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[quote=FlyerInHi]
There used to be California cars and Federal cars so you couldn’t buy a new car from out of state and bring it to CA. But if you were from out of state and moving to CA, or had a second home elsewhere, you could bring your preownwed car to CA. There used to be an impact fee that was ruled unconstitutional.
[/quote] Correct, provided any aftermarket parts were CARB approved.
[quote=FlyerInHi]
I think CA and Federal regulations have merged and/or automakers decided to make all cars CA compliant. But there are still differences in aftermarket parts.[/quote]
The second one – make all cars CA compliant. There is one exception that I know of – a Jeep Wrangler with a diesel engine (much loved by true offroad’sts – high torque, good gas mileage). To bring this into California, it must be at least 2 years old (last time I checked)
Supposedly there is going to be a 52 state version in 2018.. we’ll see.

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[quote=flu]Looks like acting AG just weighed in saying travel ban is unlawful…

We’re going to have a gridlock government over the next 4 years. This means it should be great for all of us that want government to leave us alone 🙂

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/30/politics/donald-trump-immigration-order-department-of-justice/index.html%5B/quote%5D
Nothing in the Constitution states that the country has to accept certain Visas and Immigrants.

As for gridlock, I have always felt that gridlock is best. Only the better laws survive gridlock (well almost since they do seem to jack up their paychecks even though everything else is gridlocked)

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[quote=flu]it’s interesting how much power the prez has with executive orders….[/quote]
Yes.. but they are ephemeral – prone to evaporate in the next election. I guess that is good though. It prevents a President from having permanent powers of a monarch. For permanence, a President needs to go through Congress.

One thing that amazes me, and it applies to both sides of the isle, is that neither side seems to realize that the powers they grant to themselves through uncontested use may end up going to the other side on the next election.

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[quote=moneymaker]Yes if one was well versed in mathematics one could calculate the theoretical value of a company if stock was sold to the last piece of stock but that would never really happen. Liquidation value is something that can be measured.Stock price times number of outstanding shares divided by liquidation value might be an interesting number.[/quote]
Book value multiple or Price to Book Ratio.

http://people.stern.nyu.edu/adamodar/pdfiles/valn2ed/ch19.pdf

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[quote=no_such_reality][quote=spdrun]The dumb bint who wrote this article really thinks that Obama showed contempt for Congress? As opposed to Congress blocking his every appointee and move? Come on.[/quote]

I seem to recall Senate Majority leader Harry Reid being a model of bi-partisan effort to move the country forward.

Or is that an Alternative Fact?[/quote]
No, too much recreational marijuana…

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[quote=no_such_reality]I tend to agree, overall the majority of stocks are all ‘growth’ stocks now where the investment return comes from the ponzi-esque more future buyers of the shares.

The only real question is over the long term, are there enough structure money flow into the system to maintain the float?

401K are feeding in, investors are feeding in, retirement plans are feeding in.[/quote]
I would agree with this on ‘growth’ stocks that are not really showing any positive earnings and don’t seem to have any positive earnings on the horizon. It is kind of like speculating on when and ever if the company gets really large, gets positive earnings so that it can declare a dividend (if they ever do). Too many ‘ifs’.
[quote=no_such_reality]
We talk about boomers retiring, but Millenials are even bigger. They’re feeding in, boomers are retiring, but the vast majority of the wealth is actually concentrated and that concentration isn’t going to drain their investments. The vast will drain their investments, but they have a pittance of the baby boomer wealth.[/quote] The Millenials are hoping/relying on for a big inheritance from the Baby Boomer parents?

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[quote=no_such_reality]
Sorry Brian, no cake and eat it too. You can’t buy a car that doesn’t meet California emissions standards and register it here. Cheap labor, IMHO, is the red herring. Whether it’s China manufacturing or Texas. The real goal is to escape regulations, whether environmental or labor.[/quote]

I wouldn’t say that cheap labor is the red herring. I think it is part of the equation, which includes other costs including labor (as mentioned by you – and which actually makes labor more expensive like min wages, Soc Sec), and environmental.

[quote=no_such_reality]
(And I’m well aware that the primary difference between the CARB-compliant catalytic converter and the non-CARB compliant catalytic converter is one paid $20,000 plus testing fees to get the label and one didn’t.)[/quote]
I don’t think it is the ‘testing’ fees, since they test the same. CARB compliant catalytic converters are required to last 50,000 miles. If they fail before 50,000 miles, manufacturer is required to replace them. For the most part, the diff in the price is a ‘warrantee’ that is attached to the cat. If you put a Fed next to a CARB cat, they are the same except for part numbers stamped on the body.

And BTW, I second your (no_such_reality) comment here: https://piggington.com/maybe_we_should_start_thinking_about_plan_b#comment-275664

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[quote=FlyerInHi]I haven’t done it lately, but I think you can register a non-california compliant car provided it’s x months old and already registered in another state. Not sure how many months.[/quote]
Not compliant in which way? It must have original emissions controls for Federal, or if aftermarket parts – parts must be CARB compliant. You need to keep all the paperwork from when the parts have been bought because the records at the Referee are not as complete at they should be. If the vehicle is pre 1976, rules are diff.

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[quote=FlyerInHi]Flu, interesting you should mention patents and trademarks. That’s where we have a competitive advantage. Without trade agreements or WTO, we have very little intellectual property protection.

Those who are against multilateral trade deals didn’t really think of the implications of each country going its own way on trade.[/quote]
True, but it can be used against us too – forcing the US into agreements it should really avoid. Besides, without trade agreements with the US, China can’t protect its IP either.

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[quote=FlyerInHi]I’m not afraid to die either, although I do want to live a long healthy life.

What worries me is the incompetence in D.C. Our prosperity and national interest are at stake.

I just watched a Chinese official being interviewed on NBC. The guy doesn’t even speak perfect English, but he was so good that Richard Engel, a veteran journalist, was thrown into stuttering.
https://youtu.be/d7J6wFa-vYc%5B/quote%5D
I could go through and show a whole bunch of inconsistencies with above statement.. but I’ll show one – you can find the rest. The Chinese official was very evasive – not really answering the questions put to him. Example:

gist – did China ask us if they could devalue their currency, build installations on what has international land and lay claim to waters under questionable grounds? On the other hand, China seems to feel it has the right to so comment against the United States on whether the US can devalue its currency – etc.
official’s response was – well you have all heard the official statement on that – and then launches into a long song and dance, not really saying much content nor directly addressing the question.

I don’t consider the Chinese official good, but I do think that the veteran journalist started realizing that he was being stonewalled, with questions not really being answered and wanting to avoid conflict while the Chinese official didn’t care.

Mainland Chinese are educated into the official party line at a very early age. It becomes almost rote. What the Chinese official did was defer followed by party line statement that was not really related to the question. There is a Chinese born miss World Canada that talks about this. Here is her statement on the propaganda and thought control/conformity:

Here is some meddling at personal affairs, reaching down into other nations – directly affecting individual citizens:

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[quote=spdrun]”Still in therapy”. Come on.

Court should have awarded her a ten grand plus lawyer fees. Half to be paid by whoever made up the policy, the other half the the teacher herself.[/quote]
I would tend to agree with you on that except for one little thing. They were originally claiming $25,000 and San Diego Unified School District stonewalled them. I think the court was in effect telling the school district that stonewalling them and forcing them to go through the courts was a waste of the court’s time.

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Good, thorough writeup flu.
Just adding a parting note from one of the 3 FTC commissioners. You will note that this commissioner states that the abuse of FRAND has not been supported on the complaint, and Apple has actually ‘danced’ around the subject.

https://www.ftc.gov/system/files/documents/cases/170117qualcomm_mko_dissenting_statement_17-1-17a.pdf

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[quote=flu][quote=ucodegen][quote=flu] I am contemplating a BRZ since the days of Qualcomm Stadium are numbered and track day is best with a real roof and rollbar. Some guy I know rolled his RS4 on track, and that convinced me not to do this in an open car. Plus I figure if I get one now, it becomes my kid’s beater in 6-7 years :)[/quote]

Rolling a RS4? How did he manage to do that? Dip + corner? The track is also best with a car you really don’t care that much about… (or at least the external appearance)[/quote]

Turn 9 @ Willow Springs[/quote]
I remember seeing this video.. I guess this is the guy?

Don’t lift throttle an true AWD car when sliding sideways. Throttle affects both back and front front tires. You can actually apply power turning into the slide to straighten the car – though it is freaky to do when sliding (vectored thrust – like on a boat in water, also the same thing drifters do in AWD cars)

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[quote=AN][quote=flu]Lol. I walked into my master bedroom and near the window my carpet is all wet. Like soaked…. Great, add one more thing to “fix”….[/quote]
My kid’s bedroom experienced the same thing. I thought I had it fixed the last time to rain this much. But don’t have any opportunity to test my fix. Turns out I fixed 1/2 of the problem. Time to try and fix the other 1/2 and wait for the next crazy rain.[/quote]
I will second Hobie’s suggestion on looking at the door seals and seals between the threshold and door jamb. Check if the door jamb itself is cracking near the threshold. Ours is and it looks like I have a big job coming up to remove the door and redo a good portion of the door jamb itself. Doors that face the sun are more likely to have this problem.

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[quote=equalizer]
1. If Apple sells a $2000 phone with 2GB internal memory card, why should they pay royalty on full price of phone for 4G patents? Isn’t that like paying a 4% steering wheel patent on full price of car, so for a Civic pay $800,
but $7000 for a Tesla? But QCOM has been running this legal scheme for 20 years plus, so expect it go on.
[/quote]Your analogy is very misleading. If you want to really be accurate – it is not a ‘steering wheel’, but ‘engine and part of the transmission’. Their patents are more important to the ‘car aka phone’ than a steering wheel. Without some of those QCOM patents, there would be no phone(the GSM types may be somewhat free of these). The difference in price may in part be due to ‘volume’. QCOM might take a lower royalty while a new product line is starting up, in exchange for a greater one later – backending the royalty – making it easier for the new product line to be established. The royalty percentage might be different because one manufacturer uses a greater percentage of QCOMs IP as a percentage of all IP used in manufacturing the phone.
[quote=equalizer]
2. Wouldn’t be surprised to find all government lawyers were told to now support big corporations, not sue them, so expect FTC lawsuit to disappear.
[/quote]You just displayed an incredible amount of ignorance here. Apple’s market cap is $630 Billion, Qualcomm’s market cap is $81 Billion – so who is really the big bully here? – Mike drop ®Obama.
[quote=equalizer]
3. If Apple CEO were someone like Trump, I would expect a big drag down multi-year fight. Trump would gather all mobile companies and pull a industry wide boycott of QCOM products. Alas, we don’t, so expect Apple to fold like a cheap suit for private settlement.
[/quote]Without Qualcomm, no CDMA, no Sprint, slower military and satellite coms — etc. Dr. Viterbi along with Irwin Jacobs co-founded Qualcomm. He is also responsible for a key part of IP used in digital signal processing. In my opinion, more benefit has been brought to society by Qualcomm and Dr. Viterbi than some fanboi’s fondleslab maker. BTW, Apple’s CEO is probably more like Trump than you realize – just has better hair and wears a suit better.
[quote=equalizer]
So buy QCOM on more weakness or I am missing something?
[/quote]As flu mentioned, the semi-business is cut-throat. Also note this quote from flu:

QC is going to fight this to death. And there’s a reason for this. If apple, wins, it’s going to snowball into Samsung, LG and every other OEM that ends up suing, as other OEMs will want to use this to drive down their costs.

– so there is definite risk in investing in QCOM. Qualcomm has to invest in continual tech R&D to maintain their IP. Apples is based upon ‘design patents’, aka how it looks. They don’t have to plow as much back into the business.

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