General > General Technical Chat
I have the feeling that the whole trade war starts from a pile of nonsense.
rstofer:
--- Quote from: BravoV on May 25, 2019, 12:55:22 am ---For youngsters, all this stunt is not new ...
-> Plaza Accord
--- End quote ---
I remember the Carter and Reagan years vividly and in particular the outrageous interest rates of the Carter years. I wasn't in a position to invest much but 18% on short term notes would have grown a 401(k) nicely.
Mortgage interest was huge, topping out at 18.45%!
I also remember that Carter kept us out of the Olympics in 1980. This was regrettable because the fellow who taught me to shoot skeet had won the Pan American games and was likely to do very well in the Olympics. If he had had the opportunity.
I hadn't heard about the Plaza Accord but I did realize that something was going on.
It happened again when Greenspan told Germany that the US would not artificially support a high dollar.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/nov/11/alan-greenspan-weak-dollar-viewpoint
We still have exchange rate issues.
SilverSolder:
@rstofer, no worries, sooner or later we will have an international currency and won't have to deal with exchange rates!
rstofer:
--- Quote from: SilverSolder on May 25, 2019, 02:12:38 am ---@rstofer, no worries, sooner or later we will have an international currency and won't have to deal with exchange rates!
--- End quote ---
I don't think that solves the problems of productivity and wages. One of the reasons that the US is at something of a disadvantage in the world market is our standard of living. The other is wages although that is related. The median electronics engineer in Silicon Valley earns $125k and the median in Shanghai is $20k. We need to be 6 times as productive to complete if the playing field is completely level. That's tough to do! Not impossible, but tough!
We are not going to reduce our standard of living to compete with Bangladesh.
Scanning Google, I see programmers at AirBnB are averaging $312k.
https://www.inc.com/salvador-rodriguez/tech-software-engineers.html
The Euro is an example of a multi-national currency and it is a disaster for some of the countries. Germany holds the exchange rate for the Euro at a high level and Italy can't devalue it to make their products competitive. This problem gets worse year over year. Countries need to be able to set their own exchange rate (or allow the market to set it for them) if they are to be competitive. There are quite a few countries in the EU that would gladly scrap the Euro.
vk6zgo:
--- Quote from: rstofer on May 25, 2019, 12:34:47 am ---Guys, this tariff business just got serious. It turns out that 95% of the fireworks we use for the 4th of July celebration come from China and tariffs are set to kick in some time in June. Wholesalers and retailers are complaining that they can't absorb the costs.
Maybe they should just pass them along like every other business is going to do. And add overhead and profit to the increased cost at both the wholesale and retail level. In other words, double the cost of fireworks!
I live in an area outside the city limits. In our area fireworks are illegal. A mile away they are legal and somehow the fireworks themselves can't figure out where the limits are located. For years the city outlawed fireworks but the retailers came up with a scam where some percentage of the profits were donated to charities. All of a sudden, fireworks were just fine.
Fireworks terrorize my dogs so if we don't have any on sale, it works for me!
There are always a number of residential fires caused by fireworks as well as a bunch of people heading to the emergency room with blown off fingers and such.
Then there is the use of fireworks to mask the sound of gunfire. There's a lot of shooting into the air. Bullets come down somewhere...
--- End quote ---
When I was a kid, we used to celebrate "Guy Fawkes Day" in Western Australia.
It was something we inherited from the Brits, & was originally meant to celebrate the foiling of a dastardly plot by Fawkes & some others, to blow up the Houses of Parliament in England.
I got it wrong as a kid, & thought we were celebrating the fact that he tried! ;D
Anyhow, it was a lot of fun, but kids did get bad burns from time to time, plus the whole idea of people lighting bonfires right at the beginning of the "bushfire season" was a bit stupid, to say nothing of the smoke pollution throughout the city from all those bonfires.
And it freaked dogs out!
For all these reasons, the authorities said "enough!" & banned bonfires & fireworks, except in the hands of experts.
The other States all had similar "Bonfire nights", but they also eventually banned them the same as WA.
I remember going into the big chain stores in Perth, which had special counters bulging with fireworks, from "Penny bangers", or "Tom Thumbs" upward to the more spectacular "Showers of gold", skyrockets, etc.
"Jumping Jacks"were a special favourite!
My generation got our first introduction to "Chinglish" from the instructions on these fireworks, which were all made by firms with Chinese names--- I remember "Chung Man Ling " as one manufacturer.
Whether they were from the PRC, or Taiwan, or elsewhere, I don't know.
Many years later, after fireworks use was firmly in the hands of Pyrotechnicians, & in the jittery months after 911, Perth was jolted by the explosion of the local fireworks factory.
I was on the front lawn, when there was this huge "Bang".
I looked up, & there was this grey "mushroom shaped" cloud just rising above the Escarpment to the East of the City.
Scared the pants off me!
rstofer:
I love the commercial fireworks displays. Many times the best place to see the display is on the water, either in the Delta (a long way east of San Francisco) or in the Alameda estuary (just across SF Bay from San Francisco). Another choice spot was the top of any building near Marriot's Great America (theme park) in Santa Clara. Disneyland has a show every night during the summer and on weekends during the winter. This is a really big show!
My first encounters were at the beaches of San Diego. They would always have a huge program. Lots of Navy retirees around San Diego.
I don't like the residential stuff and I have considered getting a prescription for a sedative for my dogs. Fireworks are really hard on them.
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