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exneratunrisk
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RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 15th, 2013, 6:52 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: Traden4AlphaQuoteOriginally posted by: CuchulainnQuoteOriginally posted by: Traden4AlphaQuoteOriginally posted by: CuchulainnAnother issue: what were the captains of industry doing during the 1970's? Did they take their eye of the ball? Did they fail to see the rise of the Japanese auto industry??Is it too early for an official history of that period?Clayton Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma -- I've seen him talk on this topic -- has a pretty convincing explanation for why incumbents so often fail to counter the rise of upstarts. Those early Japanese cars were small and crappy so it was easy for incumbents to dismiss them. But then Toyota et al got better or something like the first energy crisis hits to flip customer's preferences for the "inferior" product.When the threat becomes more obvious, the threatened company often first reacts by focusing on what they do best, what provides the highest profits, what made them successful in the first place, and how they can best use their existing assets (factories & workforces) to compete. But the nature of disruptive innovations is such as historical strategies and historical assets are entirely wrong for the new environment.And it doesn't help if the captains of industry have bad relationships with their workers such that it impedes changes in work practices and workforce reductions. In the US, both the steel and auto industries created a self-imposed death spirals -- they paid for very large and expensive labour forces (both in factories and pensioners) that made their products too expensive. The more they lost marketshare, the worse the labour_cost/unit_production became, and the more uncompetitive they became.Maybe it was a form of lethargy. The same thing happened in the 80's when Europe started to outsource manufacturing to countries with cheaper countries. And a sense of hubris maybe that things would remain the same as in the 60's economic miracle.Yes, it's the curse of success. The incumbent leader simply can't see how the inferior upstart will beat the superior incumbent. And if the upstart does win a few battles in some niche markets, the leader dismisses it as a fluke and retrenches to their "core markets". But pretty soon, the upstart just get better and better and the core shrinks to nothing. Sometimes a company's greatest asset becomes their greatest liability. There's also the issue of sycophants in the company -- the leader believes their own propaganda.It's happening right now with Nokia/Blackberry/Microsoft vs Android/Apple, Intel/AMD vs. ARM, as well as Japan vs. China.Japan thought it was a great strategy to become the "engineering department" of east and south-east asia - 70s/80s - they did not understand the littlest about the wants leading to post-indutrial movements.
 
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ppauper
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Joined: November 15th, 2001, 1:29 pm

RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 16th, 2013, 9:04 pm

the UK was screwed up in the 60s and 70s by malinvestment caused by government monetary policy.They were printing money willy-nilly , telling the populace that the resulting inflation was caused by their own greed, and imposing wage-and-price controls which just led to more malinvestment
 
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ppauper
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RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 16th, 2013, 9:05 pm

I know they've gone with the traditional funeral, but I can't help but think that it would have been neat to send Margaret Thatcher out on a funeral pyre on the Thames
 
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traderjoe1976
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RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 17th, 2013, 5:51 am

Latest UK singles chartsDing Dong came in at # 2 on the charts.
 
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Paul
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RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 17th, 2013, 6:33 am

And the unions came number 2 in the 1980s as well.P
 
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rmax
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Joined: December 8th, 2005, 9:31 am

RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 17th, 2013, 6:34 am

The joy of walking down the roads in the City without having cars. They should pedestrianise the whole of the City. Mind-you the cyclists are still a pain - perhaps they should be put on a funeral pyre down the Thames.
 
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rmax
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Joined: December 8th, 2005, 9:31 am

RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 19th, 2013, 8:32 am

 
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Fermion
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Joined: November 14th, 2002, 8:50 pm

RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 25th, 2013, 5:45 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: PaulAnd the unions came number 2 in the 1980s as well.POrganized class warfare such as corporations versus unions (as capitalism creates) is a stupid way to run an economy. Power only shifts temporarily from one side to another. Those who seek to win such a battle, on whatever side of the fence, are perpetuating the idiocy and doomed to failure. Rational people would seek to blend entrepreneurial creativity with a democratic social goal, private and public sectors within their appropriate spheres, in order to diminish destructive conflict.
 
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Paul
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RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 25th, 2013, 2:25 pm

So the cost of the funeral was not the £10m that the whingers were complaining about. (Although how anyone can whinge about 20p per citizen I don't know.)No, it was £1.6m or just over 3p per person. Although at a stretch you could say it was £3.6m, or just over 7p per person, if you add in the cost of all the police who were redeployed away from killing innocent newspaper sellers, assisting in the hacking of phones, covering up various atrocities, etc. (We should redeploy the police more often.)P
 
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ppauper
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Re: RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 14th, 2017, 5:50 am

QuoteOriginally posted by: ppauperQuoteOriginally posted by: trackstarHead Boy is like Senior Prefect.I think you are a Choatie, right?  heck no !from another threadQuote(there used to be a saying in New England, "If you can't get a girl, get a dog. If you can't get a dog, get a Choatie")choate on family guy:sadly removed from youtube:QuoteStewie tries to trade Brian (his dog) for the teddy bear that Brian sold by accident in a yard sale. stewie:"I'll give you my dog for if I lose the ski race". Man:"what can the dog do?"Stewie:"He will lick peanut butter off of any part of your body.....Any part". Man:"Well,I did go to Choate" Yes, this is what I had in mind.I figure for you, Choate, then Yale.
Sexual Abuse at Choate Went On for Decades, School Acknowledges

Sweet whistling Geronimo, you people are like a box of hamsters just crawling all over each other.
 
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trackstar
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Joined: January 1st, 1970, 12:00 am

Re: RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 14th, 2017, 11:46 am

By "you people" do you mean people who went to Choate? Or any prep school?

Ask Paul about Harrow or Eton.

However, I never had a problem with harassment. I read James Joyce and Thomas Pynchon, listened to Led Zepp and Roxy Music (preppies preferred the Dead and the Stones), and wore black a lot.

No one messed with me.

And a good thing because in that elite fishbowl everyone knew everything about everyone else.

As Greta Garbo said, "I vant to be alone."

It was the most respectable privacy-preserving solution!
 
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ppauper
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Re: RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 14th, 2017, 12:03 pm

the box of hamsters thing was a quote from two and a half men
 
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trackstar
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Joined: January 1st, 1970, 12:00 am

Re: RIP Margaret Thatcher

April 14th, 2017, 12:17 pm

I see.  What are your favorite TV shows now?

I don't watch much, but the new "24" has a lot of action.