"To properly handle something like rainwater takes upfront design. Some kind of roof tank that can gravity-feed all house toilets, and outdoor hoses would be nice."

Until it springs a leak. It'd be great for construction companies repairing water damage. Insurance companies typically have rules against upstairs waterbeds just imagine what they'd think of a rooftop tank.

"As to crops, why don't they put down thick black plastic over the entire field. Then capture that water to a swimming pool sized holding tank, and pump it back out via drip/sprinkler systems to water their plants as needed. "

Because the sky provides a drip/sprinkler system already. All this would do is increase the energy consumption. The natural rainfall reduces the need for watering. If there were enough water landing on the field for the crops they wouldn't need to water them at all.

 

"The vending machines are there as a perk, similar to raising wages. They are not there to bolster Skittles sales."

They most certainly are there to bolster skittles sales. Paying for coffee pods and skittles (all with a markup that turns a profit) where you used to have free coffee and donuts is not a perk.

"Most companies obviously produce products their employees can buy only since most companies target the middle/working class because most people are in the middle/working class."

I wasn't talking about most companies. I was talking about Ford and Walmart. Both companies use their own staff salaries as a benchmark for their target market and both successfully managed/manage to get their labor pool to turn around and spend their salaries on their products.

"If you are saying Ford raised its wages"

I didn't say that at all. I said it was no coincidence that his workers could afford his product. That doesn't mean he raised the salary of his workers to enable them to purchase, it means he used his workers as a representative sample of his target market and priced his vehicles so that they could afford them.

"So, if they are happily opening offices overseas to save on tax anyway, why not employ workers in those companies and get them to collaborate with the parent company?"

Latency is a technical requirement. High salary tech workers need low latency connections to the services in the US. Additionally, most of the technical expertise is still in the US. You bring them in slowly, have the US tech workers with the knowledge and the skills train them. Then you use your high labor costs as an excuse to lay off the US tech workers you just had train the imports and get them fit for interacting with US management.

Are you at fortune 500 tech company?

"But this was a paper to test how well he learned his subject. He doesn't want to find out how dumb he is, therefore he cheats."

Or he sucks at taking tests. Most tests lose sight of determining if you've learned the subject matter, those tests are too easy to pass. Instead they focus on trick questions. This is why many test taking strategies exist. For example, a commonly taught technique on a multiple choice exam is to look for two or more similar answer choices to narrow it down... Did you ever stop to think what valid reason there is for having multiple similar answers to a question on a test? It's done to make the test harder but the only ones it will make the test harder for are people who learned the material and are able to apply that knowledge to quickly pick the correct answer from a list of other options that don't fit.

"Finally: of all people, computer programmers in this country are hardly the tragically underpaid class which can't AFFORD to buy toys."

Unemployed computer programmers are.

"Unless your products have 100% profit, you will always lose money by giving someone money to buy your product."

If that were true you wouldn't see the vending machines that fill break rooms that used to have free refreshments for workers.

"his car prices were set at a rate that his target audience could afford. They were not linked in any way."

Ford's target market was the typical american worker, it was no coincidence. You have to pay your workers regardless, if you can get them to turn around and spend that pay back into your pockets suddenly your labor costs just went down by your profit margin. See Walmart. Walmart's pricing is also targeted at what it's staff can afford.

"Either the foreigners come to the jobs or the jobs go to the foreigners. If Google can't bring the talent they want to the USA then it's very easy for them to open offices overseas. There's plenty of room for improvement when it comes to the current H1-B program but it's ridiculously naive to imagine that there are a fixed number of jobs in the USA and all that matters is how many are stolen by foreigners."

That is also naive. The US is still the largest economy in the world, the companies are here because the money is here. Google, etc could already open offices overseas and not have to deal with any "tech shortage" or H1-B hassles. But google's profits come from the US and Google needs US infrastructure. If Indian or Chinese infrastructure were up to the task they'd still be screwed because of the latency induced by literally sending data back and forth to the other side of the world.

If you were an American still in Tech you wouldn't be saying this. Walking up and down the halls you find nothing but foreign workers.

What about the equally smart people who are already here and would like to get off food stamps?

But would they pay competitive US market rates?

Oh the BS stat that stops counting when unemployment funds run out. Come out when your "facts" actually include everyone who is unemployed and not just those in the short period of time you can collect unemployment.

"you have not been involved in any significant tech hiring in the last few years"

That's because good tech talent is a rare commodity and the only way to find out if you've found it is to hire people and test them. It isn't like you burn through the entire talent pool looking. There are plenty here in the US without going overseas, overseas you don't find more talented people, it's the same grind, you hire and try them out.

And if you are looking for perfect drop in replacements who don't need a year or so to settle in and learn the in's and out's of your particular environment move along. You are a serious part of the problem.

The biggest secret to having good people isn't hiring H1B's it's working to retain the people you have.

That's because of greed on the part of universities.

If you are going to do that you need to ban chart trading and day trading as well and get back to people investing based on actual fundamentals. Good luck with that.

In the meantime the stock market is nothing but a game that has little to no relation to the success or viability of the businesses and in that world the fast trading algorithms serve to provide liquidity.

"Ever hear of a mutual fund, 401k, 403b, IRA, etc"

Ever hear of a bond, a commodity, a long term investor... When an auto-trade algorithm hits an action point... it has no impact on any of them. This only potentially impacts high risk investors and by definition they've opt'd in to the risk and have the burn coming.

Anyone else either isn't speculating by gambling in the stock market or is at least trading on longer scales of time that erase momentary blips in a stock price like this.