In article . net,
says...

"jps" wrote in message
...
In article . net,
says...

"jps" wrote in message
...
In article . net,
says...

"jps" wrote in message
...
In article . net,
says...

"Tamaroak" wrote in message
. ..
More people are living in cardboard boxes in this country than
ever
and
these fat cats are making more and paying less taxes than ever.
And
we
are
STILL cutting taxes while the deficit skyrockets. How can these
people
call themselves conservative?

The deficit fell from '04 to '05...and its expected to continue to
fall
through at least '09.

In the past 30 years we've gone from:

Biggest importer of raw materials and exporter of finished goods

to

Biggest exporter of raw materials and largest importer of finished
goods.

China and Japan own a large percentage of our currency, corporations
are
allowed to operate offshore to avoid taxation and more of our
currency
is flooding into the mid-east than ever before.

I just had a meeting with some very nice folks from the mid-east who
don't mind us being in Iraq at all. Their friends are making money
hand
over fist supplying goods and services to our troops.

Not only are we sending them tankerloads of oil money, we're paying
them
seven different ways for supplying our country with goods and
services.

Something wrong with this picture? Why are we so damned
near-sighted???

The biggest danger to our country is allowing jobs to escape to
countries
that are not our allies. China is our biggest threat...and
corporations
have bought into the Chinese government horse and pony show that
paints
such
a rosy scenario over there. It's a facade...and China's recent
restrictions
placed on Google are a perfect example of how screwed up things are
over
there right now.

For the first time in the last half decade, I decided to buy an
American
car
again. I would hope you and every other American would consider doing
the
same. For a very long time, American car manufacturers had their
problems,
and you were right to stay away. But I can assure you that in their
latest
entries to the market, the American auto maufacturer's quality and
engineering is on par with the best of them again.

Awhile back you stated that if a car manufacturer made an
all-wheel-drive
sport sedan that is comparable to what you were driving at the time
(an
Audi
Quattro?), you'd buy it. So now I'm going to hold you to your word:
go
drive the Cadillac STS AWD or the Chrysler 300M AWD and buy whichever
you
like better. Either should fit your needs nicely. I went from an
Infiniti
G35 to a Cadillac STS and have been very happy with the choice.

Are you claiming to be a good American or a good investor?

I don't think the above suggestion would satisfy both criteria.


I leased the car. 39 months, $422/mo (includes tax), $1850 out of
pocket.

The Chrysler is ugly.

$18,308 to have the privilege of driving a Cadillac for 39 months. I'd
rather make payments on a boat or summer cabin and have the 2nd home
write off.

Name me a single car with an MSRP over $40k that you could drive for less
than $18,500 over 39 months. Don't forget to include tax!

That's dependent on leasing. Most people don't lease.

Driving a vehicle over $40k for 39 months isn't a function of the value
of the car, it's a function of how many they've sold and how aggressive
the financing rates they're willing to offer to get you in the car.

The real value in a car is after you've paid it off and drive it another
50,000 miles. That's when the cost/mile goes down. Your cost/mile has
to be astronomical.

And, in order to purchase that car post-lease, you'd be buying a car
that's worth 2/3 of the residual. Cadillac will have to write off the
loss when it's incurred.

Welcome to American cars.

jps

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 21:22:36 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

Exxon receives less profit from the sale of a gallon of gas than
government gets in taxes.


And the Exxon Valdez disaster really was "good" for the environment.

=========================

Non sequitur.

You disappoint me Harry.

In article ,
says...
On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 21:02:00 -0500, Wayne.B
wrote:

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 01:34:02 GMT, Shortwave Sportfishing
wrote:

My truck has over 100k and the town car is approaching 100k - that
little escort i bought to keep the gas milage down is over 100k - 115k
in fact.

100k is nothing nowadays.

That's true if you buy the right vehicle. My youngest son is now
driving the Camry that I bought new in 1992. It is at almost 200K
miles and still going strong in NYC traffic and roads. My wife's
Honda Accord is over 100K miles and still runs like new.

On the other hand our 1991 Dodge Caravan had trim falling off of it by
50,000 miles, 3 transmissions, all new brakes and a radiator by
70,000. It was getting too unreliable to keep, and it will be a long
time before we buy another Chrysler product. I'd rather spend my
money on boats. (on topic)

your first mistake was buying a dodge. that was your second mistake
too. :)

we keep our cars that long because there are other things to spend
money on. a car is a car is a car.

unless its my corvette in which case thats a classic. :)

I just drooled on a concourse 1961 MGA 1600 Mk II over the weekend.
Restored lovingly to the metal. I'd almost give up boating...

jps

On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:02:32 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

A much stronger car of the 1960s...a TR4A-IRS. I had one of those, too.
Great car. Not nearly as pretty as the MGA, but...it ran and ran and ran.

Always wanted a red 'Healy 3000 from that era.

Harry Krause wrote:
Fred Dehl wrote:


Illiterate asshole,

Read the post again. Do you know what the **** a "profit margin" is?
God you're the stupidest sack of **** in the world.



Uh, Fred, you're not in your kitchen here. Try to control your foul mouth.

Thanks.

I doubt his mommy would let him talk that way at home.....
at least not without a cake of soap to clean up afterwards.

In article ,
says...
jps wrote:

I just drooled on a concourse 1961 MGA 1600 Mk II over the weekend.
Restored lovingly to the metal. I'd almost give up boating...

jps


Uh, no. I owned an MGA. Beautiful little car. Really. But an absolute,
complete nightmare. Bad electricals (worse than early Italian), damned
batteries buried under the seats, susceptible to rust-rot, delicate...

Mine was white with red leather and wire wheels.

A much stronger car of the 1960s...a TR4A-IRS. I had one of those, too.
Great car. Not nearly as pretty as the MGA, but...it ran and ran and ran.

A tr4 is a tr4, not an mga.

You just didn't know how to take care of it Harry. You have to be
fanatical and have a love for the species.

I also lust after healey 3000s and morgans.

jps

jps wrote:
In article ,
says...

" JimH" jimh_osudad@yahooDOT comREMOVETHIS wrote in
news

And folks can choose to stop buying newspapers. Not true of gasoline.

Bull****, asswipe.


JohnH, are you going to step in here to calm this peckerhead down? Why
is it that you're so quick to offer the preamble to the left and not so
quick in name-callers like this.

For Christ's sake, he just called JimH a faggot treehugger. I just
about fell out my chair!!!

jps


Yes...never a netcop around when you need one!

That's a nice theory.

However, as DSK pointed out, shareholders haven't been substantially
rewarded for the climb in profits.



RCE wrote:
Higher profits usually produce higher stock prices. Few public companies
pay dividends anymore. It's all in the stock price.


Actually, that's not true. It was true that many
investors... and many 'investment writers' widely
published... back in the late 1990s were loudly disdainful
of dividends.

Nowadays investors are very definitely interested in
dividends, and the stock-touters talk about them a lot.


I am not saying it's right - I am just saying it's the way it is.

Maybe we follow very different segments of the financial
news media.


... A CEO
that does not show bottom line growth ain't gonna be a CEO for long.

Well, no. He pockets his $50 million and saunters off stage
left, whistling a happy tune. And his platinum parachute is
paid for by the employees & common stockholders. It's the
new corporate kleptocracy... profits are irrelevant.


.... And
although publicly reported quarterly, most large companies now report
monthly and even weekly, internally. That's why I don't work for one
anymore.


And the auditors have become paid consultants on how to
cheat. Did you notice that Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling might
actually have a court date? Good thing the Bush
Administration is really cracking down on corporate
malfeasance... how many years has it been now?

But I digress.... I own several oil company stocks, and the
neither dividends nor price appreciation has not followed
reported profits... yet...

Regards
Doug King

Wayne.B wrote:

On Tue, 31 Jan 2006 01:34:02 GMT, Shortwave Sportfishing
wrote:


My truck has over 100k and the town car is approaching 100k - that
little escort i bought to keep the gas milage down is over 100k - 115k
in fact.

100k is nothing nowadays.


That's true if you buy the right vehicle.

Absolutely!

My youngest son is now
driving the Camry that I bought new in 1992. It is at almost 200K
miles and still going strong in NYC traffic and roads.

Rust will consume that car before wear & tear.

My wife's
Honda Accord is over 100K miles and still runs like new.

It'd better. It's not even broken in yet.


On the other hand our 1991 Dodge Caravan had trim falling off of it by
50,000 miles, 3 transmissions, all new brakes and a radiator by
70,000. It was getting too unreliable to keep, and it will be a long
time before we buy another Chrysler product. I'd rather spend my
money on boats. (on topic)

That was a real junky vehicle. Like you said, it's got to be the right
vehicle.

Ford has been doing a much better job than GM on the whole since ~1996
when the G2 Taurus & the 3.8 V-6 combination was laid to rest after
1995. Problems with that platform came back to haunt the WindStar for a
while, but they were ironed out.

A lot of GM troubles are around their commitment to DexCool. Between
poorly designed & built gaskets, that stuff is just bad news...

Despite a crazy number of recalls, the Focus is holding up well. I
would buy a used 3.0 Taurus/Sable or any Crown/Marquis, or 2005-up
Mustang, in a second and expect 300,000 miles if the rust can be avoided.

And Fords & GMs are cheaper to fix, easier to work on.

And I like boats better too, but my newest (power)boat is a 1973,
sailboat is a 1979. They are holding up very well. Both are domestic
makes. I'd never buy a Toyota boat.

Yamaha, maybe! (They own several brands).

Rob

In article ,
says...

Mine caught on fire one rainy evening returning from Ft. Leonard Wood to
Kansas City. That was it for me.

Lucas ignition. The English and electricity never seemed to get along.

Here's a sampling of Lucas ignition jokes:

The Lucas motto: "Get home before dark."

Lucas denies having invented darkness. But they still claim "sudden,
unexpected darkness"

Lucas--inventor of the first intermittent wiper.

Lucas--inventor of the self-dimming headlamp.

The three-position Lucas switch--DIM, FLICKER and OFF. The other three
switch settings--SMOKE, SMOULDER and IGNITE.

The original anti-theft devices--Lucas Electric products.

"I've had a Lucas pacemaker for years and have never experienced any
prob...

If Lucas made guns, wars would not start either

Did you hear about the Lucas powered torpedo? It sank.

It's not true that Lucas, in 1947, tried to get Parliament to repeal
Ohm's Law. They withdrew their efforts when they met too much =
resistance.

Did you hear the one about the guy that peeked into a Land Rover and
asked the owner "How can you tell one switch from another at night, =
since they all look the same?" "He replied, it doesn't matter which one
you = use, nothing happens!"

Back in the '70s Lucas decided to diversify its product line and began
manufacturing vacuum cleaners. It was the only product they = offered
which didn't suck.

Quality Assurance phoned and advised the Engineering guy that they had
trouble with his design shorting out. So he made the wires longer.

Why do the English drink warm beer? Lucas made the refrigerators, too.

Alexander Graham Bell invented the Telephone.
Thomas Edison invented the Light Bulb.
Joseph Lucas invented the Short Circuit.

Recommended procedure before taking on a repair of Lucas equipment:
check the position of the stars, kill a chicken and walk three times
sunwise around your car chanting: "Oh mighty Prince of Darkness protect
= your unworthy servant."

Lucas systems actually use AC current; it just has a random frequency.