Text 48040, 78 rader
Skriven 2007-02-05 12:01:21 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
  Kommentar till text 48022 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
Ärende: FidoNews 24:05 [02/05]: G
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03 Feb 07 09:09, Michiel van der Vlist wrote to Roy Witt:

 RW>>>> If the customer is Mr Deep Pockets, sometimes money is no
 RW>>>> object.
 MvdV>>> You do not become Mr Deep Pocket unless money *always* is an
 MvdV>>> object.
 RW>> Oh? Tell that to people who've invested their money in things like
 RW>> the Spruce Goose and many other dead end projects.

 MvdV> I am not saying Mr Deep Pockets never makes mistakes.

Afterall, they're also human.

 MvdV> Don't tell me Howard Hughes designed the Spruce Goose for just that
 MvdV> single one meter high hop it ever made.

No, he didn't. It was a WW2 brainchild of Henry J Kaiser, the guy whose
idea it was to build all of those Liberty ships that sent supplies from
the US to Britain.  It was thought to be a good idea by a Senate
sub-commitee to avoid the German U-boats. Howard Hughes, President, CEO
and owner of Hughes Aircraft bid for the job and won. It wasn't his deep
pockets that paid for the development of that airplane, it was the
taxpayers' deep pockets.

 MvdV> yes, it was a dead end project, but surely it was never meant to
 MvdV> become a display object in the Smithsonian.

Actually, it was intended to prove that airplanes, large airplanes, can
fly without being made of lite materials such as aluminum. A scarce
commodity during the war. That's why it had a wingspan of 97.5m (319 feet)
and eight, 3000 HP Pratt & Whitney radial aircraft engines.

 RW>> When there's more where that came from and it's a never ending flow,
 RW>> money is no object.

 MvdV> Nonsense.

That is fact. The reason the HR-4 never got further than it did was for
two reasons; The war had ended and Congress cut off funds to continue
development.

 MvdV>>> Mr Deep Pocket always looks at the expected returns of his
 MvdV>>> investment.

 RW>> Not always.

 MvdV> Always. On penalty of soon being ex mr deep pockets.

The US government's pockets are so deep that it will spend money on a
project, even if it makes no headway. Take the US government's war on
drugs for instance.

 RW>>>> I had a welder in my shop who rented space from me that would do
 RW>>>> that.

 MvdV>>> Some people never learn.

 RW>> He certainly didn't. He put up his house to get himself and his
 RW>> business out of the hole and lost everything. That's a tough way to
 RW>> go when you're already over 70 years old.

 MvdV> I am surprised he last that long....

Oh, he gave up a very good paying job at a local Caterpillar tracter
dealer to go out on his own. The idea was to get his son up on his own two
feet and just be an adviser to him in his retirement. The problem was that
his son was more interested in selling drugs and never showed up for work.
The old man had to go out to his house and get him out of bed. That was
around noon and didn't leave much time for him to get any work done. That
old man lost what he had trying to help someone who didn't deserve it.

               R\%/itt




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