Re: OT: Software Economics was RE: Ada 95 for an ARM-based bare board?

[tatebll@aol.com (Bill Tate)]

We can go around & around on this.  Suffice it to say, I prefer to
solve my own problems and make my own decisions and accept
responsibility for those decisions rather than gov't institutions
making those decisions for me.

As far as your analogy the "rich get richer, poor get poorer" - if you
want to select out anecdotal examples fine.  However, I would point
out, again, that the enron employees lost most of their net worth in
401K's invested in a single company's stock.  An idiotic and risky
investment strategy to say the very least.  Regardless of whether an
individuals portfolio loss could be attributed to fraud, bad
management, an ailing economy, lousy products, obsolescence, etc., an
individual investor has a responsibility of understanding how a
significant hit of any kind in ANY area of their portfolio would have
on their net worth.  Once understood, they have an obligation to
consider whether this is something they can live with?  Lastly, they
an obligation to consider how long would it take to recover from such
a loss?  If the risks are unacceptable, then you spread the risk
around.  It ain't rocket science and the math is pretty damn
straight-forward.

I certainly feel compassion for these folks because it was fraud that
caused their loss, but I don't feel an obligation to provide (i.e.,
pay for) a security blanket for someone else's poor financial
decision.  A decision that any high school graduate would have known
to avoid.  Especially when you consider the myriad of other investment
options available to anyone that are substantially less risky and far
more secure than the choice these individuals made.

And as far as the "scandal" plagued U.S.  No one is excusing the fraud
and the nature of the U.S. economy certainly doesn't give license to
it & it is certainly not predisposed to it as the papers would
suggest.  If you think otherwise, then we should talk about some
really interesting european adventures in this area.