Caveat emptor

http://www.bkforum.com/archive/index.php/t-57593.html I believe this is happening now!!!! Anyone know about this B) :woohoo: :woohoo: :ohmy: :ohmy: B)

I totally agree w/ Lanny....and Alba! Yer both right! :laugh:

lanny Said: . ---Come November it is time to take out the trash! The funny thing is that people have been saying that forever.The pendulum swings left and right and things stay the same.

---In 2009 there were OVER 80,000 abandoned buildings in Detroit. (look it up!) How many abandoned buildings are there in your city??? ---The urban farming was an attempt to clear away some of these buildings and make the land productive. ---Foreign investors have bought up houses by the hundred for as little as $1,000 apiece. They put some $ into repairs and then rent it out. Should the market return they will be sitting on a gold mine. ---The blame for Detroit's demise can be laid right at the city gov't & unions. Many of the failed policies that led to today's Detroit are being repeated all across America. How would you like YOUR home to be valued at $1,000? ...or less because no one will buy it at any price. ---What is amazing is the lack of news coverage about what has happened to Detroit. It should be a warning to all cities in America regarding stupid policies that make business unprofitable. Business is all about profit. If a business cannot make a profit it will disappear. Guess why almost ALL businesses could not make a profit in Detroit? When businesses disappear so do jobs...DUH! When jobs disappear you have Detroit. The entire debacle snowballs until almost nothing is left. ---What happened to Detroit is a picture of what might happen to many cities in America. Most people are enjoying their deck chairs on the Titanic not realizing that in 8 hours they will be swimming in 34 degree waters. They re-elect the same idiots who have brought us to this disaster. You get the gov't you deserve. ---Come November it is time to take out the trash! Lanny

Alba Said: Manufacturing nowadays is highly automated.Factories arent nearly as labor intensive as they were 40 years ago. Cheaper chinese labor doesnt or shouldnt shave much off the cost of the goods.I watched on TV how BMW makes the car engines.Just about everything was done by the robots.There was hardly a human soul on that factory floor.Now i understand that is better to make the engine in germany than having it shipped all the way from China just to save a few pennies on labour.What i dont understand is that why the americans think otherwise.The same logic applies to the electronics.Motherboards are printed circuits done by machines.All humans do is program the machines, package and test the products.I dont see why they should be manufactured in taiwan since it doesnt take too many people to oversee the production.

Who you reckon programs, builds and maintains them robots?!?! Without a well trained, highly educated, skilled human........there would be no robot. Without machinists, computer programmers, scientist, it just would not happen...so who made who?

And we all seen in America what robots can do when they malfunction and have no human watching them to intervene...Re: Toyota Death Traps.

In the auto business, a savings of $.05 per piece is considered huge! The logic is that they have thousands of parts in a car and millions of cars sold so the money adds up fast.

Alba Said: Manufacturing nowadays is highly automated.Factories arent nearly as labor intensive as they were 40 years ago. Cheaper chinese labor doesnt or shouldnt shave much off the cost of the goods.I watched on TV how BMW makes the car engines.Just about everything was done by the robots.There was hardly a human soul on that factory floor.Now i understand that is better to make the engine in germany than having it shipped all the way from China just to save a few pennies on labour.What i dont understand is that why the americans think otherwise.The same logic applies to the electronics.Motherboards are printed circuits done by machines.All humans do is program the machines, package and test the products.I dont see why they should be manufactured in taiwan since it doesnt take too many people to oversee the production.

The Americans don't think otherwise. The new American factories are run by technicians. The process is all automated. There are far fewer UAW members needed to produce a lot more cars. The era of the blue collar worker has passed.

I don't see where all of this stuff is a lot cheaper, if that answers your questions. We have just been trained to take the path of least resistance. Know of any 1099 cheats, for example?

It is bizarre to me how much these companies spend on packagig. AND BTW, the savings I see in procucts is so minimal and many times in the critical areas. For example I put in a rubber flashed Wasco skylight. The rubber was so unbelievably thin, it would not lay down out of the box.. And I thought "What did they save here on the rubber thickness? $1.50? $1?"

I see this over and over in products where the savings are so minimal and I would gladly pay an extra 20 cents for something done that little bit better

Manufacturing nowadays is highly automated.Factories aren't nearly as labor intensive as they were 40 years ago. Cheaper chinese labor doesn't or shouldn't shave much off the cost of the goods.I watched on TV how BMW makes the car engines.Just about everything was done by the robots.There was hardly a human soul on that factory floor.Now i understand that is better to make the engine in germany than having it shipped all the way from China just to save a few pennies on labour.What i don't understand is that why the americans think otherwise.The same logic applies to the electronics.Motherboards are printed circuits done by machines.All humans do is program the machines, package and test the products.I don't see why they should be manufactured in taiwan since it doesn't take too many people to oversee the production.

Alba Said: How come Germany didnt lose its manufacturing to China?

LOL WHat R U a troublemaker?

Obvously Germany does not have the American Political Party (Dem/Rep) or the American Consumer (citizen) working against them

How come Germany didn't lose its manufacturing to China?

I knew a guy from Detroit, and one day we were talking about the different "policies" that affected the peoples. Homer was a black doctor of law and taught at Wayne State university. Very intelligent. We were talking about affirmative action, and he said he was for it "because black men can't start businesses", "they weren't good businessmen".

Horse hockey I said. How many of the pimps and drug dealers in the black community are white? None was his reply!

Those are excellent businessmen, and those are excellent profits they are taking in...all cash too. They are filling a demand and doing it quite well. If the government would get out of the way and stop "helping" them, I am sure they could do fine all by themselves. (I am talking of legitimate businesses and supply and demand here) As long as we keep rewarding people for doing nothing and punish them for taking initiative, we will continue to get more of the same.

The white man is stupid if you think of it. We work when we could very easily do nothing and make more money doing it. Can you spell "plantation" This will all come to a screeching halt sooner than later as it is too the point where they are running out of our money to give to themselves. Just make sure you are not standing in front of the fan when the shat hits it!

I'm not going to commiserate with what appears to be a true story in Detroit. I will say I'm sorry it is happening. What I want to say emphatically is "Delightfully Different Dunedin, Deep Down in Florida Where The Sun Shines Damn Near Every Day". A Renaissance ,a rebirth is happening. Dunedin is alive with new and old restaurants and shops opening. Vibrant alive with people filling the restaurants and stores. Riding bicycles, walking, strolling with there partners and dogs. The main street and trails are wonderful. The Marina and parks are full with kids laughing and playing. People sitting on seawalls and benches watching Dolphins and Manatee, sunsets in the Gulf. Music of all genera, pour out from many venues along our Main Street and side streets that encompass the Downtown Core . This small little chunk of Paradise here on the West Coast of Florida must be in a time warp bubble. I love this town and it's artistic community. B) :) :) B)

IT’S hard to dismiss the current locavore boom in the Berkshires as mere fashion. In fact, the national enthusiasm for eating farm-to-table has roots in western Massachusetts. The nation’s first agricultural fair was held in Berkshire County in the early 19th century, and in 1986, when the country’s first two community-supported agriculture farms were established, one was in the southern Berkshires.

Berkshires Travel Guide Where to Stay Where to Eat What to Do Go to the Berkshires Travel Guide » Multimedia

Slide Show Eating Locally in the Berkshires.Such farms, which offer a share of their harvest in exchange for a seasonal financial commitment, are now a mainstay of the farm-to-table movement. But it’s no surprise that the idea found such fertile ground in the Berkshires, said Barbara Zheutlin, director of Berkshire Grown, an organization dedicated to the region’s agriculture. Her group is another legacy of the vibrant, community-oriented food activism that was well under way by the mid-1980s.

This quiet history has no better modern incarnation than Susan Sellew, 60, maker of Monterey Chevre. Ms. Sellew, a native of New Marlborough, laughingly traces her skills to an affliction of “Old MacDonald” syndrome in the 1960s and ’70s. Determined not to buy anything she could learn to make herself, she was soon preparing her own honey, maple syrup, sausages and soap.

Goats were a source of food, but Ms. Sellew fell in love with their mischievous nature and obvious intelligence.

“They’re like cats,” she said. “They believe everything they do is just perfect.” Making cheese from their milk was an afterthought, “the perfect justification to keep more goats,” she said.

Three decades ago, Ms. Sellew returned to her grandfather’s forested land in Monterey. She and her husband at the time, Wayne Dunlop, spent months clearing fields and building a barn from the lumber they cut. They named it Rawson Brook Farm.

Ms. Sellew has 50 animals and does not want more, so that she can follow personalities and physical traits from generation to generation. But flourishing demand for her cheese, and her policy of never refusing a local customer, means that it may be hard to find in urban markets. Nevertheless, look for Monterey Chevre in Zabar’s in New York.

Better yet, stop by the farm (185 New Marlboro Road, Monterey; 413-528-2138), where the goats are named for constellations and Julia Roberts characters, and the rotating milking table, hand-fashioned by Ms. Sellew from a truck axle, bears an admonition to “Honor the Udder.”

(Slide shows of Rawson Brook and other Berkshire farms are at berkshirefoodjournal.com.)

Ms. Sellew isn’t immune to trends — the goats occasionally snack on kelp — but she’s also been around long enough to understand that back-to-the-farm movements come and go. She sees the current round as different, especially in the Berkshires, where longstanding activism is supplemented by increasingly food-savvy tourists.

Frances Duncan, a locavore blogger, agrees.

“The Berkshires are really on the cusp of breaking into a more sustainable economy, via local foods and agriculture,” she said. The result is not just an invigorated farming industry, she added, but an explosion of small, upscale producers.

KarenNew JerseyAugust 21st, 20109:21 am

I don't think the confidence level of the students is the problem. I spent a small stint teaching inner city tenth grade. I noticed the kids didn't do their assignments or learn. As a white with top grades from top universities, I still always struggled to stay employed (hence a stint teaching inner city high school.) I tried to warn them about how competitive it is out there.

They drew up in anger, eyes flashing at me. "I am beautiful and capable. I can be anything! I can be a surgeon, lawyer, actor, president!" Then they returned to not handing in assignments. Someone with good intentions is teaching them this mantra.

Doing a little subbing in wealthier districts, I noticed that the students became scared and worried when they got bad scores. As a kid, I got scared when I got bad scores. They, I, got a different, probably more accurate message, somehow

I agree stephen. I had the same problem for years with the small town white boys. Now I am tryig to find new employees w/a balance between experience and being un-tainted by (bad) experience.

I agree about building, building, building. I has been that way for all of my life w/ infrastructure. Never any money to fix and maintain, but always money available to tear down the natural world and pour more concrete. Heck what do I now, maybe concrete and asphalt are FREE?

They just tore up a couple of acres at our smalltown park for a parking lot. For a small town we really have (had) a beaufitful little park.

Anyway now the economy is in the tank, debt is high, jobs are scarce.... and what is the plan? BUILD MORE STUFF ON CREDIT.

What thing is for sure, is that the cost of operation (staff, maintenance, utilities, etc) rarely gets mentioned where I am