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Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by SelkirkTMO on Sat Jul 5 06:12:02 2008

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On Day Care, Google Makes a Rare Fumble
By JOE NOCERA

Two months ago, Google held a series of secret focus groups with employees who have children in Google’s day care facilities. The purpose was to gauge their reaction to the company’s plan to raise the amount it charged for in-house day care by 75 percent.

Parents who had been paying $1,425 a month for infant care would see their costs rise to nearly $2,500 — well above the market rate. For parents with toddlers and preschoolers, who were charged less, the price increases were equally eye-popping. Under the new plan, parents with two kids in Google day care would most likely see their annual day care bill grow to more than $57,000 from around $33,000.

At the first of the three focus groups, parents wept openly. As word leaked out about the company’s plan, the Google parents began to fight back. They came up with ideas to save money, used the company’s T.G.I.F. sessions — a weekly meeting for anyone who wanted to ask questions of Google’s top executives — to plead their case, and conducted surveys showing that most parents with children in Google day care would have to leave Google’s facilities and find less expensive child care.

Do you think you know how this story ends? You’re probably guessing that because it involves “do no evil” Google, Fortune magazine’s “Best Company to Work For” the past two years, this is a heart-warming tale of a good company reversing a dumb decision.

If only. Although Google is rolling back its price increase slightly and is phasing in the higher price over five quarters, the outline of the original decision remains largely unchanged. At a T.G.I.F. in June, the Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he had no sympathy for the parents, and that he was tired of “Googlers” who felt entitled to perks like “bottled water and M&Ms,” according to several people in the meeting. (A Google spokesman denies that Mr. Brin made that comment.) On Monday, Google began the first phase of its new day care plan, letting go of the outside day care firm it had been using.

In recent months, Google has hit the first rough patch in its short, magical life as a public company. From November to April, Google’s once high-flying stock dropped 44 percent, to $412 from $744. (It has since gained some of that back, closing on Thursday at $537.) It may be a stretch to equate the day care fiasco with the fall in Google’s stock. But maybe not.

When a stock was rising as fast as Google’s once was, it was easy to buy the view that there was something truly special about Google. But when the stock is falling, overlooked problems start to loom large. Having discovered that Google is not, in fact, the promised land, a number of Googlers have left recently to join start-ups, hotter companies like Facebook — and even Microsoft.

“There are many things about Google that are not great, and merit improvement,” blogged Sergey Solyanik, who recently returned to Microsoft after a stint at Google. “There are plenty of silly politics, underperformance, inefficiencies and ineffectiveness, and things that are plain stupid.” Starting, it would appear, with day care.

•

Google first began offering day care three and a half years ago, and perhaps it is only coincidence that this occurred not long after a woman named Susan Wojcicki returned to the company from maternity leave. Ms. Wojcicki is a figure of significant stature at Google; hers was the garage that Mr. Brin and Google’s other founder, Larry Page, rented while starting up Google. Today she is the company’s vice president for product measurement, though as I discovered in talking to unhappy Google parents this week, not many Googlers seem to know what her exact duties entail. Everybody, however, knows that she’s Mr. Brin’s sister-in-law.

From the start, Ms. Wojcicki has been a passionate advocate for Google’s day care efforts, though there is some dispute about how much decision-making authority she has. Parents who know her point out that the company’s day care approach is very much aligned with her views; for its part, a Google spokesman insists that “these decisions were not made by her; they were made by the executive management team.”

Google’s first facility, called the Kinderplex, was run by the Childrens’ Creative Learning Centers, or C.C.L.C., which, according to its Web site, offers “learning in a play-based, developmentally appropriate environment that incorporates a variety of activities and multicultural aspects in a thematic style.” That sounds perfect for Silicon Valley, doesn’t it? One of C.C.L.C.’s longtime Silicon Valley clients, Electronic Arts, sent me an e-mail statement telling me how happy it has been with C.C.L.C.’s services.

According to Google, there were numerous complains about C.C.L.C., but the Google parents I spoke to disagree. They say that at the Kinderplex, teacher-child ratios were low, teachers were first-rate, the facility was clean and upbeat, and the food — organic, naturally — was terrific.

But at least one parent wasn’t happy: Ms. Wojcicki. She is a proponent of a preschool philosophy called Reggio Emilia, the hot kiddie philosophy of the moment, which stresses even small children’s ability to chart their own learning paths.

A year after the Kinderplex opened, Google opened its second day care center, called the Woods, which Google ran itself. The Woods was an expensive undertaking; in terms of the square footage per child, the aesthetics of its toys, and the college degrees of its teachers, it put the Kinderplex to shame. It also used the Reggio Emilia philosophy.

With the Woods open, Google decided to upgrade the Kinderplex to match the salaries and the teacher-student ratios of the Woods. Google now had 200 day care spots — and such wonderful day care at that! — and was promoting this new perk as a recruiting tool. The company was growing like crazy — its work force now numbers 19,000 — its young employees were starting to have babies, and well, you can just picture what happened next. The wait list ballooned insanely, finally reaching over 700 people. New employees who arrived at Google thinking they were getting in-house day care were stunned to discover that it could take up to two years to land a coveted spot.

Meanwhile, someone at Google woke up one day and realized that the company was subsidizing each child to the tune of $37,000 a year — which nobody had noticed up until then — compared with the $12,000-a-year average subsidy of other big Silicon Valley companies like Cisco Systems and Oracle. Faced with this dilemma, Google decided that the way to solve the dual problems of a too-long wait list and a too-large subsidy was — are you sitting down for this? — to get rid of C.C.L.C. and make the Kinderplex more like the Woods! (Google says it was always planning to replace C.C.L.C.) Given that decision, the only possible way to reduce the subsidy was to raise prices through the roof.

If you are shaking your head at this point, that’s because you lack the proper understanding of Google’s culture. Having conquered the Internet, Google’s executives tend to believe that they can do pretty much everything better than everybody else — even day care. When I spoke to Laszlo Bock, the company’s vice president for “people operations” (a k a human relations), he told me that “what is really driving the cost is eliminating the two-year wait list while focusing on providing really high quality.”

Google can’t just have low teacher-child ratios — it has to have the lowest of anybody. Its teachers have to be the best. Its toys have to be the most advanced. If it costs a lot of money to provide the Greatest Day Care on Earth, well, that’s life.

Plus, the high price of Google day care solves the waiting list problem. Indeed, getting the waiting list down was a huge priority for Google; the spokesman told me that forcing people to wait two years for day care was “inequitable.” And maybe it is.

But parents who talked to me said that several times during the six-week-long day care brouhaha, Mr. Brin made comments indicating that he viewed the whole thing as a giant economics experiment. “This is a supply-and-demand issue,” he told one group of parents — adding that Google needed to charge what the market would bear. (Through a Google spokesman, Mr. Brin denies making such a statement.) Given that Google has lots of pre-I.P.O. millionaires, it can clearly charge a lot.

Indeed, at one meeting, Ms. Wojcicki, a multimillionaire herself, told the parents that she planned to keep her own children in Google day care, despite the higher cost. “I’ve had firsthand experience with the great care provided by these centers and I want as many other parents as possible to have access to it,” Ms. Wojcicki noted in an e-mail message.

Google has also started charging people several hundred dollars to stay on the waiting list; as a result the list has dropped to around 300 parents. By next fall, Google plans to open new facilities with another 300 places. See? No more waiting list.

Google, I should note, believes that it has handled the day care issue in a “Googly” way and object strongly to the criticism by the parents. The company points out that the prices are somewhat lower than originally planned, that it is expanding its day care operation, that its facilities will be state of the art and that it will be giving scholarships to parents who can’t afford to keep their children in Google day care. (Although yet to release the details of the scholarship plan, the company says that employees will have to show proof of household income to qualify.)

But here’s the real problem: providing day care isn’t an economics experiment, nor should it be just another Google perk, alongside organic food and free M&Ms. Day care matters to people’s lives in a way that few other perks do. There are many people in this country — including, I’ll bet, many Googlers — who believe that employer-provided day care, at affordable prices, ought to be like health insurance, a benefit that every company provides as a matter of course. Yet as the technology blog Valleywag noted recently, Google doesn’t even advertise day care as a benefit for its employees anymore. That’s the real shame.

Google may be providing the greatest day care ever, but so what? It doesn’t matter how good the day care is if only its wealthiest employees can afford to use it. If Google had really wanted to do something path-breaking about its day care crisis, it would have spent less time creating elitist day care centers and more time figuring out how to “scale” day care for everybody no matter what their salaries.

Instead, Google has shown that it thinks about day care the same way every other company does — as a luxury, not a benefit. Judging by what’s transpired, that’s what Google is fast becoming: just another company.

E-mail: nocera@nytimes.com

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 08:14:25 2008, in response to Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by SelkirkTMO on Sat Jul 5 06:12:02 2008.

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Google is not, nor was it ever, our "friend"...in today's fast-tanking (oops, er, changing) economy, Google is discovering that: a) they don't pay their employees (most of 'em, anyway) enough to afford all the expenses of life. OK, virtually no company does these days, but still, and b) when the value of their stock goes down, some things must go, day care among them. If it ain't making the company money, it gets deep-sixed.

Remember when families needed only one breadwinner because that person earned enough (at an average, ordinary job like file clerking or driving trucks) to support the entire family? There wasn't much need for day care then, because Mom was Mom...and before anybody cries "chauvinist pig" at me, let me point out that running a household full-time is every bit as much hard and honest work as driving a truck. But at least the kids got raised by a full-time parent...

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Fred G on Sat Jul 5 08:45:10 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 08:14:25 2008.

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Those days were simpler. You didn't fly anywhere but loaded the family in the car for a week trip to some lake/river/ocean that was less than a half day drive away. Your consumer electronics consisted of a tv and a hi fi, and maybe a transistor radio. Your kitchen appliances were similarly simple. You may have had a blender and mayyyybe a dishwasher. You had one car, and it was a car you could afford. All of this stuff we've been able to do and buy costs more money than one person's income can buy. But if you want to go back to that earlier lifestyle, you can pretty much do it on one income, provided of course that the one income is from a decent job. I dunno about the file clerk claim though, as even when I was a kid, I knew families where both parents worked and the older siblings were the day care.

your pal,
Fred

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 08:53:36 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Fred G on Sat Jul 5 08:45:10 2008.

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Damn, when I was a kid we did the two-day drive down I-95 from NYC (portions still not completed...this was in the early '70s) to the then-brand-new Disneyworld...that summer we just got our first color TV, and all my friends came over to watch it. Black and white TV never looked the same after that...to this day, I still refer to the refrigerator as the "icebox", because that's what my father called it...but you're right, I stand corrected on the breadwinner issue, but you COULD support a family of four on one job, if, as you point out, you lived within your means...

Nowadays your means live within YOU...in your debt service, foreclosure, car note, and dwindling 401K account...

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by SelkirkTMO on Sat Jul 5 09:03:41 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 08:14:25 2008.

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Understand you fully ... alas, there's people who actually believe that the 1950's "Ozzie and Harriet" was a documentary rather than a sit-com. They're called "republicans" catered to by Rush. :(

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by SUBWAYSURF on Sat Jul 5 09:11:48 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 08:53:36 2008.

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Hahaha, I still call it an ice box too, even though I've never even seen one. Thanks to Mom.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sat Jul 5 10:07:09 2008, in response to Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by SelkirkTMO on Sat Jul 5 06:12:02 2008.

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wow, and I thought it stopped with the net censorship and politicization that they do.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Fred G on Sat Jul 5 10:14:04 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 08:53:36 2008.

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Well sure, you gotta have all that 'stuff'. Everybody needs their gear yo.

your pal,
Fred

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 11:49:29 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Fred G on Sat Jul 5 10:14:04 2008.

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I cringe when I see a 19-year-old driving an Excursion, with an iPhone and too much blingage...and thinks this is normal for someone his age. Then ten years later when his credit stinks because he couldn't pay for all that "gear", he cries.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Fred G on Sat Jul 5 12:20:13 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 11:49:29 2008.

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You know it. Like my grandpa used to say whenever one of my uncles bought a car, "any fool can go into debt".

your pal,
Fred

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Sat Jul 5 12:58:27 2008, in response to Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by SelkirkTMO on Sat Jul 5 06:12:02 2008.

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If only. Although Google is rolling back its price increase slightly and is phasing in the higher price over five quarters, the outline of the original decision remains largely unchanged. At a T.G.I.F. in June, the Google co-founder Sergey Brin said he had no sympathy for the parents, and that he was tired of “Googlers” who felt entitled to perks like “bottled water and M&Ms,” according to several people in the meeting.

What do you expect, Mr. Brin? It's the logical result of a culture of indulgement, one in which your company has been at the forefront.

Welcome to the Dark Side, Mr. Brin. Reality sets in, and another liberal turns conservative.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Sat Jul 5 13:06:12 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 08:14:25 2008.

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Remember when families needed only one breadwinner because that person earned enough (at an average, ordinary job like file clerking or driving trucks) to support the entire family?

50 years ago, little Johnny didn't need designer sneakers, a new video game console every year and 2 cars so that mom could drive the kids to soccer practice. The cost of living rising isn't the reason we have two income households, it's the expectations the household has for the definition of a decent lifestyle. I was brought up in a single income family, and I currently live in one. We never owned a car, we always had cheap clothing, didn't get a VCR until the late 1980's and me and my siblings turned out fine.

Oh, and the "breadwinners" back then usually worked more than 40 hours a week and paid less in taxes, which stretched the paycheck further.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sat Jul 5 13:13:14 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Sat Jul 5 12:58:27 2008.

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not conservative. leftist facist. Water's too good for the people you know.

My kingdom for a non-extremist. This fad can't be new!

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Olog-hai on Sat Jul 5 16:30:18 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Chris R16/R2730 on Sat Jul 5 12:58:27 2008.

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I'm waiting for him to "turn conservative".

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Olog-hai on Sat Jul 5 16:33:45 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sat Jul 5 10:07:09 2008.

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Let's all use Yahoo instead, then. They rat dissidents out to the Chinese communist government and get them arrested, after all.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sat Jul 5 16:37:17 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 08:14:25 2008.

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Its Terrapins friend, but he has no children, or does he?

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sat Jul 5 16:41:11 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Fred G on Sat Jul 5 08:45:10 2008.

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Its true. People today have an obsession with constantly "re-doing" the kitchen, bathroom and family room. Or when buying a car getting all the unnecessary crap, shiny rims, sun roofs and navigation systems. Or buying a bunch of patio furniture that rivals whats IN the house.
And everytime I'm stuck in traffic I see everyone around me has a navigation/GPS unit. I thought the whole point was the GET around the traffic. As for me my navigation system is a map or my memory.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 5 18:02:05 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sat Jul 5 16:41:11 2008.

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Navigation systems aren't unnecessary, they're great.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 5 18:03:18 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 08:53:36 2008.

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Damn, when I was a kid we did the two-day drive down I-95 from NYC (portions still not completed...this was in the early '70s)

Portions of I-95 are still not completed...this is in the late '00s.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by The Port of Authority on Sat Jul 5 18:34:42 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 5 18:02:05 2008.

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Agreed.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Olog-hai on Sat Jul 5 18:47:04 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 5 18:02:05 2008.

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I don't need 'em.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 5 19:11:00 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 11:49:29 2008.

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False. The 19 year old who has all that doesn't necessarily get it on credit.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 5 19:14:57 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Olog-hai on Sat Jul 5 18:47:04 2008.

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I don't NEED one but it's great to have one.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sat Jul 5 19:19:01 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 5 19:14:57 2008.

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Just curious what is the benefit of it?
Everytime I'm caught in traffic I'm surrounded by people who have them and their stuck in traffic with me. I thought they were supposed to give you alternate routes.
Also many of the people who have them commute to the same place everyday, so what do they do with it?
"Hey look where we are at right now! Stuck in traffic with people that also have GPS units and funny enough, people who DON'T have one also!"

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sat Jul 5 19:24:44 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 5 19:11:00 2008.

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IRS time!

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Olog-hai on Sat Jul 5 19:40:48 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 5 19:11:00 2008.

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Same old story . . . not worth repeating. I know what you're talking about.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Train Dude on Sat Jul 5 21:08:59 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sat Jul 5 16:37:17 2008.

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he's not up to that page in the instruction manual

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sat Jul 5 21:13:19 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Train Dude on Sat Jul 5 21:08:59 2008.

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LOL!

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Dan Lawrence on Sat Jul 5 22:02:08 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 5 18:03:18 2008.

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Which ones?

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Newkirk Plaza David on Sat Jul 5 22:08:05 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Dan Lawrence on Sat Jul 5 22:02:08 2008.

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If you Googled it, you will see the portion of the NJ Turnpike, south of Exit 7A as one of the "unfinished" links. The Exit 6/A.C. Expressway link to I95 in PA will make I95 connect between NJ and PA.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Newkirk Plaza David on Sat Jul 5 22:11:23 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Spider-Pig on Sat Jul 5 18:03:18 2008.

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Currently I295 in NJ is the only Interstate highway branch to connect with the same main Interstate route (I95) in 2 different states, one for each direction of travel.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Newkirk Plaza David on Sat Jul 5 22:27:00 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sat Jul 5 16:37:17 2008.

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Got nothing better to do than another unprovoked attack on Brian?

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Edwards! on Sat Jul 5 22:34:47 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Newkirk Plaza David on Sat Jul 5 22:08:05 2008.

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GREAT ADVENTURE!

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sun Jul 6 00:07:07 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Newkirk Plaza David on Sat Jul 5 22:27:00 2008.

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Yeah. a provoked attack against you!

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Terrapin Station on Sun Jul 6 01:42:50 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 08:14:25 2008.

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Incorrect, Google is your friend.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Spider-Pig on Sun Jul 6 02:52:41 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sat Jul 5 19:19:01 2008.

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You use it when you go someplace where you've not gone before. You wouldn't use it in a daily commute unless you've just started commuting.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Fred G on Sun Jul 6 03:07:03 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Spider-Pig on Sun Jul 6 02:52:41 2008.

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Those who chronically lack confidence would also use it for a daily commute that they've driven many times before. "I just like to be sure" says Brenda of Southport, CT. Walt from Armonk concurs. "It's just a feelgood device all around. Where would I be without it?".

your pal,
Fred

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sun Jul 6 03:30:12 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Spider-Pig on Sun Jul 6 02:52:41 2008.

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I only asked because I many of the cars I see daily and my co-workers who commute have them.
I can see having one for a long road trip, but for $400 I'll stick to maps.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Jul 6 03:48:54 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sun Jul 6 03:30:12 2008.

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I second that. I looked into it, and can't find any use for one. I know how to read a map just fine for that once in a while too. And I like actually using my brain to navigate.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by SilverFox on Sun Jul 6 03:52:49 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 08:14:25 2008.

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Remember when families needed only one breadwinner because that person earned enough (at an average, ordinary job like file clerking or driving trucks) to support the entire family?

That's because tax rates were much less complicated and taxes were much less pervasive than now. I'm not blaming Democrats or Republicans as much as I blame a population that increasingly believes that government is an entitlement dispenserie and politicians that are not chosen for their intellect but their charisma, that can't graps the big picture and create all manners of social and other programs unheard of thirty years ago without inventorying what they already have.

With all the duplication, overlap, waste, fraud, and ignorance in our bloated government eliminated, we could go back to those wonderful days very easily.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Jul 6 04:02:22 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sat Jul 5 08:14:25 2008.

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But did you need to earn as much?

It seems that there's more bills today than 10 years ago even! Cell phones and internet? More power usage. Other utilities. And the myraid of costs just from owning a car versus taking a streetcar ride for a nickel.
And if people have more stuff today, I guess they have to replace a lot more stuff when it breaks.

I wonder if the issue is because of all the bills. People pay for TV and bottled water today!
Sometimes I do wonder.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by SelkirkTMO on Sun Jul 6 05:16:37 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by SilverFox on Sun Jul 6 03:52:49 2008.

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THANK YOU! :)

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by SelkirkTMO on Sun Jul 6 05:18:10 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Jul 6 04:02:22 2008.

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The biggest part of it is the failing to determine the difference between "want" and "need." And of course, usurious credit has even more to do with this than taxes. If people saved UP to buy something instead of "instant gratification" a lot fewer of us would be slaves to the banks. Can't afford it right now? Then SAVE for it. :(

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Terrapin Station on Sun Jul 6 06:23:04 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Mr Mabstoa on Sun Jul 6 03:30:12 2008.

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but for $400 I'll stick to maps.

Incorrect. You can get one for $189.99 or less.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Nilet on Sun Jul 6 09:29:16 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by SilverFox on Sun Jul 6 03:52:49 2008.

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That's because tax rates were much less complicated and taxes were much less pervasive than now.

Actually, the highest-bracket tax rates were something like 90% back during the economic boom of the 50's.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by JayZeeBMT on Sun Jul 6 09:30:48 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by SelkirkTMO on Sun Jul 6 05:18:10 2008.

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Interestingly, when Apple/AT&T came out with the iPhone last year, people CAMPED OUT in the streets to pay $600 for one...now, just recently they unveiled a $199 version of the iPhone, which means if those people had saved for a year, they'd have spent a lot less, and still been able to have that gadget...

Spend $600 now, or wait a year and spend a THIRD of that...but people slept on the sidewalk so they could make Steve and Ma Bell richer in the morning...

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by SelkirkTMO on Sun Jul 6 09:59:47 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by JayZeeBMT on Sun Jul 6 09:30:48 2008.

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Heh. BAD news is they got AT&T. :)

Yeah, cool chit if you're into that. As I get older, the intarwebs get LESS and LESS interesting. I hit the local morning paper, hit the Times, hit the "votemaster" and "Election projection(GOP)" and a few other security sites, then HERE and I'm done. I can be done with the intarwebs in less than an hour lately, and that's sad.

And while the latest "iWant" is kewl and all, having been a longtime Palm Pilot user (WITH wifi card) ... I just can't envision watching Utoob (or ANY teevee) on such a small screen ... and be SPAMMED with IM's either. Must be me, but suddenly DIALUP seems almost reasonable given recent "cost vs. value" lately. :(

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Jul 6 12:10:06 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by SelkirkTMO on Sun Jul 6 09:59:47 2008.

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I actually agree. I like the speed and convience, as an addict. But my scope is pretty small nowadays. Sometimes I youtube(hear that Viacom!) some really old songs or see this years Eurovision. ANd maybe sometype of flickr, and that's it. I need more offline games.

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Jul 6 12:10:41 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Terrapin Station on Sun Jul 6 06:23:04 2008.

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10 bucks for an atlas at big lots/odd jobs

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Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?

Posted by Orange Blossom Special on Sun Jul 6 12:12:39 2008, in response to Re: Google is *NOT* your friend ... part 1?, posted by Olog-hai on Sat Jul 5 16:33:45 2008.

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I'm onto Ask. Yahoo's kinda boring, but at least they aren't pro jihadi on their software and subsites, and then go onto election rigging on their blog site.

Jihadtube, where Hagee is offensive and banned, but if you kill soliders or do mosque sermons, those stay for years as "free speech". f em
I could live with the one thing, but now it's spread to earth and blogger, and the search engine itself.

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