Ed, your rant fails to take into account the very ideas that allowed America to become an economic superpower in the first place.
There's nothing wrong with profitability - indeed, it is a healthy and necessary driver in any economy.
Show me an auto executive, or any executive in any business, who says he is barely making ends meet and I'll show you a liar.
I don't want to make this personal but the mere fact that you were able to retire via lawyering at 27 or some such age speaks volumes. Somebody somewhere took a screwing to make that happen.
Just a few comments here and I guess I'll get on with my life.
My "rant" was a well thought analysis of how profits what grease the skids of our economy; without being better off in the evening, there's no incentive to go to work in the morning. So I guess we agree that profits are good, or at least that's what you said: "...nothing wrong with profitibality...healthy and necessary driver of an economy."
So why are you so hostile and contentious?
As to showing you an auto executive who is barely making it so you can call him a liar, who mentioned lying auto executives but you? What's the point of being an auto executive if it leads to barely making it? Lying auto executives on a shotgun BBS, really GregSY: This red herring stinks.
But let me clue you in on auto executives, even though I don't know any, but I listen to the news and read newspapers. The Janesville WI GMC plant about 25 miles NE of me is going to close in December, and the Belivdere IL Chrysler plant about 40 miles SE is a 50/50 bet on closure if GMC and Chrysler merge. For sure those soon to be unemployed Janesville people, autoworkers and executive level, are going to be telling their tales of woe at the unemployment office, and it won't be lying.
You have a knack for not saying what you mean and not meaning what you say. Of course you want to take this personal. Otherwise why would you inject something about a "27 year old retired lawyer screwing somebody somewhere." FYI GregSY, not everybody is created equal, as evidenced by your postings on this board, which, as you say, "speak volumes."
Actually, to get the story straight, once and for all (I hope), I decided to move on from law in fall of 1980 when I bought a 43 foot ketch for $100,000; Wife Nancy (then 34) and I (40) and two kids (15 & 7) sailed that boat from Chicago to Europe and the Caribbean in 3 years, selling it in MD in spring 1984, for $135,000. I had added $8,000 of equipment, so my gain was $27,000. We spent about $14,000 per year, all inclusive, for 3 years or $42,000 total, less the gain on the boat, and our 3-year adventure to Europe and beyond cost a net $15,000 or $5,000 per year, or about $420 per month. The rich get richer if you consider living on $420 per month "rich." And for someone who has not practiced law for going on 28 years, I am amused by your fixation...did a lawyer abuse you as a child?
For my part, I never once worried about lying auto executives, greedy profit-mongers, or "condoning behavior that brings on economic woes." I did worry about wind shifts, building seas, getting a good sextant position, and bringing my family to port safely. In other words, living life on $420 per month. What were you doing in 1982? Grousing about that which you still don't understand? I would think so, because you are really good at it.
