Forbes 400 list

[Stalin]

Nothing like a little class envy to get the comrades going....

According to Forbes magazine, the net worth of the 400 richest Americans increased by 8 percent in 2010, to $1.37 trillion, in the year ending August 25. The figure is slightly greater than the entire gross domestic product of India, population 1.2 billion. It is also more than 10 times greater than the $121 billion combined budget deficit of all 50 states for 2011.

...

As in other recent editions of the Forbes list, the virtual absence of billionaires whose fortunes are derived from manufacturing is striking. One exception is 85-year-old William Ford, Sr., whose net worth of $1 billion brought him back on the list for the first time in several years. Ford’s wealth increased largely as a result of wage-cutting at his eponymous motor company.

The list offers a glimpse at the socially malignant character of today’s ruling elite and its activities. The great majority of the Forbes 400 have derived their staggering fortunes through one or another type of financial operation, such as hedge funds, private equity firms, real estate, “technology” (mainly through bubble-driven Internet or software ventures), and retail empires.

To be sure, America has always had its “robber barons,” long associated with names like Vanderbilt, Carnegie and Rockefeller. Though they brutally oppressed their workers, their wealth was derived from the building up of enormous industrial empires. Today’s robber barons have instead made their fortunes from the destruction of industry and out-and-out financial swindling unconnected to any productive economic process.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/sep2010/forb-s24.shtml

Comrade Stalin

 

[Stalin]

apologies for duplication

i cannot find a delete thread button

someone please do it and/or tell me how to do it.....

Hans Kohlhase

 

[Pandora]

Why would this cause class envy?

When I read about people who made it big it makes me happy. One day I may too make it big.

I am glad for them, except for the ones who are really wealthy and get on TV to tell me I have to get up some of my pie for others who don't have enough pie. Those people make me sick but anyone who earned money, tons of it and leave me alone, I am happy for them.

 

[Gipper]

Why would this cause class envy?

When I read about people who made it big it makes me happy. One day I may too make it big.

I am glad for them, except for the ones who are really wealthy and get on TV to tell me I have to get up some of my pie for others who don't have enough pie. Those people make me sick but anyone who earned money, tons of it and leave me alone, I am happy for them.

Me too, but Uncle Joe does not like this. He wants to live like a King, while the rest of us are serfs.

I just defined Marxism.

 

[Stalin]

I was trying to draw attention to the fact that all but one on the list had a fortune based on speculation and looting.

Comrade Stalin

 

[Stalin]

Why would this cause class envy?

One day I may too make it big.

This is the false hope that underpins the whole fraud.

If everyone makes it big, who is going to clean the sewers ?

Who needs a loan when everyone has enough ?

Comrade Stalin

 

[Gipper]

This is the false hope that underpins the whole fraud.

If everyone makes it big, who is going to clean the sewers ?

Who needs a loan when everyone has enough ?

Comrade Stalin

Yeah and under your ideology no one cleans the sewers. They just claim to clean them.

And, no one will get a loan because all will be poor peasants just as it was in your beloved USSR.

 

[PLC1]

I was trying to draw attention to the fact that all but one on the list had a fortune based on speculation and looting.

Comrade Stalin

Can you tell us why you think that Bill Gates and Warren Buffet made their fortunes by "speculation and looting"?

You could make such a case for Bernie Madoff, perhaps, but he's in jail.

 

[Stalin]

Yeah and under your ideology no one cleans the sewers. They just claim to clean them.

And, no one will get a loan because all will be poor peasants just as it was in your beloved USSR.

A tale of two cities...

City 1

After Wednesday's drenching that caused the subways to melt down, terrible flooding, and sewage to back up into streets and into homes, officials are creating task forces for review what the hell is going on. But the sad truth is that NYC's drainage systems are complicated. The NY Times has a fascinating and frightening (if the ideas of lots of sewage frightens you) article that looks at the dirty secret of NYC's storm water drainage system.

See, the storm water drainage system and the sewer system were linked many years ago, so when there are heavy rains and the pipes are backed up, "millions of gallons of rainwater mixed with raw sewage are routed away from the city’s 14 sewage plants and toward a web of underground pipes that empty directly into the East River, the Hudson River and New York Harbor." Blech!

Some interesting facts from the article: Many American cities have combined storm water and sewage systems, but NYC's is the biggest. Also, on a normal, dry day, the Department of Environmental Protection treats 1.4 billion gallons of sewage over its 14 plants, and it can handle double its usual load in case of rain. "But as little as a tenth of an inch of rain coming very quickly can overload that system," which then can trigger "nearly 460 registered sewage outflows that empty directly into the city’s rivers and waterways." With the sewer system aging, one of the city's ideas is to create huge holding tanks for sewer outflow. But there's a lot of concern, from city and state officials as well as environmental groups like the Riverkeeper Group.

For the "history repeats itself" file, the Post reports that subway flooding is nothing new, as subway was shut down four times in three months back in 1913. A vintage 1913 Post article asked, "Is New York's subway to be flooded and traffic stopped every time an unusually heavy rain visits New York?"

Here's website about sewage history, and did you know that during the 2003 blackout, back-up generators at sewage plants failed so 30 million gallons of sewage were dumped into the East River?

http://gothamist.com/2007/08/11/the_depressing.php


City 2

An algorithm for the optimized control of a branching urban head-and-gravity sewer network is proposed. The control consists in redistribution of the sewage flows between the network structural components. The algorithm is based on a mathematical model and presupposes the use of a computer. The mathematical model consists of a set of algebraic equations with the structure transporting capacities captured as constraints. The mathematical task of control is stated and solved as an optimization problem. The objective function is the minimization of total electric energy consumption over all the network pumping stations. The assumptions substantiated by practice would reduce the problem to the known problem of linear programming. The discharge through each pumping station of the considered subnetwork of Moscow's sewer network was computed using a mathematical model and was compared to the value observed under the same actual conditions. From this comparison, it was concluded that the proposed algorithm was more successful in controlling the network than was the traditional operation. The correction of the working conditions of some pumping stations of the Moscow sewer subnetwork in accordance with the precalculated time schedule, has allowed a significant decrease in the electric energy consumption for conveyance of the sewage through the network

http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...2b4fcb1bb90c1f7e6fdf608beac22c74&searchtype=a




Comrade Stalin rising uo from the sewer