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Old June 30th, 2011, 05:02   #21
Ginisa
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I agree with this title. The gap of salaries from executives to rank and file is so large today.
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Old June 30th, 2011, 05:36   #22
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Originally Posted by Spyhop View Post
Talk talk talk.
Yeah, it wasn't intended to be a totally serious comment. But let's face it, America was a country who's riches were gained from greed, and even though greed exists in every country's government, the US (from past to present) is f@#%ing ridiculous.

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It's not just here where this disparity exists. It might be worse here, but I think you're seeing things from a "Grass is Greener" perspective just a bit.
Not quite, but I have my reasons. See the first sentence above.
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Old June 30th, 2011, 05:43   #23
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The way I see it, the world is messed up enough as it is, so I'm planning on simply focusing on making enough money to pay my (future) rent and pursue my hobbies, like gaming and making music.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.

Discussions about economics have always been and always will remain an integral part of our society. What I hope is that value will be a thing of the past some day.
It never will.
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Old June 30th, 2011, 13:44   #24
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The way I see it, the world is messed up enough as it is, so I'm planning on simply focusing on making enough money to pay my (future) rent and pursue my hobbies, like gaming and making music.

Nothing more.

Nothing less.
The real problem, you obviously don't want to see, is that the top part of society, which is becoming greedier every day, does not leave enough money for you and millions of other people to do exactly that. The article tries to show this.
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Old June 30th, 2011, 14:14   #25
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The real problem, you obviously don't want to see, is that the top part of society, which is becoming greedier every day, does not leave enough money for you and millions of other people to do exactly that. The article tries to show this.
Since you posted the article, and have the opinion you do, I have a question.

What are your ideas on "fixing" this problem. I agree with you on the problem itself. However, I'm not sure on a solution that works for everyone. What would yours be? Do we "set the system up" to balance the money out more? Do we just let it play out (and let greed run our country into the ground)? Do you think civil wars and unrest could result? Is it something we have to deal with as punishment for our Greed?

This is why I linked to the other thread earlier, but the way. I wasn't trying to be rude. There was simply a similar discussion going on in that thread, and I wanted to link you to it for your own potential further reading.
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Not quite, but I have my reasons. See the first sentence above.
Oh, I'm not doubting your opinion as something you feel or anything. I'm just saying, you seem to be "romanticizing", as it's called, things a little bit, and seeing it from a bit of a "Grass is Greener" sort of view. That's just my own guess though. I'm not saying you don't want something or don't actually think something.
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Old June 30th, 2011, 14:49   #26
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Capitalism + Globalization = Economic oligarchy and also (indirectly) political oligarchy. If Americans don't like it they should be more open to other ideas too. No financial system is perfect for every situation and every one holds part of a truth imo. Capitalism takes into consideration that people are greedy (people are not always and only greedy though, and greed leeds to problems too).
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Old June 30th, 2011, 15:29   #27
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What I hope is that value will be a thing of the past some day.
"I am afraid of a youth growing up, who knows the price of everything, but not the value of anything"
[Gene Wilder]

Looks like his nightmare has turned into reality.
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Old June 30th, 2011, 22:02   #28
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Oh, I'm not doubting your opinion as something you feel or anything. I'm just saying, you seem to be "romanticizing", as it's called, things a little bit, and seeing it from a bit of a "Grass is Greener" sort of view. That's just my own guess though. I'm not saying you don't want something or don't actually think something.
Fair enough. I won't deny the fact that it has happened before though.
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Old July 1st, 2011, 19:12   #29
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That what has happened before?
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Old July 4th, 2011, 17:56   #30
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Just a short video clip:
Wealthiest 400 Now Own More Than The Bottom 150 Million Americans

EDIT
And another (really worth to watch)
WikiLeaks
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Old July 5th, 2011, 12:28   #31
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Originally Posted by nytimes.com
Corporate Cash Con (Paul Krugman)

Watching the evolution of economic discussion in Washington over the past couple of years has been a disheartening experience. Month by month, the discourse has gotten more primitive; with stunning speed, the lessons of the 2008 financial crisis have been forgotten, and the very ideas that got us into the crisis — regulation is always bad, what’s good for the bankers is good for America, tax cuts are the universal elixir — have regained their hold.

And now trickle-down economics — specifically, the idea that anything that increases corporate profits is good for the economy — is making a comeback.

On the face of it, this seems bizarre. Over the last two years profits have soared while unemployment has remained disastrously high. Why should anyone believe that handing even more money to corporations, no strings attached, would lead to faster job creation?

Nonetheless, trickle-down is clearly on the ascendant — and even some Democrats are buying into it. What am I talking about? Consider first the arguments Republicans are using to defend outrageous tax loopholes. How can people simultaneously demand savage cuts in Medicare and Medicaid and defend special tax breaks favoring hedge fund managers and owners of corporate jets?

And then there’s the repatriation issue.

U.S. corporations are supposed to pay taxes on the profits of their overseas subsidiaries — but only when those profits are transferred back to the parent company. Now there’s a move afoot — driven, of course, by a major lobbying campaign — to offer an amnesty under which companies could move funds back while paying hardly any taxes. And even some Democrats are supporting this idea, claiming that it would create jobs.

As opponents of this plan point out, we’ve already seen this movie: A similar tax holiday was offered in 2004, with a similar sales pitch. And it was a total failure. Companies did indeed take advantage of the amnesty to move a lot of money back to the United States. But they used that money to pay dividends, pay down debt, buy up other companies, buy back their own stock — pretty much everything except increasing investment and creating jobs. Indeed, there’s no evidence that the 2004 tax holiday did anything at all to stimulate the economy.

What the tax holiday did do, however, was give big corporations a chance to avoid paying taxes, because they would eventually have repatriated, and paid taxes on, much of the money they brought in under the amnesty. And it also gave these companies an incentive to move even more jobs overseas, since they now know that there’s a good chance that they’ll be able to bring overseas profits home nearly tax-free under future amnesties.

Yet as I said, there’s a push for a repeat of this disastrous performance. And this time around the circumstances are even worse. Think about it: How can anyone imagine that lack of corporate cash is what’s holding back recovery in America right now? After all, it’s widely understood that corporations are already sitting on large amounts of cash that they aren’t investing in their own businesses.

In fact, that idle cash has become a major conservative talking point, with right-wingers claiming that businesses are failing to invest because of political uncertainty. That’s almost surely false: the evidence strongly says that the real reason businesses are sitting on cash is lack of consumer demand. In any case, if corporations already have plenty of cash they’re not using, why would giving them a tax break that adds to this pile of cash do anything to accelerate recovery?

It wouldn’t, of course; claims that a corporate tax holiday would create jobs, or that ending the tax break for corporate jets would destroy jobs, are nonsense.

So here’s what you should answer to anyone defending big giveaways to corporations: Lack of corporate cash is not the problem facing America. Big business already has the money it needs to expand; what it lacks is a reason to expand with consumers still on the ropes and the government slashing spending.

What our economy needs is direct job creation by the government and mortgage-debt relief for stressed consumers. What it very much does not need is a transfer of billions of dollars to corporations that have no intention of hiring anyone except more lobbyists.
The situation is exactly the same in whole Europe right at the moment.
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Old July 12th, 2011, 22:00   #32
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Quit complaining about s**t.

At least you guys can take a stroll on your city streets without the fear of getting a bullet to your head -_-
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Old July 12th, 2011, 22:13   #33
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Quit complaining about s**t.

At least you guys can take a stroll on your city streets without the fear of getting a bullet to your head -_-
That line of thinking was already addressed.
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Old July 12th, 2011, 23:09   #34
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Originally Posted by BinarySlave
What our economy needs is direct job creation by the government and mortgage-debt relief for stressed consumers. What it very much does not need is a transfer of billions of dollars to corporations that have no intention of hiring anyone except more lobbyists.
That's what the Hungarian government is trying to do now. What are they doing? They're building stadiums (a wonderful way to increase government revenue, BTW). By hand. Deliberately not using modern technology to give more people jobs! The latter was admitted by the prime minister himself.
And for what? A salary where you have to decide to pay for either rent or food. And don't get sick, 'cause these will be probably the only legal jobs not providing for public healthcare.

The problem is that governments will not produce profitable products and services with public workers. They won't open a Goverment Brand clothing factory (though some prisons do. Hmmm...). That means the salary, work expenses et al have to be payed from the state's budget; by extent from the taxes. That means to directly provide jobs, the govt has to either increase taxes (and even if those are corporate taxes, they fall back to the private households in form of increased prices) or by reducing payments; for healthcare, public transport, road construction and similar things.
The best way to provide jobs would be to generate progressive benefits for companies for having more employees. The more employees you have, the less taxes you pay for each individual one. The government would still take in a similar amount of cash in form of revenue taxes: people can't spend money they don't have.
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Old July 13th, 2011, 09:11   #35
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That's what the Hungarian government is trying to do now. What are they doing? They're building stadiums (a wonderful way to increase government revenue, BTW). By hand. Deliberately not using modern technology to give more people jobs! The latter was admitted by the prime minister himself.
And for what? A salary where you have to decide to pay for either rent or food. And don't get sick, 'cause these will be probably the only legal jobs not providing for public healthcare.
Especially in Hungary the situation has changed a lot in the last couple of month. Censored media, open racism against Roma, hardcore nationalism, etc. It's hard to find more detailed info in german or english, so I would be interested to hear more about what's going on in Hungary, if you could tell more.

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The problem is that governments will not produce profitable products and services with public workers.
In my opinion, energy, water, health care, hospitals, police, fire department, road construction, public transport, traffic control and refuse collection all belong into public hands. There is no need for those services to make any profit and only have to be self sustainable at best.

We once had all this, but more and more was given away into the greedy hands of "businessmen" for just a few bucks in the hope "the market" could deal better with it and would make things cheaper. The undeniable truth is: EVERYTHING now in the hands of "the market" has become a lot more expensive to everyone and every employee earns way less than before. But yeah, now there is a lot of profit made.
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Old July 13th, 2011, 10:16   #36
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Especially in Hungary the situation has changed a lot in the last couple of month. Censored media, open racism against Roma, hardcore nationalism, etc. It's hard to find more detailed info in german or english, so I would be interested to hear more about what's going on in Hungary, if you could tell more.
Hungarian politics have always been governed by one central element: the enemy. Whether it was the Christians (back when they were a nomadic tribe), the Turks, the Austrian Empire or the Russian. And if they have noone without, they start to claw at each other within. Oppositional parties are not others who also want the best for the country with a different mindset, but a nemesis that has to be eradicated.

That's what the current government built its whole campaign around and that's how they scored a 2/3 majority in Parliament. That way, they can now pass every law they please without as much as talking with either oppositional parties or workers' unions. This resulted in things like the Media Council, a censorship bureau officially instated to reduce the amount of "child-unfriendly" content, but whose first action went against an oppositional web-newspaper.

Nationalism has been budding in the collective Hungarian mindset since the peace treaty of World War I, which cut away former Hungarian territories at each side of the country, reducing it's size by half. This "injustice" has fueled rightwing politics ever since, some even going so far that those territories should be given (or taken) back, effectively annexing almost the whole of Slovakia, for example.

Racism, especially against roma and jews, has been around since the fall of the Iron Curtain. Jews are blamed for all the (percieved or true) evils of capitalism, while roma are seen as uncivilized, uneducated louts who leech on the state's wellfare system as kinda "breeding machines", or descend into petty crime. To be truthful, though, there have been governmental projects to grant the many roma families living in shanty towns normal housing, formal education and jobs, but they have always failed at the roma's general resistence.

Quote:
In my opinion, energy, water, health care, hospitals, police, fire department, road construction, public transport, traffic control and refuse collection all belong into public hands. There is no need for those services to make any profit and only have to be self sustainable at best.
With the exception of the energy sector, where competition could/should lead to better quality and reduced prices for the general public, I fully agree with you there. In Hungary, these sectors are either run directly by the government, or by govt-owned subsideries.
Problem is, every government since the fall of the Iron Curtain has cut back expenses on them, reducing the number of employees. They do not, and should not, work up profit/revenue, so they are seen as a "black hole" for taxmoney by politicians and the short-sighted masses they manipulate with their slogans.

Quote:
We once had all this, but more and more was given away into the greedy hands of "businessmen" for just a few bucks in the hope "the market" could deal better with it and would make things cheaper. The undeniable truth is: EVERYTHING now in the hands of "the market" has become a lot more expensive to everyone and every employee earns way less than before. But yeah, now there is a lot of profit made.
I don't nessessarily see capitalism as the source of all evil, but I must confess that lobby-ism and governmental corruption has lead to many decisions against the working class. But there are also a slew of positive examples that governments and corporations all over the world would need to follow: Sweden reduced its loan rate by 30% over 10 years by taxing wealth of over 200.000 Euro per person in a household; or in Japan, where the pay of each employee, including the CEO, are bound to each other. If the CEO wants a raise, he has to increase the pay for his cleaning personnel as well.
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Old July 13th, 2011, 12:29   #37
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Especially in Hungary the situation has changed a lot in the last couple of month. Censored media, open racism against Roma, hardcore nationalism, etc. It's hard to find more detailed info in german or english, so I would be interested to hear more about what's going on in Hungary, if you could tell more.
Seconded, I've been out of touch with the country but at the same time the news bulletins that do reach the Netherlands leave me quite worried. I feel sorry for the people living there, I know life wasn't too easy before that, but the crisis has struck them in a way none in Western Europe could imagine, bar the few who perhaps have lost their job. And even then you're better off jobless in the Netherlands and than having to pay your bills in self-earned Hungarian Forints.
Quote:
In my opinion, energy, water, health care, hospitals, police, fire department, road construction, public transport, traffic control and refuse collection all belong into public hands. There is no need for those services to make any profit and only have to be self sustainable at best.

We once had all this, but more and more was given away into the greedy hands of "businessmen" for just a few bucks in the hope "the market" could deal better with it and would make things cheaper. The undeniable truth is: EVERYTHING now in the hands of "the market" has become a lot more expensive to everyone and every employee earns way less than before. But yeah, now there is a lot of profit made.
May I present you the nail-on-the-head award of 2011? I've seen some railroad companies from rather close by, they're pretty much a disaster.

Looking at energy companies I cannot imagine they can do things more cost effectively, when next to having to pay their employees, they now have to pay shareholders and marketing campaigns as well.


Smilley, thanks for the insight. Most of it doesn't sound new but it nevertheless freshes up my memory.
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Old July 13th, 2011, 12:57   #38
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Most of it isn't, really. I could post some up-to-date things, but it's just depressing. On the bright side, it seems to rile up the workers' unions. Again, they have found an enemy in the reigning party, so it's kind of same-old-same-old.
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Old July 14th, 2011, 13:25   #39
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Smilley, thanks for the insight.
Thanks from me, too.

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With the exception of the energy sector, where competition could/should lead to better quality and reduced prices for the general public, I fully agree with you there.
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Looking at energy companies I cannot imagine they can do things more cost effectively, when next to having to pay their employees, they now have to pay shareholders and marketing campaigns as well.
I share the exact same view as Cid Highwind here.
In germany we have 4 big energy providers (yes, they are buying energy from external producers, too), who have split the whole country into 4 regions for everyone of them to dominate 1 region. Yes, THIS they call "free market"! But, that's still not enough. They receive subsidies in the millions EVERY year to keep the transport ways intact, but just give a damn about and let them rot since 4 decades, which is no secret to anyone. On the other side do they claim that just to keep the transport ways intact, raising energy prices every year is unavoidable. Simply unbelievable!

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In Hungary, these sectors are either run directly by the government, or by govt-owned subsideries.
Problem is, every government since the fall of the Iron Curtain has cut back expenses on them, reducing the number of employees. They do not, and should not, work up profit/revenue, so they are seen as a "black hole" for taxmoney by politicians and the short-sighted masses they manipulate with their slogans.
Exactly that was the german populace told back then when the privatization of a lot of sectors was initiated and that all will turn to the better afterwards, because "the free market" could deal with it way better than any government ever could. "You know, governments are no businessmen." was one of the most repeated sentences back then.

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I don't nessessarily see capitalism ass the source of all evil, but I must confess that lobby-ism and governmental corruption has lead to many decisions against the working class.
I am no communist either. I am for a strongly regulated market, like a lot of professional economists, who do not follow that neoliberal sh!t. The opposite of what we have today: "The free market", which, as fairies tell, will always regulate itself and where politics has to stay out of to not "harm" it. But wait, who was called for after the big bank breakdown to rescue the gamblers? We all know, who still has to pay billions to get out of this sh!t and it's definitely not "the free market"!

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But there are also a slew of positive examples that governments and corporations all over the world would need to follow: Sweden reduced its loan rate by 30% over 10 years by taxing wealth of over 200.000 Euro per person in a household; or in Japan, where the pay of each employee, including the CEO, are bound to each other. If the CEO wants a raise, he has to increase the pay for his cleaning personnell as well.
Yes, Sweden, Denmark, Finland have a lot of very good systems, imho. Being it tax-system, school-system, healthcare-system, social-system, etc. There is so much to learn and adapt from them, but no one in germany is even listening, because that would "hinder the almighty free market".

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I feel sorry for the people living there, I know life wasn't too easy before that, but the crisis has struck them in a way none in Western Europe could imagine, bar the few who perhaps have lost their job.
I am worried a lot about a european country, which is still called a democracy in the rest of the world, but has been turned into a tyranny already. And nearly nobody takes notice of a member of the European Union being raped, because of the lack of information reaching the rest of Europe. It's a shame!

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I've seen some railroad companies from rather close by, they're pretty much a disaster.
Oh, there is so much going on with the german, still government owned, railroad company DB. They are trying to turn it into a joint-stock company at all costs since 3 decades. Guess, who was/is paying the absurdly costs of this nonsense plan.
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Old July 14th, 2011, 14:31   #40
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Originally Posted by BinarySlave View Post
I share the exact same view as Cid Highwind here.
In germany we have 4 big energy providers (yes, they are buying energy from external producers, too), who have split the whole country into 4 regions for everyone of them to dominate 1 region. Yes, THIS they call "free market"! But, that's still not enough. They receive subsidies in the millions EVERY year to keep the transport ways intact, but just give a damn about and let them rot since 4 decades, which is no secret to anyone. On the other side do they claim that just to keep the transport ways intact, raising energy prices every year is unavoidable. Simply unbelievable!

Exactly that was the german populace told back then when the privatization of a lot of sectors was initiated and that all will turn to the better afterwards, because "the free market" could deal with it way better than any government ever could. "You know, governments are no businessmen." was one of the most repeated sentences back then.
Wow, I could replace Germany with The Netherlands and it would be a correct description of the situation.

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(...)

Oh, there is so much going on with the german, still government owned, railroad company DB. They are trying to turn it into a joint-stock company at all costs since 3 decades. Guess, who was/is paying the absurdly costs of this nonsense plan.
Just great, maybe they should have a look at the mess The Netherlands has been in ever since we privatized and split up our railroad company? Our infrastructure has hardly been upgraded ever since, yet millions of Euros has been given to them as subsidies. There's no toilets on trains anymore (except intercities) because they could cut costs, every winter with two flakes worth of snow points fail massively, and as soon as such an event takes place, they demand extra money in order to fix these problems they caused themselves by cuttings costs earlier, and by simply not performing proper maintenance. That's the infrastructure department, ProRail (commonly called ProFail here), which has been split from the transport department, NS (Nationale Spoorwegen, National Railroads).

They, NS, spend big money on TV for promoting traveling by train and the top makes a lot of money cause they hit their targets of train delays being minimal. Behind the scenes they simply slap a sign on the train stating it's out for maintenance when it's a few minutes late, because it doesn't count in statistics. They'd rather let people wait 30 minutes for the next train than accepting a 2 minute delay, as that would get in the way of the public image, and their related bonus.

As you can see, free market at its finest. And this is just the tip of the iceberg, I'm not even touching the political stuff here. That's an entirely different can of worms, which is even worse. Right now there's an investigation going on about all the spendings they did and all other sort of stuff in which they have failed over the last years. The rails used to be much better off when they were ran by railroad enthusiasts, you know, these geeks with a passion for trains who knew little about financials and marketing, but everything about railroad technology, safety logic and how to get the most people from A to B, and actually cared about their work, rather than the statistics that are related to their bonus.
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