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To: fatty who wrote (16667)	2/4/2004 1:32:58 PM
From: Tradelite	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

<<I wish you're 20 years younger so that you can feel the plight of being marginalized>> I'm curious about what you mean. Not sure....do you mean the occupational skills you gained have been marginalized, or your age group has been marginalized,, or something else? This term doesn't mean much to me, although I hear it used quite a bit these days. Would like an explanation of how it applies to your situation. Maybe it also applies--or will apply-- to my kids?????

To: fatty who wrote (16667)	2/4/2004 1:56:37 PM
From: Lizzie Tudor	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 306849

I wish you're 20 years younger so that you can feel the plight of being marginalized. But you have yourself well protected with the fortunes you've amassed over the years and the retirement account that the younger generation will subsidize. Sort of out of context a little but I want to respond to this snippet. I don't know how old you are, but my sense is that this callous disregard for the plight of the young professionals whose future went from first to worst in the last 3 years is going to get a wake up call in Nov. 04. Unemployment among young white collar workers, new graduates from the top schools etc. is higher than I've ever seen in my life, higher than 1982 even. The new industries of technology have scaled back their US workforces to levels not seen since the early 90s (pre internet) meanwhile they are selling at record levels in the US market. There is nothing from the current crop of politicians on this giant sucking sound, meanwhile government spending continues unabated as if the young workers are a blank check for federal spending. I expect HUGE reform starting in 05.

To: fatty who wrote (16667)	2/4/2004 10:16:39 PM
From: GraceZ	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

Thanks for bringing up the magic word: risk. If taking risk is your advice for a better life, we might as well spend 8 hours in the casino instead of the office. Risk is a fact of life. Didn't you take risk when you decided to major in whatever you majored in in college, when you decided what field to work in, where to look for work? Risk is something that people take every single day as they make any financial decisions whether you are aware of it or not. If you take excessive risk you wind up penniless or dead, if you don't take enough you risk you wind up trailing inflation your whole life. It sounds like you want a risk free way to make money, it doesn't exist. So if you can't figure out how to beat the Chindians, you might as well go live in a village in the Himalaya??? No, you think you can't compete with someone who is paid so much less than you want to get paid, right? I just gave you an example of a business that was extremely successful at competing with another down the street and did it charging 20x what they were charging. Your defeatist attitude is what is making you less competitive not the prices that the Chinese and Indians are charging. I wish you're 20 years younger so that you can feel the plight of being marginalized. Oh, pulease, how old are you twelve? In the last three years I lost my very profitable business due to obsolescence, people (my old clients) are no longer in need of traditional photographic printing services, all of it is moving to digital imaging. I have been working on digital for the last ten years but the way things were shaping up I didn't think there was room for my skills. I decided to do a full scale retrain. My cushy income was cut down to 15k in two years after my best year ever! In those three years I studied intensely to become a full fledged money manager, a completely new profession. Because it pays only once a year and I needed to work at least a year before the first pay check I made zero money doing it for two years while I lived off my dwindling retirement savings and my husband's income (less than half what I used to make) While I was working 18 hour days for nothing building the MM biz I was approached by an old client to start a digital post production/pre-press operation. It took off right away because it turns out that there is a real need for my expertise after all in a slightly different venue. Boom, now after three years of nothing, I have two new businesses that both provide a very decent income together. So cry me a f-ckin river about your woes of being marginalized. I created two new jobs for myself in the time I've listened to all your carping about how unfair it all is for guys your age. If you think it's awful to retrain at 25 or 30 you haven't a clue about what it's like to do it at 48. I plan to be working the rest of my life. I look forward to it. As for your generation supporting mine, ha! When I was 32 I took a financial planning class and the very first thing we were told is do not plan for social security, make your retirement plans without factoring it in. I'm tail end of the baby boomers, born in 1954. You had to have taken some math in one of the schools you attended. Do the math. It's not possible for someone my age to receive enough benefits to live on from social security unless we some how manage to triple or quadruple the working population in this country or a lot more of us die younger. You are off the hook, the sheer numbers make the current system completely unworkable and it will have to be scrapped. Everyone knows this but no one wants to say it out loud around election time. If you are worried you are holding the tail end of the Ponzi scheme forget it, kid, you are twenty years too late for that role. It's the late boomers like myself and baby bust generation which gets left holding a ticket they can't cash in. So your answer for the people who work for the local walmart, which probably outnumber your boutique shop by a factor of 10-100 is: too bad you guys are too inferior?? What I'm trying to get across to you is a basic fundamental principle that low price isn't the only criteria for picking a vendor, that you, personally, could sell your services or what ever it is you do at a much higher price than those people in China and India or where ever it is that you think is going to under bid you if you can figure out what it is that makes a company choose a higher priced solution. If you can't figure that out you are essentially doomed to never again make that wage you think you are worth. Grace, I thought we're talking the printing industry, not your particular superior quality boutique shop. The business world is full of "guys" like me, in fact it is run on them during time like this when they lay off all the regular working stiffs. You simply have to be a bit more imaginative about looking for work than going to a head hunter or looking in the want ads, you have to create a business. I once met a woman on an airplane who made $500k a year as a meeting facilitator. It took half the trip for her to explain to me what a meeting facilitator did. She'd been mid-level at Big Blue when they early retiremented her ass and she wasn't about to roll over and work for some other big computer company so she struck out on her own and created a company. One of her biggest clients turned out to be IBM, at three times the rate she was paid when she worked there. The business world abounds with problems that need solving and where ever there is a problem there is profit to be made selling the solution. If you aren't thinking this way I can guarantee someone else is, and it isn't necessarily some guy in India because he's working at your old job for pennies.

To: fatty who wrote (16667)	2/5/2004 4:32:08 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 306849

Hi fatty, RE: "So if you can't figure out how to beat the Chindians, you might as well go live in a village in the Himalaya??? I wish you're 20 years younger so that you can feel the plight of being marginalized. But you have yourself well protected with the fortunes you've amassed over the years and the retirement account that the younger generation will subsidize." If you save $12,000 per year from age 30 to age 65, this will accumulate to $1,000,000.00 (expressed in today's dollar; already corrected for inflation), assuming ROR of 4.16%. This figure is also after tax. If you save money and invest it, you'll be fine. The bottom quintile of Americans consists of some people that have saved more money than even some in the top quintile. Regards, Amy J

To: fatty who wrote (16667)	2/5/2004 4:45:28 AM
From: Amy J	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

RE: "Thanks for bringing up the magic word: risk. If taking risk is your advice for a better life, we might as well spend 8 hours in the casino instead of the office." Your post reminded me of some humor... I know this one guy that would meet payroll by going to Las Vegas to bet at the casinos. He eventually got kicked out of the casinos because he kept winning so much money. He never missed a payroll. His company eventually went public and became very successful. You would know the firm. But Grace's point, about not charging salary, but instead selling IT services as some type of business gain, is really a smart idea. It's not dishonest marketing. It shows sensitivity and concern about a company's dollars. Exactly the kind of business partners you want. Regards, Amy J