Text 48046, 81 rader
Skriven 2007-02-06 00:37:00 av Michiel van der Vlist (2:280/5555)
  Kommentar till text 48040 av Roy Witt (1:397/22)
Ärende: FidoNews 24:05 [02/05]: G
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Hello Roy!

On Monday February 05 2007 12:01, you wrote to me:

 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
 RW>>> like the Spruce Goose and many other dead end projects.

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

 RW> Afterall, they're also human.

yep.

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

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

Ah. That makes a difference in so far that even deeper pockets were involved.
Still, not infinitely deep...

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

 RW> Actually, it was intended to prove that airplanes, large airplanes,
 RW> can fly without being made of lite materials such as aluminum.

An obvious failure. It never really flew.

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

 MvdV>> Nonsense.

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

Funds were cut off. So obviously money *was* an object.

 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.

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

The US government's pockets may be deep, but even those have a bottom. From
what I heard, they are giving up on the war on drugs because the resources are
needed elsewhere...

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

Sad story really... :-(


Cheers, Michiel

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