OrmontUS

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 9:49 PM

Re: Macro environmental on science page

Or, of course, we could convert our SUV's to natural gas and not take all that valuable oil off Canada's hands (and give the corn back to the cows where it belongs)

**** Not Signed Neither ****

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 9:45 PM

Re: Price of gold: what correlates?

Wendy,

I think the price of gold rises when purchasing takes place faster than the supply is replenished.

Duh! - what else is new? But actually, it's important. The price dropped at the end of 2008 and beginning of 2009 as people [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Help with this STUPID computer! board. 9:36 PM

Re: scanner

The Brother unit took a stack of photos in the feeder and flawlessly fed them at a speed of a few seconds each. The photos I scanned were all different sizes - including a lot of weird small European ones from the 1930's. I found it helpful to make [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 6:17 PM

Re: PD: Owner made fast-food restaurants succes

I remember a union negotiation I participated in. The existing total compensation per hour of the employees was about $100 per hour (about 50% wages, 50% benefit) before overtime.

Union guy: I think we need to do the following here (which [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Help with this STUPID computer! board. 9:04 AM

Re: question

I'm going to agree with Phil on this one. The fact that obsolete equipment still continues to be used (though in diminishing quantities) doesn't mean that they are common. I would think that the last new hub was sold to an educated customer over 15 [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 10:25 AM

Re: Saving a bankrupt hospital

Q,

One of the initiatives of "Obamacare" is the documentation of the nation's population as far as health care is concerned. Best practices are beginning to be promulgated and government reimbursement predicated on it. This has [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 8:32 AM

Re: Saving a bankrupt hospital

Yoda, thank you for posting that.

Before addressing the US medical system, it's useful to peek at one related and a couple of unrelated businesses:

1) First, the unrelated ones. Last week +/-, I was in Puerto Rico. I stayed at a [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 11:38 PM

Re: The micro problems with America

Hi Dave,

Aw shucks, it's a slow weekend night so why not take a stab at things.

It's not helpful to stereotype. I know you said "it's not about me", but I can't help bringing up that I elected to retire early. I didn't [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Help with this STUPID computer! board. 3:59 PM

Re: scanner

Oh yeah - I tried my MFP and the photos had a habit of wrapping around the ADF roller, they weren't the same size, etc., etc. It was OK if there were just a few to deal with, but I'd still be scanning today without the dedicated unit (which has a [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Help with this STUPID computer! board. 3:57 PM

Re: scanner

I bought one of these at Costco for $275 late last year:
http://www.brother-usa.com/Scanners/ModelDetail/24/ADS2000/O...

I scanned over 4,000 [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 8:20 AM

Re: Change of strategy - advice sought?

It's easy enough to buy the native issues at a low commission rate (as well as the underlying currencies at very low incremental cost - about $2.50 per $100K, I think - directly on the Forex market) at firms like Interactive Brokers. That's how I've [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 10:49 PM

Re: EWJ

Sold it yesterday, but will likely buy it again sometime in the near future. Same is true for inverse Yen

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 10:45 PM

Re: Change of strategy - advice sought?

Hohumm,

The dividends are paid in Swiss Francs and I would expect the Swiss government to withhold between 10% and 30% (forget what it is) which is then credited against US taxes.

What I've noticed is that the US ADR's (in general) [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 10:41 PM

Re: PD: Owner made fast-food restaurants succes

Think how sad this is:

Most jobs in America today are retail and restaurant work.

Retail is sinking beneath the weight of the internet and the warehouse club and restaurants (presumably mostly fast food of one sort or another) [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 10:10 PM

Re: Change of strategy - advice sought?

Did a bit of fooling around and came up with the following ratios: Company ABB 5.99% Adecco 0.88% Givaudan 1.31% Holcim 2.06% Nestlé 32.04% Novartis 23.46% Richemont 4.31% Roche 19.34% Swatch Group 1.79% Swiss Re 1.69% Swisscom 0.70% [more]

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OrmontUS posted to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 7:32 PM

Change of strategy - advice sought?

As I've mentioned in the past, I've kept a reasonably large percentage of my assets in foreign currency accounts of one sort or another. So the current rise in the US dollar, along with the general drop in interest rates (even on foreign currencies) [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 5:55 PM

Re: Tirade against public education

Q,

There are two divergent points brought up in your post:

1) Technically, how can we utilize YouTube in a school with minimal pipe. I suspect there are a number of ways in which to download YouTube content (in this case Kahn [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 5:40 PM

Re: PD: Owner made fast-food restaurants succes

"People who are below the poverty line, working 10-15 hours a day, six or seven days a week cannot get more education or otherwise improve themselves, they are too busy just surviving."


Let's call part of it a matter of [more]

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OrmontUS replied to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 11:18 AM

Re: PD: Owner made fast-food restaurants succes

I agree that the "stupid" should not starve. I also agree that it is idiocy to cut support from education - the obtaining of which (in appropriate technical areas) is the primary advantage our country would have in the global [more]

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OrmontUS posted to the Macro Economic Trends and Risks board. 10:50 PM

USD at year high

WalMart: Overseas, a stronger dollar dented international sales by $1 billion.

This will become a theme for US international companies - BE AWARE!

Jeff