt, yes, but for the entire article you should have just included a URL.)

Reply to
Scott Lurndal

Found those "WMDs" yet?

Reply to
Cliff

Ah, a msoft zealot -- that explains it. In your previous posting you whined about no browser supporting bottom posting, yet as shown above, you recognize that Agent, as well as many other Usenet readers that were around before Saint Bill discovered the Internet conform to the bottom posting convention.

... snip

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Reply to
Mark & Juanita

Really? Now let's see you answer this post without separating the headers and the text and yet still bottom post. Show me how Agent supports this bottom posting garbage idea.

It will only take one more response to demo what a dumb idea bottom posting was. Try to attach your previous posts at the bottom while you are at it like you do in your emails you send.

Try a normal browser like OE and get rid of that piece of junk Agent.

Ah, a msoft zealot -- that explains it. In your previous posting you whined about no browser supporting bottom posting, yet as shown above, you recognize that Agent, as well as many other Usenet readers that were around before Saint Bill discovered the Internet conform to the bottom posting convention.

... snip

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----+

If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----+

Reply to
John P Bengi

Posting returned to usenet bottom-posting convention.

BTW, most "real" usenet reading software is smart enough to trim sig lines from the reply lines.

??? "separating the headers and the text?, what are you talking about? The headers of a posting are the routing and history information of the posting and associated book-keeping. The text is the body of the message.

Why do I want to do that? There is no reason to attach previous posts if the context of a message has been properly preserved in the thread.

Also note another pre-Saint Bill usenet convention -- interspersed comments within the posting. This helps preserve the dialog and keep comments with relevant context.

I'm done with this, I've got better things to do with my time. Feel free to post whatever ridicule you choose; have a nice life.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+ If you're gonna be dumb, you better be tough +--------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Reply to
Mark & Juanita

Because it is pure PC instead of science for starts. There are and have been air powered cars...they are lighter for a hybrid version than a battery hybrid.Since all you do is add a burner in most cases. Brayton cycle in a turbine ....Or rankine or sterling in a piston .

Reply to
Arnold Walker

Apparently you believe that "accounting" for energy production is somehow better than actually producing energy. Let's see how that works - 1kWhr is about enough to power a contractor grade table for 40 minutes. Or it might power a homeowner-grade MIG welder for 20 minutes. Still, that level of production might be sufficient for a putterer, except that in your case, you'd still need a five times larger inverter, and would then have to run the generator to power the house, having exhausted the day's production in but minutes of shop use.

Doing without, and getting the bulk of your energy from fuel that must be bought and hauled, isn't anything to be proud of for someone who claims to be a professional. I can't count the number of amateurs I know who've done better.

As I've said many times, I will *never* write anything you demand.

I've answered hundreds of emails from folks who are considering making the move to off-grid, and are curious to hear how that's worked out from someone who's already done it. The fact that I won't play along here under the pretense that you're an expert probably won't have much affect on their level of interest one way or another.

My setup provides virtually all the energy to power a "normally" equipped home. *That* is the part I find useful, not diddling with spreadsheets to "prove" something to a quack.

I *have* ten years experience. You've read from a respected regular that nothing is misrepresented. Your habit of denying the undeniable has made you a laughing stock.

Living off a propane and generator based system with a tiny solar supplement for all those years is only proof that you're satisfied to do something poorly for much longer than most. Living in a hot climate while claiming to be a master fabricator, yet failing after 20 years to build a simple solar water heating system is pathetic. Even so, no one would bother to call you on that feebleness except for the fact that you repeatedly indulge in gratuitous insults.

What "stands" is your boneheaded insistence on making a fool of yourself.

Now, do you have *anything* to say about off-grid workshops? No, I didn't think so.

Wayne

Reply to
wmbjk

Off hand, I can think of three ICE/battery hybrids currently selling in good numbers - Toyota Prius, and Honda Civic and Accord. Unless you can offer some similar examples of ICE/air hybrids, I'm going to stick with the notion that car manufacturers haven't found compressed air to be a competitive energy storage medium for automobiles.

Wayne

Reply to
wmbjk

One problem with this approach/attitude is that it ignores the human costs. This is actually 1,600 well paying manufacturing jobs affecting 1,500 or more families, and 14.8 million dollars in local tax revenues.

Second problem is that this gives the Chinese an opening wedge into the U.S. major appliance market with an existing brand and dealer network, directly threatening #1 Whirlpool with all the jobs and local taxes revenue they represent.

Third problem will not be come apparent for a few years when anguished messages are posted to these news groups lamenting that blanking and forming die tool makers and press set-up men are unavailable.

If this were an event that affected only a few players, I would be selling tickets. Unfortunately, this almost entirely affects only the average person with roots in their community and many years invested in learning a trade.

See these URLs for additional/background info

formatting link

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

A visit to Newton might provide some insights. Spending a bit of time inside Maytag's headquarters, R&D facility, and manufacturing areas might leave you wondering why it's taken so long for this to happen.

The threat to Whirlpool is certainly /possible/; but not a given. It will take a fair amount of time and a huge expenditure of resources to bring Maytag to the point where it's again sufficiently robust to threaten Whirlpool. It could happen, but only if Whirlpool management allows it to happen.

This seems like a logical conclusion - but it might be worth investigating to find out how many of these people Maytag directly employs and what their average age is...

Hmm. I'm not sure how you've reached your conclusion; but my own opinion (formed by direct observation) is that it's unlikely that the Chinese will value the current Maytag employees less than the old management. The major differences, I suspect, will be that outsourced operations will be relocated from Germany and Mexico to the Pacific Rim.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

formatting link

Reply to
Morris Dovey

==========

=================== To put it another way -- If you are going Vegas or Atlantic City, it is expected that you will use your own money to gamble. If you use the company's money and are discovered you go to jail. Even if you win, the winnings belong to the company and not to you [common law master/servant rule] .

The way it is now, individuals are making high stakes bets, and keeping the winnings if they win and making other people eat the losses if the lose.

If I sell you a machine that I don't own and keep the money for myself and get caught, I will be put in jail and the legal owner can recover the machine. Why is it any different with a corporation? What will the individual managers of Maytag lose by this move after they have run the company into the ground? How many collected bonuses over the last few years? How much will the US taxpayers have to pony up for the pensions?

Reply to
F. George McDuffee

Lose? Nothing at all. Their resumes will reflect that they brokered a desirable transfer of ownership on behalf of their shareholders.

Lotsa bonus dollars paid out. Not sure what'll happen to the value of Ralph Hakes' million dollar home in Newton (probably don't need to tell you that a million dollar home in a small town in Iowa bears astonishingly little resemblance to a million dollar home in say, San Francisco or Fairfax), but doubt that he's too concerned about real estate values at the moment.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

formatting link

Reply to
Morris Dovey

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----+

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----+

Reply to
John P Bengi

You can't get anything right can you. First, I am an American. Born and raised in San Diego.

Second, I can and have outlined my energy use for for all resources.

The assumptions you make are the fiction. You do not know what your system does. You copied a design and when it failed to work you doubled the solar and wind input.

Being able to account for energy use is simply the result of knowing what you are doing.

A "putterer" is one who claims he can use a MIG welder in both directions. Please note Wayne that the direction to run a MIG torch is in the direction of the gas flow. A MIG torch is not, as you seem to think, a hot melt glue gun.

A "putterer" does not hold a ticket for "Unlimited Thickness Structuial Steel" So what's your ticket.

My work shop use has no effect on the house system as there is no connection between them.

My fuel use is, Petrol, 20 L per fortnight(14 days) This runs the Gen set of course, also the tractor, motorcycle and chainsaw.

Yes I use wood and propane in the house. So what?

So, yes I can account for my entire energy use.

Is this important? Yes.

Why?

Because if you dont know what is going in or what is going out you don't know what your system is doing. Which is really just not knowing what you are doing.

Tell the truth Wayne, you can't post what you don't know.

God help them.

So you claim.

Nothing is represented.

Ah well, you see I do have a simple solar hot water system. What I do not have yet is the parbolic system.

Off grid workshops, as I have said already, are as indivdual as the people who use them. Asking for advice, which can only be generic at best, is fine but in the end the workshop must meet your needs, not Wayne's needs or George's needs.

My most commonly used tool is a drill. I use battery drills with leads because they are readily avaliable. I have six at the moment. With an eighteen A/hour gell cell and two battery drills I can install a 5kW system on site in two days.

As most of my solar work is on site what good would a huge solar power system at home do me. Can't drag that around with me can I?

As for my welder, why build a system big enough to run it for perhaps five hours a month.

The reason I have the generator is because I bought it to build the house. It is still serviceable and portable.

No Wayne your nonsense is just that. Nonsense.

You and I both run what we need to run.

The difference is that I do it by design and know what goes in and out. I know I have five days autonomy at my daily load

You built a system then doubled the solar and wind to make it work and still don't know why. You think you have two days autonomy at some airy fairy reduced load.

The warning about your advice still stands as valid.

Reply to
George Ghio

LOL. well said but trolls never listen. They just become more hostile and more trolly.

Reply to
John P Bengi

Okay, I can see that you've made up your mind based on faulty premises, and don't want to be confused with the real facts...

I have several copies of Microsloth Outleak Exploder, and two legally licensed copies of full Outlook that came with Microsoft Office. I've tried using them. They are both the biggest pieces of non-intuitive crap software to ever be shipped out of Redmond WA, and they've never really fixed it.

Agent may be "a piece of junk" in your misguided opinion, but at least it is designed to do it's job and it does it well. And when updates are needed, the programmers make them rapidly. And all the default settings for Agent are correct out of the box, it won't do anything stupid unless you change the options and tell it to.

As the "defacto" software that comes pre-installed on the computer for the sheeple who can't be bothered to find anything better, MSOE is a virus and trojan exploit magnet for all the skript kiddies out there trying to hack into other peoples' systems. As an example, I offer the "Preview Pane" that would cheerfully run any binary that appeared there, including executable programs... You have to go manually make sure that option is turned off before allowing the program anywhere near the Net.

And MSOE helpfully self-destructs on a regular basis - if your news server ever has problems where it loses it's spool hard drive and even once reports "this newsgroup does not exist", Outlook Express cheerfully deletes all your newsgroups and all the saved messages from the local computer hard drive. If the news server says the group does not exist anymore it /must/ be true, it can't be a momentarily hosed server.

Go try a few other programs before you keep praising MSOE. You might be surprised that there are other good coders out there.

And if you have nothing else constructive to offer on the subject in response, I'll stop poking the troll here and gladly let you have the last word. And you can wander off and check the stock ticker to see how your Microsoft stock is doing.

-->--

Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

Bullshit. If you REALLY worked for a 'medium sized generation company' you would have known that.

It was 110 then started climbing. It was most likely even below the 110 level many years ago. As more and more load was added to existing networks, the voltage HAD to climb in order to provide more power on the same distribution lines. It's a money saving move by the generation/distribution companies.

When there is low network loading here, the line voltage will climb to 127 volts. During peak demand, it will go down to 110 to 115 volt range.

snipped rest of very suspicious posting..

Reply to
m II

I have noticed a few things about this.

1) I tried Agent for a month or so and it feels like running a MSDos programme, primitive and non-intuitive. I am not willing to pay for this functionality. OE is free without hacking.

2) The people that seem to always have problems with threading or posting readability are almost always Agent users. For posting binaries it is a much better machine, I am sure.

3) I have never had a virus scanner installed on my system in the 20 odd years I have been using MS op-systems. I have used a virus scanner the odd time but never required a full time scanner and the targetabilty is only because the results could be seen with such a popular browser. Once Agent becames more popular it will become a target also.

4) no browser I have ever heard of or seen support bottom posting. They all separate the p[osted text from the posted header. Threading browsers have made the top down posting style obsolete in the 80s. Who ever puts their attachments of previous posts before their text. Do you do this in an email? The previous posts are all in the thread and available to anybody wanted to review the previous posts. The arguments for bottom posting are all moot.

Other than that, thanx for your polite >

Reply to
John P Bengi

John P Bengi expostulated:

| Really? Now let's see you answer this post without separating the | headers and the text and yet still bottom post. Show me how Agent | supports this bottom posting garbage idea.

With a little help from a package called "quote-fix", this is how OE can deal with that challenge. It's available free at .

One of the things that I've liked about it is that it displays each person's quoted text in a different color, to make it easier to follow interspersed comments.

-- Morris Dovey DeSoto Solar DeSoto, Iowa USA

formatting link

Reply to
Morris Dovey

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.