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The week's question
In March 2025, in the thread "Re: OT, out", Umm asked the members: "Do you think it is because America is made up of magical soil that makes businesses based in America magically profitable?" This week it is put to everyone again. The button below opens the small thread re-asking it - read what others have said so far, then give your own answer as an ordinary reply.
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Personal Finance / Macroeconomic Trends & Risks
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Author: OrmontUS ✭✹  😊 😞
Number: of 4582 
Subject: Re: Farley admits reality, mostly
Date: 12/18/25 10:16 PM
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The big three are all about escalating ATP and GP to the moon.
_____________________________________________________________________

Two observations:

1) When I was in business, I would be amazed at the guys who ran news/cigarette kiosks 14 hours a day. They had 100% profit margins, but were slaves to their work. There were those who saw their businesses in all sorts of perspectives. My concept was to maximize net profit. All other metrics took a back seat. While those guys slaved selling cigarettes at huge margins, I felt it better to sell Cisco switches for tens of thousands of dollars at 25% margin.

2) The fax machine was invented in the US. After around 1980, nearly every fax machine in the world was made in Japan. Around 1984, in order to deal with Japanese firms, I was "forced" to buy a fax machine. It cost me $1,200 (1984 dollars) for a second-hand thermal machine about the size of a medium-sized laser printer. Within a decade the world was flooded with them and soon they became inexpensive commodities. Years ago, I started to see Chinese EV's in Europe. The Neo's shown in their Oslo showroom blew me away with their designs and their clever battery subscription/swap idea. The only thing saving EV's in the US is Tesla, but the world is moving onwards to mor advanced, yet lower priced, Chinese models.

Jeff
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