Stormy Fairweather - 10 July 2010 05:11 PM

Wait a second…

If rich people are a problem, and becoming rich is the measure of success in a capitolism, then the problem is people who succeed.

Or capitolism…

Perhaps the reference will clear that up.

I A Modest Proposal he suggested the poor sell their young to the wealthy as food.  So it would be ‘eat the poor.’

Occam - 09 July 2010 06:25 PM

I don’t know.  Value engineering has become a hot field in the last fifty years.  Ostensibly, the goal is that no componens has excess value beyond the life of the unit.  Ideally, an automobile would collapse and fall apart all at one time.  It makes sense except that the second step is to decide when that decreptiation is to occur, and that’s planned obsolescence.  Most large companies have a value engineering department now.  So, if they all do it, they don’t lose.

Occam

But this would require collusion for every company to have the same level of planned obsolescence, and while it may happen occasionally, it’s unrealistic to think that this would be widespread. The best strategy here, looking out for a company’s competitive best interest, would be to engineer a product that lasts as long as the consumer needs it for, for a lower price than the competition can charge. This gives you an edge against the competition. I guess you could consider this “planned” obsolescence, but it doesn’t screw the consumer over anyway. We get what we pay for. If you want something that lasts longer you just gotta do some research and probably shell out more money.

Quoting Domokato,

But this would require collusion for every company to have the same level of planned obsolescence

Not necessarily.  If they all plan for somewhere between, say, six and ten years, a reasonable time for a car to have often gone to the second or third owner, the buyers won’t recognize this.  Those who buy second and third hand cars are unlikely to be customers, but since their cars are falling apart, they have to buy newer ones. This means the new car buyers will be more likely to get rid of their prior car a bit earlier.  And very few owners keep their cars for fifteen or twenty years so they wouldn’t recognize whether or not it was engineered to last that long.

Occam

steveg144 - 09 July 2010 07:57 AM

Biggest Mortgage Defaulters are the Rich

What do you expect? The rich get rich by figuring out ways to keep their money. Or figuring out ways to get your money from you.

I often thought getting rich wouldn’t be hard. You just need to not care about who you hurt.

Ok, maybe a person can do well through hard work. But to be really rich you have to be taking something from somebody.

An unfair exchange of value?

BTW, what is the definition of rich? How much money do you have to be making to be rich these days?

Gnostikosis - 13 July 2010 01:45 PM

BTW, what is the definition of rich? How much money do you have to be making to be rich these days?

Tony Stark rich.

If you can lose a hundred thousand dollars (or more) at a Casino in a single bet and be financially unaffected, then you’re rich. At least that’s my (current waffly) definition.

Take care,

Derek

steveg144 - 09 July 2010 07:57 AM

When does it start being OK to use that phrase that is such a taboo in America - “class warfare”? When does it start being OK to hate the rich? For that matter, when does it start being OK to eat the rich? (bonus points for the clever persons who gets the reference without using Google as a crutch ...)

Biggest Mortgage Defaulters are the Rich

Whether it is their residence, a second home or a house bought as an investment, the rich have stopped paying the mortgage at a rate that greatly exceeds the rest of the population.
More than one in seven homeowners with loans in excess of a million dollars are seriously delinquent, according to data compiled for The New York Times by the real estate analytics firm CoreLogic.
By contrast, homeowners with less lavish housing are much more likely to keep writing checks to their lender. About one in 12 mortgages below the million-dollar mark is delinquent.
Though it is hard to prove, the CoreLogic data suggest that many of the well-to-do are purposely dumping their financially draining properties, just as they would any sour investment.
“The rich are different: they are more ruthless,” said Sam Khater, CoreLogic’s senior economist.

I ran into a person on the street who said only “rich” people have the internet and time to sit around “posting”.  She proposed we murder them all. Eating is optional. 

Shall I give her your address?   

Y’all crack me up.  Mortgage buyouts are wrong, no matter who does them, but there is nothing wrong with being rich, and engaging in “walkouts” is a separate issue from being rich. 

Btw, what’s “rich?”