Pricepoint is gone :-(

On 8/30/2016 7:03 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, August 29, 2016 at 7:19:09 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Perhaps more significantly, the rule isn't "Joerg dug the internet and
found an exception, so all other data has to be thrown out."

Joerg's modus operandi all along has been to either find or claim some
exception to dominant data, and pretend that's all that matters. But
that's just not how things are decided.

He makes some valid points, but [...] The trope that everyone else is an idiot and "doesn't get it" has
become a central plank in the uber-conservative, Post-Tea Party
Republican platform.
-- Jay Beattie.

I thought that was the central plank of USENET.

Mark J.

On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 07:08:51 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2016-08-29 19:15, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 29 Aug 2016 10:29:24 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2016-08-26 17:20, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 07:29:17 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2016-08-25 18:49, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 10:19:34 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

[...]



I would suggest that a few days/months/years of this might convert a
person to a "sell 'em what they ask for" sales person.


I'd probably try to find some other job.


My limited experience is that the average boy or girl tends to get in
a rut, so to speak. "I get paid every Friday. Why change?"


That sort of rut is a recipe for a seriously stalled career.
\

Those people don't have a "career" they have a job, and that is all
they will ever have.


That is a sorry state of affairs. Not just for them but also the country
if most of them are like that. I hope not.

Do you know what "Labor Unions" are?


But why would you ask, one might wonder. Can't you look at a bottom
end and tell what sort of bearings are in there?


Once people get older that would require a strong flashlight and a head
loupe or really strong glasses. Unless mentioned in the spec sheet like
when I bought my MTB.

Come on! I am older and I wear bi-focal's and I can tell what sort of
bottom bracket is there just by looking.


The type, yes, but not the exact model or quality grade. However, no all
cyclists are techies and they still often want to know whether it's
sealed cartridge bearings in there or not.

Quality? On a bicycle? My experience has been that the best bicycles
have standard quality bearings on them.


There can be huge quality difference today. Back in the 80's, different
story. Once I had equipped one of my road bikes with Torrington bearings
the BB never failed again.

But Torrington was not any different form the other major bearing
company they made bearings for industry. If the original bearings
failed than it would indicate that your bike was either fitted with
less than standard quality or improperly adjusted or lubricated,
bearings.


[...]


It has always been my point of view that as the Romans said, "Caveat
emptor" and it was my responsibility to find out everything I needed
to know before I laid my money down.


Which is the core reason why I buy tires and such online. The dealer do
not carry what I need. They used to but not anymore.

My experience has been that Dealers carry products that they can sell
at a profit.


My experience is that some (or in a few markets a lot) of the dealers
never really figure this out. Which sends people like me online. Same
for other high-mileage cyclists. As a sum that's a lot of money the LBS
are leaving on the table because those folks buy 5-10 tires, chains and
so on in one quick swoop. Nowadays it's so easy, you click it together,
click checkout and seconds later a confirmation is in the inbox. Like
this weekend where that took two minutes, I consequently didn't have to
ride all the way into town and instead could enjoy a nice road bike
ride. With a pint and growler stop, of course.

We could ask Andrew who has, apparently, been in business longer than
the average man has existed, but my guess is that the dealer who
doesn't sell what the majority of his customers want is not in
business for very long.

As for bulk purchase that only effects cash flow - gives a bit more
cash today - and doesn't effect profits at all.


Sure it does because if you don't have these tires the people won't even
come through the door. The fact is, if you do not stock those kinds of
products and our LBS usually don't, you lose business opportunity.
Because the folks who want those products will get them. Old American
saying: "If you don't take care of your customer, somebody else will".

In other words, you are saying that if a shop doesn't stock the rock
bottom, lowest quality tires that they can find then the have to close
down?

Strange then that Andrew brags that Yellow Jersey has been open every
day since 1971... i.e., in business for nearly half a century and the
last time I looked they didn't sell Vee tires. My LBS, the largest
bike dealer in Bangkok. doesn't sell Vee tires, and the shop I deal
with in Phuket - perhaps the oldest specialized road bike shop on the
island - doesn't sell Vee tires.

The two Thai shops seem to be busier then ever and the last time
Andrew mentioned it I believe he implied that business was better.

When do you anticipate these shops will fail?


SNIPPED
Yes, but it doesn't for very long. Witness Japan. After WW II their
growth was phenomenal. First they went for the cheap, crude stuff and
as they flourished economically they also progressed technically until
the surpassed the Western nations both in prices and quality. Then
China came along and followed the same route, first the crude cheap
stuff that sells in volume and, even today, they are moving into the
higher quality, more technical products. Nearly all cellular phones
are manufactured in China, for example, and HuiWea, a totally Chinese
company, now makes what I believe is the best selling (in China) hand
phone.


Pretty soon it'll move to other places such as Vietnam. Steel products
are already going there.

A German poltiician once summed up concisely what it means when a
country has a high cst of living but no minerals or other mineable
deposits in the ground: "What you don't have in the ground you have to
have in your noggin".

Not exactly true. Thailand has little mineral wealth and its economy
is based on agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, tourism, electronics,
etc.
--
cheers,

John B.

On Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 6:54:01 PM UTC-7, Mark J. wrote:
On 8/30/2016 7:03 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, August 29, 2016 at 7:19:09 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Perhaps more significantly, the rule isn't "Joerg dug the internet and
found an exception, so all other data has to be thrown out."

Joerg's modus operandi all along has been to either find or claim some
exception to dominant data, and pretend that's all that matters. But
that's just not how things are decided.

He makes some valid points, but [...] The trope that everyone else is an idiot and "doesn't get it" has
become a central plank in the uber-conservative, Post-Tea Party
Republican platform.
-- Jay Beattie.

I thought that was the central plank of USENET.

On 8/30/2016 9:21 PM, jbeattie wrote:
On Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 1:17:53 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2016-08-30 07:41, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/30/2016 10:03 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, August 29, 2016 at 7:19:09 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Perhaps more significantly, the rule isn't "Joerg dug the internet and
found an exception, so all other data has to be thrown out."

Joerg's modus operandi all along has been to either find or claim some
exception to dominant data, and pretend that's all that matters. But
that's just not how things are decided.

He makes some valid points, but its amazing how he is the only one who
understands complex issues of public health, taxation, global markets,
etc., etc. -- all from the comfort of his gnarly trails in suburban
Cameron Park. The trope that everyone else is an idiot and "doesn't
get it" has become a central plank in the uber-conservative, Post-Tea
Party Republican platform. It's very tiring, particularly when it
comes from people who struggle to complete a 1040EZ and whose response
to complex issues is "fu** that! We're building a wall!"

Indeed. Regarding the economic ideas Joerg spouts: I just finished
reading _Foolproof_ by Greg Ip. It went into exhaustive detail about
the unintended effects of monetary policies over the ages.

The major point I gleaned was that monetary policies and tactics are
blindingly complex. Teams of people with advanced degrees and decades
of research experience work at it as their full time jobs, yet get
things wrong. This is proven by thins by things like bank failures,
national level defaults and the Great Recession.

Meanwhile, others whose only instruction comes from Rush Limbaugh (or
Bernie Sanders) claim to have all the answers.


No, in my case from experience. I am in no way an economics expert but
the fact is:

About two years before the ral estate bubble burst I warned loudly about
the danger in all those high-Dollar adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) and
the way they are traded. Even on Usenet I voiced that. The typical
response was that I should stick to engineering because "obviously"
financial stuff isn't my turf and blah-blah. A classical example was a
realtor. Not just any realtor but a top achiever. I told her this will
all blow, people will lose their homes and then much of their retirement
savings when it hits stocks. She told me jokingly I have the typical
paranoia of someone born in Germany. A couple of years later ... _they_
lost their own home to the bank! Then the stock market came crashing
down. People we knew had to move out and downsize. Not because they
wanted to like we will some day but because their personal financial
situation had become precarious.

I had a lot of respect for Alan Greenspan. That and my respect for Ben
Bernanke has all but evaporated because those guys didn't see it coming.
It was their job to see it coming and if I as a non-financial guy saw it
coming it could not have been that hard.

Yes, monetary policy making is complex. However, first the top brass
tasked with that job needs to understand that when they see a financial
funnel cloud in the distance they ought to do something. And if they
can't see it pick another job or at least hire people who can see it.


So, are you or are you not for the free market? Are you a krypto-socialist? Why should the Fed tighten the money supply to control one segment of the market? Why should bank regulators prevent people from getting whatever POS neg-am ARM they want to buy their dream house. Why should we tell Lehman Brothers that they can't trade in super-arcane derivatives?

Notwithstanding all the hype surrounding the big short, many people saw the collapse coming. My sister was building CMOs years before the crash, and her job was, among other things, evaluating giant portfolios of mortgages. Her company would bundle them up and sell them off in tranches like a giant **** parfait. She got all the brains in the family and could give you a graduate class in banking and finance, and when she told me how credit default swaps worked way before the crash, I couldn't believe it. Everyone was just gambling, and everyone knew that everyone was just gambling. And we ended up covering their bets by bailing out AIG, among others.

The book I mentioned above (_Foolproof_ by Greg Ip) goes a long way
toward explaining the conundrum faced by regulators. Simplifying
tremendously, it sort of comes down to this:

There are two competing philosophies regarding national or international
level economics. One team feels that governments should do whatever's
necessary to provide stability and reasonable economic growth. That
usually means adjusting interest rates, printing money tinkering with
how different currencies traded against each other, guaranteeing bank
deposits, etc. In extreme cases, it can mean bailing out banks and such.

The second team feels the government should essentially stay out of
things. They accept the notion that of _course_ there will be periodic
bursting of bubbles, periodic recessions, etc. Of _course_ there will
be time after time that people will lose homes, lose jobs, lose their
retirement investments, etc. That's the price you pay for higher
average economic growth in the long term.

The problem with the first idea, according to Ip, is that long periods
of economic stability induce a form of risk compensation. Riskier and
riskier investment mechanisms appear, because hey, look how long it's
been since a depression! Everything will be OK! But when a recession
hits, it can be a big one.

The problem with the second idea, according to Ip, is that you get much
more frequent recessions, although they tend to be less extreme and come
with quicker recoveries. And, I suppose, few democratically elected
officials want to have even a small recession during their watch.

Is he correct? That question's beyond my pay grade, as they say. But
it's obvious that there are _lots_ of brilliant economic experts, with
_lots_ of very logical analyses. Trouble is, they're all different!

To me, it seems like trying to predict the effects of an economic
strategy are like trying to predict the details of a chess game. There
are just too many moving parts to allow thorough understanding and
generate perfect predictions.

It does get a little weird when the undereducated peanut gallery says
things like "I know exactly what's best! Just get the government out of
the economy! Because the government should have stopped that recession!"

--
- Frank Krygowski

On 2016-08-30 18:21, jbeattie wrote:
On Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 1:17:53 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2016-08-30 07:41, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/30/2016 10:03 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, August 29, 2016 at 7:19:09 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Perhaps more significantly, the rule isn't "Joerg dug the
internet and found an exception, so all other data has to be
thrown out."

Joerg's modus operandi all along has been to either find or
claim some exception to dominant data, and pretend that's all
that matters. But that's just not how things are decided.

He makes some valid points, but its amazing how he is the only
one who understands complex issues of public health, taxation,
global markets, etc., etc. -- all from the comfort of his
gnarly trails in suburban Cameron Park. The trope that everyone
else is an idiot and "doesn't get it" has become a central
plank in the uber-conservative, Post-Tea Party Republican
platform. It's very tiring, particularly when it comes from
people who struggle to complete a 1040EZ and whose response to
complex issues is "fu** that! We're building a wall!"

Indeed. Regarding the economic ideas Joerg spouts: I just
finished reading _Foolproof_ by Greg Ip. It went into exhaustive
detail about the unintended effects of monetary policies over the
ages.

The major point I gleaned was that monetary policies and tactics
are blindingly complex. Teams of people with advanced degrees
and decades of research experience work at it as their full time
jobs, yet get things wrong. This is proven by thins by things
like bank failures, national level defaults and the Great
Recession.

Meanwhile, others whose only instruction comes from Rush Limbaugh
(or Bernie Sanders) claim to have all the answers.


No, in my case from experience. I am in no way an economics expert
but the fact is:

About two years before the ral estate bubble burst I warned loudly
about the danger in all those high-Dollar adjustable rate mortgages
(ARM) and the way they are traded. Even on Usenet I voiced that.
The typical response was that I should stick to engineering because
"obviously" financial stuff isn't my turf and blah-blah. A
classical example was a realtor. Not just any realtor but a top
achiever. I told her this will all blow, people will lose their
homes and then much of their retirement savings when it hits
stocks. She told me jokingly I have the typical paranoia of someone
born in Germany. A couple of years later ... _they_ lost their own
home to the bank! Then the stock market came crashing down. People
we knew had to move out and downsize. Not because they wanted to
like we will some day but because their personal financial
situation had become precarious.

I had a lot of respect for Alan Greenspan. That and my respect for
Ben Bernanke has all but evaporated because those guys didn't see
it coming. It was their job to see it coming and if I as a
non-financial guy saw it coming it could not have been that hard.

Yes, monetary policy making is complex. However, first the top
brass tasked with that job needs to understand that when they see a
financial funnel cloud in the distance they ought to do something.
And if they can't see it pick another job or at least hire people
who can see it.


So, are you or are you not for the free market? Are you a
krypto-socialist? Why should the Fed tighten the money supply to
control one segment of the market? Why should bank regulators
prevent people from getting whatever POS neg-am ARM they want to buy
their dream house. Why should we tell Lehman Brothers that they
can't trade in super-arcane derivatives?


You of all people, being an attorney, should know better. The laws are
on the books and they are usually good laws. The laws are not
"krypto-socialist", they are American. These were broken. Read IX
(Acknowledgement) he

https://www.freeandclear.com/resourc...tion-form-1003

Signing that while full well knowing that the income statement is bogus
constitutes fraud. The same applies to the loan officer if he lets it go
through while knowing that the applicants lied. Often they enticed them
to lie which is criminal behavior and should be prosecuted as such.
Regarding those who were elected or appointed to serve the public:

1. Bureaucrats and public leaders didn't know this was happening
blatantly while almost everyone else knew what was going on - Then they
should be fired.

2. Bureaucrats and public leaders did know this was happening blatantly
but decided to look the other way - Then they should be fired.

This is the same as H1B where everyone laments it's being abuse and a
bad law. Baloney. It is super easy to verify when the law is not
followed and then do something about it. Yet nobody does it.


Notwithstanding all the hype surrounding the big short, many people
saw the collapse coming. My sister was building CMOs years before
the crash, and her job was, among other things, evaluating giant
portfolios of mortgages. Her company would bundle them up and sell
them off in tranches like a giant **** parfait. She got all the
brains in the family and could give you a graduate class in banking
and finance, and when she told me how credit default swaps worked way
before the crash, I couldn't believe it. Everyone was just gambling,
and everyone knew that everyone was just gambling. And we ended up
covering their bets by bailing out AIG, among others.


I a glad I don't have a sister engaged in "business" like that.


Anyway, your friends probably walked away from their house rather
than paying their mortgage. They probably got underwater when the
bubble popped, and like so may other people, the didn't want to pay a
$500K mortgage on a $250K house -- and because they had a neg-am loan
or some no-down loan, they had no skin in the game. Meh. We'll get
an apartment. I don't feel sorry for those people. They made a
choice, and the bank paid the price. They're luck that residential
mortgage loans are non-recourse.


They did not simply walk away, it took a business down with it as well.


By the way, sounds to me like you need to vote Clinton because The
Donald wants to do away with Dodd-Frank.
http://fortune.com/2016/05/18/trump-...k-wall-street/ Now that
you're into market regulation, you need to get on board the blue
train.


Her husband pushed the Community Reinvestment Act through which is to a
large extent to blame for the mortgage meltdown.

I am not saying Republicans are blameless in this whole deal because
they aren't. Fact is, this kind of stuff is among the reasons why voters
these days are sick and tired of the establishment on both sides of the
aisle.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On 2016-08-30 18:42, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:17:53 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2016-08-30 07:41, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/30/2016 10:03 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, August 29, 2016 at 7:19:09 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Perhaps more significantly, the rule isn't "Joerg dug the internet and
found an exception, so all other data has to be thrown out."

Joerg's modus operandi all along has been to either find or claim some
exception to dominant data, and pretend that's all that matters. But
that's just not how things are decided.

He makes some valid points, but its amazing how he is the only one who
understands complex issues of public health, taxation, global markets,
etc., etc. -- all from the comfort of his gnarly trails in suburban
Cameron Park. The trope that everyone else is an idiot and "doesn't
get it" has become a central plank in the uber-conservative, Post-Tea
Party Republican platform. It's very tiring, particularly when it
comes from people who struggle to complete a 1040EZ and whose response
to complex issues is "fu** that! We're building a wall!"

Indeed. Regarding the economic ideas Joerg spouts: I just finished
reading _Foolproof_ by Greg Ip. It went into exhaustive detail about
the unintended effects of monetary policies over the ages.

The major point I gleaned was that monetary policies and tactics are
blindingly complex. Teams of people with advanced degrees and decades
of research experience work at it as their full time jobs, yet get
things wrong. This is proven by thins by things like bank failures,
national level defaults and the Great Recession.

Meanwhile, others whose only instruction comes from Rush Limbaugh (or
Bernie Sanders) claim to have all the answers.


No, in my case from experience. I am in no way an economics expert but
the fact is:

About two years before the ral estate bubble burst I warned loudly about
the danger in all those high-Dollar adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) and
the way they are traded. Even on Usenet I voiced that. The typical
response was that I should stick to engineering because "obviously"
financial stuff isn't my turf and blah-blah. A classical example was a
realtor. Not just any realtor but a top achiever. I told her this will
all blow, people will lose their homes and then much of their retirement
savings when it hits stocks. She told me jokingly I have the typical
paranoia of someone born in Germany. A couple of years later ... _they_
lost their own home to the bank! Then the stock market came crashing
down. People we knew had to move out and downsize. Not because they
wanted to like we will some day but because their personal financial
situation had become precarious.


But that wasn't what happened at all.


Sure it was.


... If you had bought a, say 5 room
- 3 bedrooms, living room, kitchen/dining room - house at rates that
you could afford than you had no problems whatsoever.
It was the people that fell for the line about "don't worry about the
mortgage as the house will appreciate to cover it" that got burned.


ARM means "adjustable". Lenders would pushed borrowers saying "Look, we
give you this great rate. After x years it'll adjust to market rate" ...
"But I would never be able to afford paying market rate!" ... "Ah, but
don't worry, by that time your house is worth at least 30% more, you can
sell and make a nice big profit".


But more to the point, I read an article at least one year and
probably a year and a half, before the crash, about a woman in San
Francisco (I think) who had abandoned her house as the market had
fallen to the point that the equity she had was less than the market
value and the mortgage payments were higher than she could rent for.

But people kept buying....

It is said that "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it
drink" and it is also said, and equally true, that "a fool and his
money are soon parted".


However, horses do not commit fraud by lying about their income on the
mortgage papers. Although I am sure that Ivan, whom I visited on an MTB
ride yesterday, would have done it for baby carrots (I always bring a
bunch for him).


I had a lot of respect for Alan Greenspan. That and my respect for Ben
Bernanke has all but evaporated because those guys didn't see it coming.
It was their job to see it coming and if I as a non-financial guy saw it
coming it could not have been that hard.

But they did see it coming and, if I remember, protested about the
government drive on housing for poor folk and the resulting government
guaranteed loans that only an fool would have made. Had it not been
for Fanny Mae there would have been no problem.


They did not see it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/22/bu...ipts.html?_r=0

Quote (Bernanke speaking) ""I should say that this comes as a surprise
to me," he said. "I very much expected that we could stay at 2 percent
for a long time, and then when the economy began to recover, we could
begin to normalize interest rates".

I could not believe it.

[...]

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On 2016-08-30 19:16, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 07:08:51 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2016-08-29 19:15, John B. wrote:
On Mon, 29 Aug 2016 10:29:24 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2016-08-26 17:20, John B. wrote:
On Fri, 26 Aug 2016 07:29:17 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2016-08-25 18:49, John B. wrote:
On Thu, 25 Aug 2016 10:19:34 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

[...]



I would suggest that a few days/months/years of this might convert a
person to a "sell 'em what they ask for" sales person.


I'd probably try to find some other job.


My limited experience is that the average boy or girl tends to get in
a rut, so to speak. "I get paid every Friday. Why change?"


That sort of rut is a recipe for a seriously stalled career.
\

Those people don't have a "career" they have a job, and that is all
they will ever have.


That is a sorry state of affairs. Not just for them but also the country
if most of them are like that. I hope not.

Do you know what "Labor Unions" are?


Yes, the source of a lot of evil things. Such as strict seniority rules
where job performance does not matter one iota. One of the reason why
California schools are expensive but mostly just mediocre or sometimes
really bad.


But why would you ask, one might wonder. Can't you look at a bottom
end and tell what sort of bearings are in there?


Once people get older that would require a strong flashlight and a head
loupe or really strong glasses. Unless mentioned in the spec sheet like
when I bought my MTB.

Come on! I am older and I wear bi-focal's and I can tell what sort of
bottom bracket is there just by looking.


The type, yes, but not the exact model or quality grade. However, no all
cyclists are techies and they still often want to know whether it's
sealed cartridge bearings in there or not.

Quality? On a bicycle? My experience has been that the best bicycles
have standard quality bearings on them.


There can be huge quality difference today. Back in the 80's, different
story. Once I had equipped one of my road bikes with Torrington bearings
the BB never failed again.

But Torrington was not any different form the other major bearing
company they made bearings for industry. If the original bearings
failed than it would indicate that your bike was either fitted with
less than standard quality or improperly adjusted or lubricated,
bearings.


Sure. Bikes were often equipped with inferior stuff back than and some
of those habits still haven't changed. Bikes have a long way to go to
achieve the quality level of, for example, a Japanese car.


[...]


It has always been my point of view that as the Romans said, "Caveat
emptor" and it was my responsibility to find out everything I needed
to know before I laid my money down.


Which is the core reason why I buy tires and such online. The dealer do
not carry what I need. They used to but not anymore.

My experience has been that Dealers carry products that they can sell
at a profit.


My experience is that some (or in a few markets a lot) of the dealers
never really figure this out. Which sends people like me online. Same
for other high-mileage cyclists. As a sum that's a lot of money the LBS
are leaving on the table because those folks buy 5-10 tires, chains and
so on in one quick swoop. Nowadays it's so easy, you click it together,
click checkout and seconds later a confirmation is in the inbox. Like
this weekend where that took two minutes, I consequently didn't have to
ride all the way into town and instead could enjoy a nice road bike
ride. With a pint and growler stop, of course.

We could ask Andrew who has, apparently, been in business longer than
the average man has existed, but my guess is that the dealer who
doesn't sell what the majority of his customers want is not in
business for very long.

As for bulk purchase that only effects cash flow - gives a bit more
cash today - and doesn't effect profits at all.


Sure it does because if you don't have these tires the people won't even
come through the door. The fact is, if you do not stock those kinds of
products and our LBS usually don't, you lose business opportunity.
Because the folks who want those products will get them. Old American
saying: "If you don't take care of your customer, somebody else will".

In other words, you are saying that if a shop doesn't stock the rock
bottom, lowest quality tires that they can find then the have to close
down?


Possibly so. Example: The Golden Spoke shop in Placerville did not carry
29" tires with thick sidewalls. Therefore, I never bought tires there.
Neither did any of my buddies. Early this year the shop went under :-(


Strange then that Andrew brags that Yellow Jersey has been open every
day since 1971... i.e., in business for nearly half a century and the
last time I looked they didn't sell Vee tires. My LBS, the largest
bike dealer in Bangkok. doesn't sell Vee tires, and the shop I deal
with in Phuket - perhaps the oldest specialized road bike shop on the
island - doesn't sell Vee tires.

The two Thai shops seem to be busier then ever and the last time
Andrew mentioned it I believe he implied that business was better.

When do you anticipate these shops will fail?


A shop can survive when they offer good service. Several LBS owners told
me they'd have gone belly up if it wasn't for all those people coming in
with department store bikes needing service.

But hey, all I want is good durable tires at a reasonable price. It
doesn't have to be under $20 but it should also not be more than $30 or
I want to see well above 500mi service life. I simply found that Vee
Rubber MTB tires last the longest with my riding style and terrain. The
TrailTaker tire currently on there got at least a dozen goat's heads
yesterday. I needed the Swiss army knife to get them out yet ... no
flat. The tread in the middle is almost gone yet the sidewalls are still
in excellent shape. When I was riding Hutchinson and other expensive
tires they often disintegrated in the sidewalls before the tread was
even half down. So yeah, if a shop doesn't have Vee Rubber or Geax tires
I won't buy any there. Simple.


SNIPPED
Yes, but it doesn't for very long. Witness Japan. After WW II their
growth was phenomenal. First they went for the cheap, crude stuff and
as they flourished economically they also progressed technically until
the surpassed the Western nations both in prices and quality. Then
China came along and followed the same route, first the crude cheap
stuff that sells in volume and, even today, they are moving into the
higher quality, more technical products. Nearly all cellular phones
are manufactured in China, for example, and HuiWea, a totally Chinese
company, now makes what I believe is the best selling (in China) hand
phone.


Pretty soon it'll move to other places such as Vietnam. Steel products
are already going there.

A German poltiician once summed up concisely what it means when a
country has a high cst of living but no minerals or other mineable
deposits in the ground: "What you don't have in the ground you have to
have in your noggin".

Not exactly true. Thailand has little mineral wealth and its economy
is based on agriculture, fishing, manufacturing, tourism, electronics,
etc.


He meant countries with a higher standard of living than Thailand.
Personally I wouldn't care, "standard of living" is something that isn't
too important to me. I'd probably be quite happy in Thailand as long as
there's no big city nearby and lots of singletrack.

--
Regards, Joerg

http://www.analogconsultants.com/

On Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 12:57:47 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2016-08-30 18:21, jbeattie wrote:
On Tuesday, August 30, 2016 at 1:17:53 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2016-08-30 07:41, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/30/2016 10:03 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, August 29, 2016 at 7:19:09 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski
wrote:

Perhaps more significantly, the rule isn't "Joerg dug the
internet and found an exception, so all other data has to be
thrown out."

Joerg's modus operandi all along has been to either find or
claim some exception to dominant data, and pretend that's all
that matters. But that's just not how things are decided.

He makes some valid points, but its amazing how he is the only
one who understands complex issues of public health, taxation,
global markets, etc., etc. -- all from the comfort of his
gnarly trails in suburban Cameron Park. The trope that everyone
else is an idiot and "doesn't get it" has become a central
plank in the uber-conservative, Post-Tea Party Republican
platform. It's very tiring, particularly when it comes from
people who struggle to complete a 1040EZ and whose response to
complex issues is "fu** that! We're building a wall!"

Indeed. Regarding the economic ideas Joerg spouts: I just
finished reading _Foolproof_ by Greg Ip. It went into exhaustive
detail about the unintended effects of monetary policies over the
ages.

The major point I gleaned was that monetary policies and tactics
are blindingly complex. Teams of people with advanced degrees
and decades of research experience work at it as their full time
jobs, yet get things wrong. This is proven by thins by things
like bank failures, national level defaults and the Great
Recession.

Meanwhile, others whose only instruction comes from Rush Limbaugh
(or Bernie Sanders) claim to have all the answers.


No, in my case from experience. I am in no way an economics expert
but the fact is:

About two years before the ral estate bubble burst I warned loudly
about the danger in all those high-Dollar adjustable rate mortgages
(ARM) and the way they are traded. Even on Usenet I voiced that.
The typical response was that I should stick to engineering because
"obviously" financial stuff isn't my turf and blah-blah. A
classical example was a realtor. Not just any realtor but a top
achiever. I told her this will all blow, people will lose their
homes and then much of their retirement savings when it hits
stocks. She told me jokingly I have the typical paranoia of someone
born in Germany. A couple of years later ... _they_ lost their own
home to the bank! Then the stock market came crashing down. People
we knew had to move out and downsize. Not because they wanted to
like we will some day but because their personal financial
situation had become precarious.

I had a lot of respect for Alan Greenspan. That and my respect for
Ben Bernanke has all but evaporated because those guys didn't see
it coming. It was their job to see it coming and if I as a
non-financial guy saw it coming it could not have been that hard.

Yes, monetary policy making is complex. However, first the top
brass tasked with that job needs to understand that when they see a
financial funnel cloud in the distance they ought to do something.
And if they can't see it pick another job or at least hire people
who can see it.


So, are you or are you not for the free market? Are you a
krypto-socialist? Why should the Fed tighten the money supply to
control one segment of the market? Why should bank regulators
prevent people from getting whatever POS neg-am ARM they want to buy
their dream house. Why should we tell Lehman Brothers that they
can't trade in super-arcane derivatives?


You of all people, being an attorney, should know better. The laws are
on the books and they are usually good laws. The laws are not
"krypto-socialist", they are American. These were broken. Read IX
(Acknowledgement) he

What the f*** are you talking about, Joerg -- are you going to start complaining about he high price of growlers next? We were talking about Fed monetary policies and not the execution of a loan documents. What does lying on a loan application have to do with Fed monetary policy?

And yes, unlike you, I do know the laws.

https://www.freeandclear.com/resourc...tion-form-1003

Signing that while full well knowing that the income statement is bogus
constitutes fraud. The same applies to the loan officer if he lets it go
through while knowing that the applicants lied. Often they enticed them
to lie which is criminal behavior and should be prosecuted as such.
Regarding those who were elected or appointed to serve the public:

1. Bureaucrats and public leaders didn't know this was happening
blatantly while almost everyone else knew what was going on - Then they
should be fired.

2. Bureaucrats and public leaders did know this was happening blatantly
but decided to look the other way - Then they should be fired.

This is the same as H1B where everyone laments it's being abuse and a
bad law. Baloney. It is super easy to verify when the law is not
followed and then do something about it. Yet nobody does it.

Yes, lying on a loan application is a crime. Predatory borrowing (not lending) is what you are talking about, and AFAIK, it was not subject to bureaucratic oversight until bad loans got into bank portfolios (FSLIC/FDIC oversight) or were purchased by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. That changed after the Dodd-Frank amendments to TILA, but I'm sure you knew that. The people who got hosed were the purchasers of the bad loans and not the borrowers who got exactly what they wanted -- a loan.

Notwithstanding all the hype surrounding the big short, many people
saw the collapse coming. My sister was building CMOs years before
the crash, and her job was, among other things, evaluating giant
portfolios of mortgages. Her company would bundle them up and sell
them off in tranches like a giant **** parfait. She got all the
brains in the family and could give you a graduate class in banking
and finance, and when she told me how credit default swaps worked way
before the crash, I couldn't believe it. Everyone was just gambling,
and everyone knew that everyone was just gambling. And we ended up
covering their bets by bailing out AIG, among others.


I a glad I don't have a sister engaged in "business" like that.

**** you. Really. You don't even understand the business. My sister was making sure the assets were in order and worth purchasing -- doing exactly the due diligence you claim the "bureaucrats" failed to perform. The only difference is that she was doing after the loans were issued and on the books of lending banks. Where do you think money comes from to make home loans? Mars? http://www.freddiemac.com/mbs/ Her employer bought mortgages, made bonds and sold them to institutional purchasers -- big boys and girls who knew how to evaluate the risk.


Anyway, your friends probably walked away from their house rather
than paying their mortgage. They probably got underwater when the
bubble popped, and like so may other people, the didn't want to pay a
$500K mortgage on a $250K house -- and because they had a neg-am loan
or some no-down loan, they had no skin in the game. Meh. We'll get
an apartment. I don't feel sorry for those people. They made a
choice, and the bank paid the price. They're luck that residential
mortgage loans are non-recourse.


They did not simply walk away, it took a business down with it as well.

How? Were they speculating?

By the way, sounds to me like you need to vote Clinton because The
Donald wants to do away with Dodd-Frank.
http://fortune.com/2016/05/18/trump-...k-wall-street/ Now that
you're into market regulation, you need to get on board the blue
train.


Her husband pushed the Community Reinvestment Act through which is to a
large extent to blame for the mortgage meltdown.

Not unless he was president in 1977. It was the Financial Services Modernization Act of 1999, commonly called Gramm-Leach-Bliley that repealed the Glass-Steagall Act that caused the collapse. Still on Clinton's watch. He signed it, but Gramm, Leach and Bliley wrote it. Gramm is credited with causing the collapse since he was also behind the Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 -- him and Alan Greenspan. They just didn't get it. They didn't see what you saw there in Cameron Park, center of the financial universe and fly-in golf courses.


I am not saying Republicans are blameless in this whole deal because
they aren't. Fact is, this kind of stuff is among the reasons why voters
these days are sick and tired of the establishment on both sides of the
aisle.

Then sober up and get into politics. You can be head of the HOA.


-- Jay Beattie.

On Thursday, September 1, 2016 at 1:11:59 PM UTC-7, Joerg wrote:
On 2016-08-30 18:42, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:17:53 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2016-08-30 07:41, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/30/2016 10:03 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, August 29, 2016 at 7:19:09 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Perhaps more significantly, the rule isn't "Joerg dug the internet and
found an exception, so all other data has to be thrown out."

Joerg's modus operandi all along has been to either find or claim some
exception to dominant data, and pretend that's all that matters. But
that's just not how things are decided.

He makes some valid points, but its amazing how he is the only one who
understands complex issues of public health, taxation, global markets,
etc., etc. -- all from the comfort of his gnarly trails in suburban
Cameron Park. The trope that everyone else is an idiot and "doesn't
get it" has become a central plank in the uber-conservative, Post-Tea
Party Republican platform. It's very tiring, particularly when it
comes from people who struggle to complete a 1040EZ and whose response
to complex issues is "fu** that! We're building a wall!"

Indeed. Regarding the economic ideas Joerg spouts: I just finished
reading _Foolproof_ by Greg Ip. It went into exhaustive detail about
the unintended effects of monetary policies over the ages.

The major point I gleaned was that monetary policies and tactics are
blindingly complex. Teams of people with advanced degrees and decades
of research experience work at it as their full time jobs, yet get
things wrong. This is proven by thins by things like bank failures,
national level defaults and the Great Recession.

Meanwhile, others whose only instruction comes from Rush Limbaugh (or
Bernie Sanders) claim to have all the answers.


No, in my case from experience. I am in no way an economics expert but
the fact is:

About two years before the ral estate bubble burst I warned loudly about
the danger in all those high-Dollar adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) and
the way they are traded. Even on Usenet I voiced that. The typical
response was that I should stick to engineering because "obviously"
financial stuff isn't my turf and blah-blah. A classical example was a
realtor. Not just any realtor but a top achiever. I told her this will
all blow, people will lose their homes and then much of their retirement
savings when it hits stocks. She told me jokingly I have the typical
paranoia of someone born in Germany. A couple of years later ... _they_
lost their own home to the bank! Then the stock market came crashing
down. People we knew had to move out and downsize. Not because they
wanted to like we will some day but because their personal financial
situation had become precarious.


But that wasn't what happened at all.


Sure it was.


... If you had bought a, say 5 room
- 3 bedrooms, living room, kitchen/dining room - house at rates that
you could afford than you had no problems whatsoever.
It was the people that fell for the line about "don't worry about the
mortgage as the house will appreciate to cover it" that got burned.


ARM means "adjustable". Lenders would pushed borrowers saying "Look, we
give you this great rate. After x years it'll adjust to market rate" ...
"But I would never be able to afford paying market rate!" ... "Ah, but
don't worry, by that time your house is worth at least 30% more, you can
sell and make a nice big profit".

Yup, and that is still the standard loan in commercial multi-unit and a product available to home buyers.

You are attempting to vilify "pay option" ARMS or neg-am (negative amortization) ARMs, meaning that the borrower could elect to make a payment less than the interest interest amount, and the shortfall was added back to the loan balance. The good part was that these were all non-recourse loans. The borrowers had little or no equity when the market crashed (low or no down payments), so they just walked away.

You should feel more sorry for the people who made big down-payments or who got conventional loans and just continued paying because they believe in repaying their debts. The poor folks who paid 20% down and started paying off their loans didn't get HARP and the other bail-out benefits. I don't feel sorry at all for the speculators who saw cheap money and just went for it.

-- Jay Beattie.

On Thu, 01 Sep 2016 13:12:06 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2016-08-30 18:42, John B. wrote:
On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:17:53 -0700, Joerg
wrote:

On 2016-08-30 07:41, Frank Krygowski wrote:
On 8/30/2016 10:03 AM, jbeattie wrote:
On Monday, August 29, 2016 at 7:19:09 PM UTC-7, Frank Krygowski wrote:

Perhaps more significantly, the rule isn't "Joerg dug the internet and
found an exception, so all other data has to be thrown out."

Joerg's modus operandi all along has been to either find or claim some
exception to dominant data, and pretend that's all that matters. But
that's just not how things are decided.

He makes some valid points, but its amazing how he is the only one who
understands complex issues of public health, taxation, global markets,
etc., etc. -- all from the comfort of his gnarly trails in suburban
Cameron Park. The trope that everyone else is an idiot and "doesn't
get it" has become a central plank in the uber-conservative, Post-Tea
Party Republican platform. It's very tiring, particularly when it
comes from people who struggle to complete a 1040EZ and whose response
to complex issues is "fu** that! We're building a wall!"

Indeed. Regarding the economic ideas Joerg spouts: I just finished
reading _Foolproof_ by Greg Ip. It went into exhaustive detail about
the unintended effects of monetary policies over the ages.

The major point I gleaned was that monetary policies and tactics are
blindingly complex. Teams of people with advanced degrees and decades
of research experience work at it as their full time jobs, yet get
things wrong. This is proven by thins by things like bank failures,
national level defaults and the Great Recession.

Meanwhile, others whose only instruction comes from Rush Limbaugh (or
Bernie Sanders) claim to have all the answers.


No, in my case from experience. I am in no way an economics expert but
the fact is:

About two years before the ral estate bubble burst I warned loudly about
the danger in all those high-Dollar adjustable rate mortgages (ARM) and
the way they are traded. Even on Usenet I voiced that. The typical
response was that I should stick to engineering because "obviously"
financial stuff isn't my turf and blah-blah. A classical example was a
realtor. Not just any realtor but a top achiever. I told her this will
all blow, people will lose their homes and then much of their retirement
savings when it hits stocks. She told me jokingly I have the typical
paranoia of someone born in Germany. A couple of years later ... _they_
lost their own home to the bank! Then the stock market came crashing
down. People we knew had to move out and downsize. Not because they
wanted to like we will some day but because their personal financial
situation had become precarious.


But that wasn't what happened at all.


Sure it was.


... If you had bought a, say 5 room
- 3 bedrooms, living room, kitchen/dining room - house at rates that
you could afford than you had no problems whatsoever.
It was the people that fell for the line about "don't worry about the
mortgage as the house will appreciate to cover it" that got burned.


ARM means "adjustable". Lenders would pushed borrowers saying "Look, we
give you this great rate. After x years it'll adjust to market rate" ...
"But I would never be able to afford paying market rate!" ... "Ah, but
don't worry, by that time your house is worth at least 30% more, you can
sell and make a nice big profit".

Yes, you are correct "Lenders would pushed borrowers saying "Look, we
give you this great rate".

Essentially you are describing people that have the mental capacity of
a pet rock. And, I'm not sure that anything can help these people.

As an example, go out and ask the first 10 people you meet what is the
actual interest rate that they pay on their credit card and see if you
get one correct answer.

My own experience was that I first calculated what level of mortgage
payments I could afford and than went looking for a house as I
previously described that would meet my requirements and was within my
financial means. I obtained a sample contract from the bank and read
it. I than asked for a meeting with a loan officer and clarified a
couple of points in the agreement, then we did the deal.

Actually I have bought only two things on "time payments", a house
trailer when we first came back from Japan and had to find a roof over
our heads and second the house in Riverside.

But based on those two transactions I found bank officials very
accommodating and more than happy to explain or clarify the terms of
any agreement.

To be frank I can't imagine anyone intelligent enough to cross the
street on their own doing anything different. And, if someone does
simply sign an agreement without understanding it than he/she deserves
everything that they get.


But more to the point, I read an article at least one year and
probably a year and a half, before the crash, about a woman in San
Francisco (I think) who had abandoned her house as the market had
fallen to the point that the equity she had was less than the market
value and the mortgage payments were higher than she could rent for.

But people kept buying....

It is said that "you can lead a horse to water but you can't make it
drink" and it is also said, and equally true, that "a fool and his
money are soon parted".


However, horses do not commit fraud by lying about their income on the
mortgage papers. Although I am sure that Ivan, whom I visited on an MTB
ride yesterday, would have done it for baby carrots (I always bring a
bunch for him).


I had a lot of respect for Alan Greenspan. That and my respect for Ben
Bernanke has all but evaporated because those guys didn't see it coming.
It was their job to see it coming and if I as a non-financial guy saw it
coming it could not have been that hard.

But they did see it coming and, if I remember, protested about the
government drive on housing for poor folk and the resulting government
guaranteed loans that only an fool would have made. Had it not been
for Fanny Mae there would have been no problem.


They did not see it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/22/bu...ipts.html?_r=0

Quote (Bernanke speaking) ""I should say that this comes as a surprise
to me," he said. "I very much expected that we could stay at 2 percent
for a long time, and then when the economy began to recover, we could
begin to normalize interest rates".

I could not believe it.

[...]

I am beginning to have doubts about you. Are you really so naive as to
believe that a public figure, like Bernanke, making a public statement
is going to tell you exactly what he is thinking?
--
cheers,

John B.