Hard year

From: Tony Eros <tony.eros_at_machm.org>
Date: Fri Sep 27 19:25:01 2002

At 08:26 AM 9/27/2002 +0000, you wrote:
>At 11:25 PM 9/26/02 -0400, you wrote:
> >
> >----- Original Message -----
> >From: "Joe" <rigdonj_at_cfl.rr.com>
> >>
> >> Sound for who? The bastards that are looting their companies and their
> >Republican pals, that's who!
> >>
> >
> >
> >I seem to recall that most of the bastards donated pretty much equal amounts
> >of money to both sides of the aisle.
>
>
> No, not true. The real big bastards like Ken Lay donated
> overwhelmingly to the Republicans. They donated some to the Democrats
> just so that they could say that they supported them but the Democrats
> main contributors have always been wealthy non-business individuals,
> LAWYERS, and labor unions and their members.

Not to get too far afield, but that's not really the case either. Enron
was pouring big bucks into the Clinton administration for access and they
got it too, in spades. They made some big foreign deals (in India for
instance) on the strength of their administration contacts in the late
1990s. Global Crossing screwed their stockholders and employees almost as
bad as Enron did and Gary Winnick (Global Crossing's CEO) is a large,
economy-sized contributor to the Democratic party. Martha Stewart (just
look how some pillows and a splash of color will brighten up a drab prison
cell) is a strong supporter of the Democratic party. We all know where Ted
Turner's money goes. Then of course there are the big money pols
themselves: Maria Cantwell of Real Networks fame, Herb Kohl of Kohl's
Department Store fame, Jon Corzine of Goldman-Sachs fame, John D.
Rockefeller of well, pretty much everything. The big-time bucks are
flowing to both parties, don't think otherwise for a minute.


> Lets keep the politics out of it and
> >get back to old, cranky, computers.
>
> Sorry but losing nearly $1,000,000 in mine and my wife's retirement
> accounts tends to make me bitter!

I've been reading my 401(k) balance with a microscope as well, but there's
sadly, plenty of blame to coat both sides evenly. We had a market bubble
in the Nineties like the Holland Tulip Bubble of the 1600's. Accounting
practices were on the edge, everyone knew it and the administration in
Washington wasn't going to do a thing to rock the boat. Oh, they floated
some accounting cosmetic accounting reforms at one point, which give the
Dems a couple of pasties-worth of cover as they try to hammer Harvey Pitt
and the SEC. But the truth is, the market was flying high, growth was
through the roof and nobody, not the administration, not Congress, not the
Democrats, not the Republicans, were much interested in saying, doing or
even proposing anything that might possibly upset the apple cart.

A pox on both their houses. The fat cats are firmly ensconced in both
parties. If you don't believe that, just take a look at the net worth of
the members of the Senate. According to their 2001 filings, the average
net worth of a Senate Republican is $2.9 million. The average net worth of
a Senate Democrat is $11 million.

> >
> >I did manage to pick up a dual trace Tektronix RM-503 scope on ebay for
> >$49.99 today :-D
>
> I've been picking up some good bargains on E-bay lately but the local
> surplus market is getting to be just about non-existant. Most of the
> local surplus companies are having a tough time finding ANYTHING much
> less anything worth while. If this is happening all over the country, and
> I expect that it is, I expect that it will soon affect the amount and
> quality of stuff showing up on E-bay. Fortunately(?) I probably have
> enough junk around here to keep me occupied for the next 20 years!
>

I've seen very little local surplus pickings around here as well. There's
a surplus depot for duPont locally, but unless you like Mac SEs and Pentium
60s, slim pickings.

-- Tony
Received on Fri Sep 27 2002 - 19:25:01 BST