Re: General Mills computer

[jmfbahciv]

Rod Speed wrote:
> jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> wrote
>> Patrick Scheible wrote
>>> jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> wrote
>>>> grey...@mail.com wrote:
>>>>> Shmuel Metz <spam...@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote
>>>>>> Patrick Scheible <k...@zipcon.net> wrote
>
>>>>>>> The farm bill is ripe for reform, but there's a difference between
>>>>>>> reforming it and walking away without doing anything.
>
>>>>>> Is it? I would welcome a farm bill that supported actual family
>>>>>> farms; I see no justification for supporting corporate farms.
>
>>>>> Some `family farms' are very large, whereas some `corporate'
>>>>> (Ones which are owned by shares , which may or may not be owned
>>>>> by family members) are smallish. A large part of US aid to farming
>>>>> is paid through `disaster' funding. (This suits, as it differentiates
>>>>> against EU general aid. The definition of `disaster' has been watered
>>>>> down to general bad weather. ). The drought this year is a genuine
>>>>> disaster. Agricultural output is keeping the US going.
>
>>>> There was also a frost in Michigan after a big warmup in March. got
>>>> most of the fruit trees. Very few apples are being harvested this fall.
>
>>> While in Washington there's a bumper crop of apples, but not enough
>>> pickers. I'm not sure why the people who would otherwise be picking
>>> Michigan apples can't get on buses to Washington, but the radio is
>>> saying lots of the Washington apples will rot on the trees.
>
>> I heard on the radio
>
> There you go again...
>
>> that the skilled migrant workers were getting shipped back to Mexico.
>> If there's nothing to pick, the migrant workers don't come here.
>
> There clearly is something to pick in Washington.

Which isn't getting picked because the Fed is moving the mirgrant
workers back to Mexico. It's, apparently, a new policy. The
peopel who run that department don't seem to know how to do their
job.

/BAH

[Dan Espen]

"Rod Speed" <rod.sp...@gmail.com> writes:

> Dan Espen <des...@verizon.net> wrote
>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>> Dan Espen <des...@verizon.net> wrote
>>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>>> Shmuel (Seymour J.)Metz <spam...@library.lspace.org.invalid> wrote
>>>>>> Dan Espen <des...@verizon.net> wrote
>
>>>>>>> Is this the same DOD spending that got cut
>>>>>>> by agreement to settle the budget crisis?
>
>>>>>> You expect politicians in an election year to remind voters that
>>>>>> they agreed to something instead of campaigning against it?
>
>>>>>>> The other DOD cut that's raising controversy is the one I pointed
>>>>>>> a link to recently. The DOD actually wants to close down our tank
>>>>>>> manufacturing plant. They say they have more than enough tanks and
>>>>>>> parts. The GOP has been raising holy hell. They even had the nerve
>>>>>>> to claim it would cost more to close the plant than to leave it open.
>
>>>>>> They might even be telling the truth; the real issue is that
>>>>>> they claim
>>>>>> that they are interested in cutting the deficit, and then fight tooth
>>>>>> and nail against any measures that might actually do so, even measures
>>>>>> that they had previously agreed to. The elephants in the room are
>
>>>>>> 1. Congress passes laws, not the president.
>
>>>>>> 2. The real argument was never about the size of the
>>>>>> government, but about which programs to fund.
>
>>>>>> 3. Solving the budget problem requires a long term
>>>>>> solution that no major party can back out of.
>
>>>>> Nope, other countrys have fixed their deficit without doing that.
>
>>>> Hmm, did they discover oil?
>
>>> Nope.
>
>>>> Which other countries?
>
>>> Australia.
>
> And Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore etc.
>
>> Interesting. Looks like they typically tax close to expenditures
>
> Yes, that's all it takes.
>
>> and most of their tax is in income tax.
>
> Nope, that's not correct. Lots of money is raised by what
> we call council rates, similar to your property taxes with
> the exception of the money raised to pay for education,
> cops, roads etc which arent paid for by the rates, and the
> GST which is just another name for the VAT.

Got the information about the most important tax here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_Australia

Income tax in Australia is the most important revenue stream within
the Australian taxation system.

But imagine that, you _can_ tax your way out of a deficit.
I'd say in the US less than 50% of the voters believe that.
Or at least they vote that way.

--
Dan Espen

[Scott Lurndal]

jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> writes:
>Scott Lurndal wrote:
>> jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> writes:
>>>Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>>> jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> writes:
>>>>>Scott Lurndal wrote:
>>>>>> jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> writes:
>>>>>>>Rod Speed wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>> Its only seen in areas with no piped gas.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>Which isn't common in the NE.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> "A University of Massachusetts study estimated it could cost more than
>>>>>$2,500 to heat the average
>>>>>> home in the state with heating oil
>>>>>
>>>>>I had a 4 room house and the last bill I paid for a year's oil was $4700.
>>>>>
>>>>
>>>> So, your statement was that gas was not common in the NE; the quote shows
>>>> that over half of homes are heated with natural gas. So, your statement
>>>> was incorrect.
>>>
>>>I have never lived in a place which used natural gas in Mass. Why don't
>>>you combine all the yellow pages in Mass and search for heating oil?
>>>Count the number of dealers. Then multiply that by 500 and you'll get an
>>>idea that a whole lot of homes use oil, not gas. Manufacturing and office
>>>buildings may not use oil.
>>
>> I don't need to do any of this, since the article I quoted gave the exact
>> figures for the state of Mass. 50% gas, 36% fuel oil.
>
>Are you talking about number of gallons instead of households? Does that
>gas figure include propane?

If you would ever bother to actually follow the posted citations, you'd have
read that it was households and natural gas, respectively.

It is possible for you do to this research yourself, before you post, as well.

[grey...@mail.com]

On 2012-10-06, jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> wrote:
> Dave Garland wrote:
>> On 10/5/2012 8:16 AM, jmfbahciv wrote:
>>
>>>> You get medicare, and then buy a supplement ("part B") policy and a drug
>>>> ("part D") - some supplements include both. Between them you get full
>>>> coverage, far more cheaply than any other option.
>>>
>>> Except they are not full coverage.
>>>
>>
>> What do you mean by "full coverage"?
>>
>> Is there any insurance plan anywhere in the US that is "full coverage"
>> for everything, no matter what, with no exceptions, deductibles, or
>> copays? AFAIK _all_ plans have some kind of limits, whether it's who
>> you can see, how much it will cover, etc.
>>
>> Medicare Part A + Part B + supplemental coverage with drug coverage
>> can cover a lot, depending on which plan you choose (there is a web
>> page that will compare coverage of various plans available to you at at
>> https://www.medicare.gov/find-a-plan/questions/home.aspx ).
>>
> There is dental and eye care. I had much better coverage with DEC's
> insurance policy than I do now. Getting the equivalent here (without
> eye and dental) costs a lot but I can't buy it. What I really want
> is catastrophic coverage; I'd pay for the mundane stuff myself.

Examine any commercial (non-state) insurance policy closely, and you will
find a max that they will not pay beyond.


--
maus
.
.
...

[grey...@mail.com]

On 2012-10-06, Peter Flass <Peter...@Yahoo.com> wrote:
> On 10/6/2012 5:13 AM, Morten Reistad wrote:
>> In article <ad9bgr...@mid.individual.net>,
>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>> "Rod Speed" <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote in message
>>> news:ad9aq9...@mid.individual.net...
>>>> Dan Espen <des...@verizon.net> wrote

>>>>
>>>>> Hmm, did they discover oil?
>>>>
>>>> Nope.
>>>>
>>>>> Which other countries?
>>>>
>>>> Australia.
>>>

>>> Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore.
>>
>> Add Panama, Chile and Botswana; and the non-oil countries with
>> at least 3/4ths funded future entitlements and a balanced budget
>> is complete.
>
>
> Panama has a money-making ditch, and a lot of American ex-pats, Chile
> had to throw out a left-wing government to do it.

Botswana has diamonds, legitimate ones.
(Chile had a CIA-funded coup. Seems a good country at the moment,
one of the most useless people I know moved there and likes it, except
for the almost-weekly tremors).

>
>>
>> Australia isn't quite at 3/4ths, closer to half.
>>
>> Estonia, Luxembourg and New Zealand are moving to get there.
>> Switzerland has had to abandon the project because it made their
>> currency too valuable.
>>
>> Even among oil economies this is not a common state of affairs,
>> I cannot get beoyond what can be counted on one hand.
>>
>
> I don't know, but aren't oil economies the worst? Lots gets skimmed
> off, and the rest isn't usually invested in any productive enterprise.

[Dave Garland]

On 10/6/2012 8:29 AM, jmfbahciv wrote:
> Dave Garland wrote:
>> On 10/5/2012 8:16 AM, jmfbahciv wrote:
>>
>>>> You get medicare, and then buy a supplement ("part B") policy and a drug
>>>> ("part D") - some supplements include both. Between them you get full
>>>> coverage, far more cheaply than any other option.
>>>
>>> Except they are not full coverage.
>>>
>>
>> What do you mean by "full coverage"?
>>
>> Is there any insurance plan anywhere in the US that is "full coverage"
>> for everything, no matter what, with no exceptions, deductibles, or
>> copays? AFAIK _all_ plans have some kind of limits, whether it's who
>> you can see, how much it will cover, etc.
>>
>> Medicare Part A + Part B + supplemental coverage with drug coverage
>> can cover a lot, depending on which plan you choose (there is a web
>> page that will compare coverage of various plans available to you at at
>> https://www.medicare.gov/find-a-plan/questions/home.aspx ).
>>
> There is dental and eye care.

AFAIK, private insurers (e.g. Delta Dental, Aetna) sell dental and eye
insurance to anyone who forks over the premium. But those do seem to
be an add-on for most plans.

I had much better coverage with DEC's
> insurance policy than I do now.

Costs have gone up since you were at DEC, and DEC was paying (at
least) part of the bill.

Getting the equivalent here (without
> eye and dental) costs a lot but I can't buy it. What I really want
> is catastrophic coverage; I'd pay for the mundane stuff myself.

Don't Medicare Part A and B pretty much cover the catastrophic stuff,
especially if you're buying Medicare Advantage coverage? (Exception:
long-term nursing home, but I think there's private add-on insurance
for that.) And the Affordable Care Act closes the "donut hole" for
Part D drug coverage, assuming Romney doesn't overturn it. Part B
costs $100/month, and Advantage plans start at about $40/mo more, at
least where I am (since those are private insurance companies, the
cost seems to vary not only by state, but where you are in the state).
You don't _have_ to use Medicare for the mundane stuff, just about
everyone will take cash, though it seems silly to throw away that
coverage that you've already paid for (Part A, through payroll tax).

[Dan Espen]

Used to be true (life time maximum) but the ACA did away with that.

--
Dan Espen

[Rod Speed]

Always dangerous to take claims like that at face value
when they don't have cites to back them up. It isnt in fact
any more an important revenue stream than in the US.

> But imagine that, you _can_ tax your way out of a deficit.

That's always been obvious.

Corse we arent actually stupid enough to piss anything
like the percentage of GDP against the wall on the military
as the US is. And that fool Romney actually wants to do
even more of that than currently too.

And the other consideration is how the health care system
is funded. By taxation here, by pissing twice the percentage
of GDP against the wall on a MUCH worse result longevity
and years in good health wise in the US and that doesn't
show up on the taxation side with much of it in the US.

> I'd say in the US less than 50% of the voters believe that.
> Or at least they vote that way.

I'm not convinced that they do actually vote that way.

They didn't when they went for Slick instead
of the shrub's dad and they mostly did that
because they were pissed off about what the
shrub's dad had achieved economically too.

It will be fascinating to see if they will do the
same thing with Obama too and return the
fools that actually produced the worst recession
since the great depression and who are actually
stupid enough to want to piss even more money
against the wall on the military now. Corse one
saving grace with that is that it is one form of
make work which isnt quite as soul destroying
as just digging holes and filling them in, and
does put one hell of a bomb under the
absolute dregs of the labor market that would
otherwise be into gang banging and the drug trade.

[Rod Speed]

jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> wrote

Which you heard on the radio, again. Its just another Limbaugh lie.

> The peopel who run that department don't
> seem to know how to do their job.

You do know how to check the stupid claims made
on the radio but don’t actually bother to do that.

[Rod Speed]

<grey...@mail.com> wrote

> Dan Espen <des...@verizon.net> wrote
>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>> Dan Espen <des...@verizon.net> wrote

>>>>> Nope, other countrys have fixed their deficit without doing that.

>>>> Hmm, did they discover oil?

>>> Nope.

>>>> Which other countries?

>>> Australia.

>> Interesting. Looks like they typically tax close to expenditures and
>> most of their tax is in income tax. The top tax rate looks like 45%.
>> Also a 10% vat.

>> For a country settled by convicts, sounds like a good place to live.

> I saw an article recently about an Australian Sheep Ranch in the 1950's.
> Everything above bare living expenses was taxed extremely high.

That is a pig ignorant lie. And there is no such
animal as an Australian Sheep Ranch anyway.

We did have much higher income tax rates at
the top level in those days, but so did the US too.

And that sort of rural agricultural operation had extremely
favorable tax breaks in a whole raft of areas too.

> Australia, at that time anyway, (After the war, which got
> very close to them), had a great sense of social cohestion.

That's just plain wrong too. That was a time when we saw
huge numbers of immigrants from places like Italy and
Greece etc and there was fuck all in the way of social
cohesion between those and the previous immigrants.

There was fuck all in the way of social cohesion between
the protestants and catholics before that too.

[Rod Speed]

Peter Flass <Peter...@Yahoo.com> wrote
> Morten Reistad wrote

>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote
>>>> Dan Espen <des...@verizon.net> wrote

>>>>> Hmm, did they discover oil?

>>>> Nope.

>>>>> Which other countries?

>>>> Australia.

>>> Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore.

>> Add Panama, Chile and Botswana; and the
>> non-oil countries with at least 3/4ths funded future
>> entitlements and a balanced budget is complete.

> Panama has a money-making ditch,

But that isnt even self financing due to the immense cost of it.

Neither is Egypt either and Suez produces a lot more revenue.

> and a lot of American ex-pats,

Not that many at all in fact. Nothing like Mexico.

> Chile had to throw out a left-wing government to do it.

>> Australia isn't quite at 3/4ths, closer to half.

>> Estonia, Luxembourg and New Zealand are moving
>> to get there. Switzerland has had to abandon the
>> project because it made their currency too valuable.

>> Even among oil economies this is not a common state of affairs,
>> I cannot get beoyond what can be counted on one hand.

> I don't know, but aren't oil economies the worst?

Nope, not on the deficit and govt debt question being discussed.

> Lots gets skimmed off,

Sure, but there is no real govt debt.

> and the rest isn't usually invested in any productive enterprise.

That's overstated too, most obviously with
the airlines like Emirates and Etihad etc.

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Thu, 27 Sep 2012 16:09:37 -0700, Patrick Scheible <k...@zipcon.net>
wrote:

[snip]

>It's hard to read tone of voice through a text medium. There are people
>who appear to have more bad luck happen to them, repeatedly over a long
>period of time. Computers crash, important mail gets lost, etc. Barb
>wouldn't be the only person I know like that, and I've never come up
>with a satisfactory explanation.

Randomity. There will be clusters of events. Some of the events
are misfortunes.

Some people also invite such.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Fri, 28 Sep 2012 14:54:34 -0500, "Charles Richmond"
<nume...@aquaporin4.com> wrote:

[snip]

>You're talking about cascading failure here. The same thing happens with
>errors in a computer program. A professor teaching compiler theory once
>told the class that one could generate *six* pages of error messages by
>omitting *one* character from a COBOL program. He meant if one left the
>period off of the "DATA DIVISION." statement. Of course, that meant that
>*all* the variables would *not* be declared, and every reference in the
>"PROCEDURE DIVISION." would be an undefined variable.

I crashed a COBOL compiler with a period.

I was not quite certain of the syntax so I decided to guess. The
compiler crashed. When I removed the period, the program compiled and
ran correctly.

The same compiler was rather sensitive to errors in ?D sections
(FD, SD, etc.). Get one wrong, and there could be many errors in
associated statements.

The same compiler did not work correctly with the Report Writer
with an empty input file when I specified that the program be compiled
with the option to have uninitialised variable checks done. When I
removed the option, the program worked correctly.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Roger Blake]

On 2012-10-06, JimP <pongb...@cableone.net> wrote:
> Nope, they will be paying nothing of my health insurance when I
> retire. I'll be on MediCare, which Romney wants to destroy.

That is not true. However If that were a candidate's position I would be
with him. Social Security and Medicare are like weeds that need to
be pulled out by their roots. It is not the job of the federal
government to provide for the needs of individual citizens.

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Roger Blake (Change "invalid" to "com" for email. Google Groups killfiled.)

"Climate policy has almost nothing to do anymore with environmental
protection... the next world climate summit in Cancun is actually
an economy summit during which the distribution of the world's
resources will be negotiated." -- Ottmar Edenhofer, IPCC
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

[Dan Espen]

Roger Blake <rogb...@iname.invalid> writes:

> On 2012-10-06, JimP <pongb...@cableone.net> wrote:
>> Nope, they will be paying nothing of my health insurance when I
>> retire. I'll be on MediCare, which Romney wants to destroy.
>
> That is not true. However If that were a candidate's position I would be
> with him. Social Security and Medicare are like weeds that need to
> be pulled out by their roots. It is not the job of the federal
> government to provide for the needs of individual citizens.

Hmm:

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect
Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the
common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare,

From the taxing clause:

to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general
Welfare of the United States;

So, comparing these programs to "weeds" I take it you think these
programs are growing out of control. So people live way too luxuriously
on SS and pay out exorbitant amounts in Medicare payments.

I don't think you have a cite for either contention.

I've paid the maximum into SS for a large part of my working career and
don't plan to collect until age 70. If SS was all I had to rely on I
can't see how anyone would call that paltry benefit "luxurious".

--
Dan Espen

[JimP.]

On Sun, 7 Oct 2012 12:44:10 +0000 (UTC), Roger Blake
<rogb...@iname.invalid> wrote:

>On 2012-10-06, JimP <pongb...@cableone.net> wrote:
>> Nope, they will be paying nothing of my health insurance when I
>> retire. I'll be on MediCare, which Romney wants to destroy.
>
>That is not true. However If that were a candidate's position I would be
>with him. Social Security and Medicare are like weeds that need to
>be pulled out by their roots. It is not the job of the federal
>government to provide for the needs of individual citizens.

I'll be below the poverty line for cash in while on SS benefits. Its a
bandaid on an aorta. If you think its luxury, you're an idiot.
.
JimP.
--
Brushing aside the thorns so I can see the stars.
http://www.linuxgazette.net/ Linux Gazette
http://www.drivein-jim.net/ Drive-In movie theaters
http://story.drivein-jim.net/ A story Feb, 2011

[Rod Speed]

Dan Espen <des...@verizon.net> wrote
> Roger Blake <rogb...@iname.invalid> wrote

>> JimP <pongb...@cableone.net> wrote

>>> Nope, they will be paying nothing of my health insurance when
>>> I retire. I'll be on MediCare, which Romney wants to destroy.

>> That is not true. However If that were a candidate's position
>> I would be with him. Social Security and Medicare are like weeds
>> that need to be pulled out by their roots. It is not the job of the
>> federal government to provide for the needs of individual citizens.

> Hmm:

> We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more
> perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide
> for the common defence,[note 1] promote the general Welfare,

It clearly did not see that that applied to slavery.

> From the taxing clause:

> to pay the Debts and provide for the common
> Defence and general Welfare of the United States;

> So, comparing these programs to "weeds" I take it you think these
> programs are growing out of control. So people live way too luxuriously
> on SS and pay out exorbitant amounts in Medicare payments.

> I don't think you have a cite for either contention.

> I've paid the maximum into SS for a large part of my working career
> and don't plan to collect until age 70. If SS was all I had to rely on
> I can't see how anyone would call that paltry benefit "luxurious".

Having fun thrashing that straw man ?

He JUST said that 'It is not the job of the federal government
to provide for the needs of individual citizens'

A very silly proposition that very few of the voters
agree with, but nothing like your straw man.

[Dan Espen]

So in Rod world, general welfare excludes individual citizens?
Not sure how well SS and Medicare fits the model of individual citizens.
The government doesn't pick out individual citizens to help.

--
Dan Espen

[JimP.]

Having fun being stupid ?

>He JUST said that 'It is not the job of the federal government
>to provide for the needs of individual citizens'

It doesn't. It provides for groups, which are composed of individuals.

[Rod Speed]

Dan Espen <des...@verizon.net> wrote
> Rod Speed <rod.sp...@gmail.com> wrote

Nothing whatever to do with my world, we
happened to be discussing ROGER'S line.

> general welfare excludes individual citizens?

Its not clear what ROGER'S line is on that, whether
he believes that the provision for the needs of
individuals should be entirely by the individuals
themselves or whether he believes there is some
role for state govts but not the federal govt.

Likely he doesn't believe that its got anything to do
with govt at all, but he clear hasn't said that explicitly.

> Not sure how well SS and Medicare fits the model of individual citizens.

It clearly doesn't if he believes that it should be nothing that govt gets
involved in.

> The government doesn't pick out individual citizens to help.

He never said anything about that there.

[Rod Speed]

JimP <pongb...@cableone.net> wrote

Any 2 year old could leave that for dead.

>> He JUST said that 'It is not the job of the federal government
>> to provide for the needs of individual citizens'

> It doesn't. It provides for groups, which are composed of individuals.

When he said it should be pulled out by the roots he clearly doesn't
believe that its any part of what the federal govt should be involved
in even with groups.

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Mon, 01 Oct 2012 10:04:04 -0700, Patrick Scheible <k...@zipcon.net>
wrote:

[snip]

>I have Speed killposted. I was asking Bernd Felsche because he can
>carry on an adult conversation.

That is not fair to Mr. Speed. He is very good at half of
carrying on an adult conversation. He has carrying on to a T.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Oct 6, 11:56 am, greyma...@mail.com wrote:

> Examine any commercial (non-state) insurance policy closely, and you will
> find a max that they will not pay beyond.

Years ago Blue Cross/Blue Shield had a million dollar lifetime
maximum. Back then a major operation and hopsital stay cost $10,000,
so that million dollars would cover 100 major procedures, and most
people wouldn't need that many.

But now medical costs have shot up so much that even a minor ER visit
is $20,000, that million bucks could be easily reached.

I don't know if it still is in place or not.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Oct 7, 12:26 am, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net> wrote:

>      I crashed a COBOL compiler with a period.

Could I ask what compiler that was?

>      The same compiler did not work correctly with the Report Writer
> with an empty input file when I specified that the program be compiled
> with the option to have uninitialised variable checks done.  When I
> removed the option, the program worked correctly.

The few people I knew who tried Report Writer found it to be a
miserable experience. Many shops banned its use (along with the ALTER
statement). I think modern COBOL no longer supports either.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Oct 7, 8:44 am, Roger Blake <rogbl...@iname.invalid> wrote:

> It is not the job of the federal
> government to provide for the needs of individual citizens.

Depression, The Great.

Lines of people desperately seeking work, any kind of work, though
nothing was available.

Some other countries dealt with their economic woes by revolution,
war, and conquest.

[Rod Speed]

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote

Not during the great depression they didn't.

[Peter Flass]

On 10/7/2012 9:47 AM, Dan Espen wrote:
>
> I've paid the maximum into SS for a large part of my working career and
> don't plan to collect until age 70. If SS was all I had to rely on I
> can't see how anyone would call that paltry benefit "luxurious".
>

Social Security was never intended to be "I had to rely on." It's
intended to provide a minimum subsistence for people who don't have
anything else. The expectation was that people would have
employer-sponsored pensions [now unfortunately largely gone] and lots of
their own savings, which is all people used to have before the 30s.
This is the traditional "three-legged stool."

People these days not only don't save, they were borrowing, as we have
seen, against the value of their house to take cruises and buy SUVs and
flat-screen TVs. Perhaps we need the government to do this, since
people have proven that they're too stupid to do it themselves.


--
Pete

[Peter Flass]

That was probably the big reason why people supported a lot of New Deal
stuff. All the WWI veterans were in their late 20's and thirties. You
had stuff like the "Bonus Army" camped out in Washington, and I think a
lot of people were genuinely afraid of revolution.

--
Pete

[jmfbahciv]

Then they didn't know how to use that feature. I used it. It was
easier to use for formatting a report whose only changes were the
sums. keeping track of the sums would have been a spaghetti
nightmare without it.

/BAH

[blmblm.m...@gmail.com]

In article <PM0004CAC...@ac8102e0.ipt.aol.com>,
jmfbahciv <See....@aol.com> wrote:
> Dave Garland wrote:
> > On 9/27/2012 8:14 AM, jmfbahciv wrote:
> >

[ snip ]

> Yup. My mother's doctor's business was bought out by a bigger entity.
> She was getting charged (through Medicare) for procedures and visits
> she never had. When she called the office, they said it was a problem
> with consolidating the data bases of the two businesses. One of the
> charges was an Oboamacare mandated procedure.

When you say "mandated" here -- do you mean one that insurers must
pay for, or patients must have done? I have the impression that the
new law does define some procedures that insurers must pay for, but
I haven't heard that it defines any that patients must have done.
You say you don't remember specifics, but I'm wondering how that
would work -- that is, what sorts of procedures are "mandated" in that
latter sense, what happens to people who don't have them, and so forth.

(Aside: I doubt /BAH will reply to me, but perhaps someone else
knows?)

[ snip ]

--
B. L. Massingill
ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.

[Dan Espen]

Keeping track of "sums" is one of those things you learn early on
in your business programming career. If you don't know the pattern you
can make a serious mess. Once you learn the technique, it's perfectly
simple and clear.

The report writer like any other reporting language (RPG, DYL260, etc.)
can be a time saver, but if your needs don't exactly fit the language,
these reporting tools can be a major problem.

Given that IBM saw fit to drop the report writer, not using it was a
wise decision.

--
Dan Espen

[Patrick Scheible]

Roger Blake <rogb...@iname.invalid> writes:

> On 2012-10-06, JimP <pongb...@cableone.net> wrote:
>> Nope, they will be paying nothing of my health insurance when I
>> retire. I'll be on MediCare, which Romney wants to destroy.
>
> That is not true. However If that were a candidate's position I would be
> with him. Social Security and Medicare are like weeds that need to
> be pulled out by their roots. It is not the job of the federal
> government to provide for the needs of individual citizens.

That is one point of view. It is not the point of view of most of the
citizens of the United States.

-- Patrick

[Scott Lurndal]

You are, of course, correct. Roger Blake's _only_ contribution to this
newsgroup has been radical right-wing libertarian rhetoric with no supporting
evidence or research.

scott

[Scott Lurndal]

Peter Flass <Peter...@Yahoo.com> writes:

>People these days not only don't save, they were borrowing, as we have
>seen, against the value of their house to take cruises and buy SUVs and
>flat-screen TVs. Perhaps we need the government to do this, since
>people have proven that they're too stupid to do it themselves.

Be careful with gross generalizations, as they are almost never true.

[Rod Speed]

Peter Flass <Peter...@Yahoo.com> wrote
> hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote

>> Roger Blake <rogbl...@iname.invalid> wrote

>>> It is not the job of the federal government to
>>> provide for the needs of individual citizens.

>> Depression, The Great.

>> Lines of people desperately seeking work, any
>> kind of work, though nothing was available.

With a 30% unemployment rate, there were
still 70% doing work that was available.

>> Some other countries dealt with their economic
>> woes by revolution, war, and conquest.

> That was probably the big reason why
> people supported a lot of New Deal stuff.

Nope, its was MUCH more basic than that, plenty doing very badly.

> All the WWI veterans were in their late 20's and thirties. You
> had stuff like the "Bonus Army" camped out in Washington,
> and I think a lot of people were genuinely afraid of revolution.

Nope. We didn't even see any riots, let alone revolution.

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Sun, 7 Oct 2012 20:03:53 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>On Oct 7, 12:26�am, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net> wrote:
>
>> � � �I crashed a COBOL compiler with a period.
>
>Could I ask what compiler that was?

It was a DEC COBOL compiler. I do not know the version.

>> � � �The same compiler did not work correctly with the Report Writer

>> with an empty input file when I specified that the program be compiled
>> with the option to have uninitialised variable checks done. �When I
>> removed the option, the program worked correctly.
>
>The few people I knew who tried Report Writer found it to be a
>miserable experience. Many shops banned its use (along with the ALTER
>statement). I think modern COBOL no longer supports either.

It was as part of a course so I had no choice. Actually, I liked
it for ease of use, but it had no provision for catching overflows.
(If you output was too long, it would truncate. No, that is not 2
million but 12 million and the like.)

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Oct 8, 7:49 am, Peter Flass <Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote:

> Social Security was never intended to be "I had to rely on."  It's
> intended to provide a minimum subsistence for people who don't have
> anything else.  The expectation was that people would have
> employer-sponsored pensions [now unfortunately largely gone] and lots of
> their own savings, which is all people used to have before the 30s.
> This is the traditional "three-legged stool."

In addition to the above, the expectation in the 1930s when Social
Security was created was that many people would be dead by age 65 as
life expectentcy back then wasn't very high.

One huge challenge today for both Social Security and Medicare is that
people are living a lot longer, though not necessarily living well.

A few years ago they tried to set up review panels since end-of-life
care is extremely expensive and--IMHO--somewhat wasted. But it became
a political issue accusing "pulling the plug on grandma".

Having lost an ederly relative, in hindsight I saw spending on things
not needed. But it's very hard for a family member to say "don't
bother with that medication anymore"--no one wants to 'cause' their
relatively to die, even if it's merely a week earlier.

> People these days not only don't save, they were borrowing, as we have
> seen, against the value of their house to take cruises and buy SUVs and
> flat-screen TVs.  Perhaps we need the government to do this, since
> people have proven that they're too stupid to do it themselves.

Not everyone borrowed so foolishly.

But in terms of govt involvement, the rules should've been stricter on
banks making home equity loans so frivolously.

IMHO, someone shouldn't own a house unless they have personally
invested 10% down payment; preferably 20% down payment. This leads to
much greater stability and care.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Oct 8, 10:31 am, Dan Espen <des...@verizon.net> wrote:

> The report writer like any other reporting language (RPG, DYL260, etc.)
> can be a time saver, but if your needs don't exactly fit the language,
> these reporting tools can be a major problem.

Back in the 1980s many shops wanted to improve programmer
productivity. To do so, they pushed or mandated the shorthand
languages (4GL) like Easytrieve, SAS, DYL, MarkIV, etc.

But as you said, if it's not a good fit, there will be trouble. I
remember applications using very large files ran very poorly on a
shorthand compared to COBOL, but management demanded everything be
written in the 4GL. (The COBOL Report Writer feature was not included
as a shortcut tool).

What works well now is processing the data in a traditional COBOL
program, creating an output file, and using a shorthand to actually
generate the report. In this way each tool does what it does best.
Once a file is already prepared, a shorthand language works great at
quickly generating a nice clean report with proper titles, column
headings, control breaks, etc.

> Given that IBM saw fit to drop the report writer, not using it was a
> wise decision.

I only knew of one person who ever used it, and never used it again.

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Oct 8, 5:02 pm, Gene Wirchenko <ge...@ocis.net> wrote:

>      It was as part of a course so I had no choice.  Actually, I liked
> it for ease of use, but it had no provision for catching overflows.
> (If you output was too long, it would truncate.  No, that is not 2
> million but 12 million and the like.)

In IBM JCL there is an OUTLIM parameter that may be added to SYSOUT
statements to limit overflows and avoid wasting paper.

Some of us learned about this the hard way.

[Anne & Lynn Wheeler]

hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com writes:
> Back in the 1980s many shops wanted to improve programmer
> productivity. To do so, they pushed or mandated the shorthand
> languages (4GL) like Easytrieve, SAS, DYL, MarkIV, etc.
>
> But as you said, if it's not a good fit, there will be trouble. I
> remember applications using very large files ran very poorly on a
> shorthand compared to COBOL, but management demanded everything be
> written in the 4GL. (The COBOL Report Writer feature was not included
> as a shortcut tool).

one of virtual machine service bureaus ... sort of the '60s "cloud
service"

A Brief History of Fourth Generation Languages
http://www.decosta.com/Nomad/tales/history.html

from above

One could say PRINT ACROSS MONTH SUM SALES BY DIVISION and receive a
report that would have taken many hundreds of lines of Cobol to
produce. The product grew in capability and in revenue, both to NCSS and
to Mathematica, who enjoyed increasing royalty payments from the sizable
customer base.

... snip ...

past posts mentioning ramis, nomad, focus:
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#15 CA-RAMIS
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003d.html#17 CA-RAMIS
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2003n.html#15 Dreaming About Redesigning SQL
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2006k.html#37 PDP-1
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007c.html#12 Special characters in passwords was Re: RACF - Password rules
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2007e.html#37 Quote from comp.object
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2009k.html#40 Gone but not forgotten: 10 operating systems the world left behind
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#54 search engine history, was Happy DEC-10 Day
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#55 Senior Java Developer vs. MVS Systems Programmer (warning: Conley rant)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010e.html#58 Senior Java Developer vs. MVS Systems Programmer (warning: Conley rant)
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010n.html#21 What non-IBM software products have been most significant to the mainframe's success
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010o.html#26 Global Sourcing with Cloud Computing and Virtualization
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2010q.html#63 VMSHARE Archives
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011d.html#55 Maybe off topic
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011m.html#69 "Best" versus "worst" programming language you've used?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011n.html#39 Beyond Patriot? The Multinational MEADS Air Defense Program
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#1 Deja Cloud?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2011p.html#43 z/OS's basis for TCP/IP
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012b.html#60 Has anyone successfully migrated off mainframes?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012d.html#51 From Who originated the phrase "user-friendly"?
http://www.garlic.com/~lynn/2012e.html#84 Time to competency for new software language?

--
virtualization experience starting Jan1968, online at home since Mar1970

[Rod Speed]

<hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com> wrote

> Peter Flass <Peter_Fl...@Yahoo.com> wrote

>> Social Security was never intended to be "I had to rely on." It's
>> intended to provide a minimum subsistence for people who don't have
>> anything else. The expectation was that people would have
>> employer-sponsored pensions [now unfortunately largely gone] and lots of
>> their own savings, which is all people used to have before the 30s.
>> This is the traditional "three-legged stool."

> In addition to the above, the expectation in the 1930s when Social
> Security was created was that many people would be dead by age
> 65 as life expectentcy back then wasn't very high.

> One huge challenge today for both Social Security and Medicare is
> that people are living a lot longer, though not necessarily living well.

They do in fact live even better in say their last decade than they did
then.

> A few years ago they tried to set up review panels since end-of-life
> care is extremely expensive and--IMHO--somewhat wasted. But it
> became a political issue accusing "pulling the plug on grandma".

> Having lost an ederly relative, in hindsight I saw spending on
> things not needed. But it's very hard for a family member to
> say "don't bother with that medication anymore"--no one wants
> to 'cause' their relatively to die, even if it's merely a week earlier.

Some do. Some deliberately get involved in killing
them, at the request of those who want to be killed.

>> People these days not only don't save, they were borrowing, as we have
>> seen, against the value of their house to take cruises and buy SUVs and
>> flat-screen TVs. Perhaps we need the government to do this, since
>> people have proven that they're too stupid to do it themselves.

> Not everyone borrowed so foolishly.

In fact most didn't.

> But in terms of govt involvement, the rules should've been
> stricter on banks making home equity loans so frivolously.

No thanks, not interested in govt having any say on that.

> IMHO, someone shouldn't own a house unless they have
> personally invested 10% down payment; preferably 20%
> down payment. This leads to much greater stability and care.

Like hell it does. It just makes life harder for those starting
off on the purchase of the house they will live in, and with
the current very low interest rates they get paid sweet fuck
all on that down payment while accumulating it, and that
just delays the time when they can start doing what is for
most by far the best investment they can ever make, in the
house they will live in.

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Sat, 29 Sep 2012 12:31:29 -0700 (PDT), hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

>On Sep 28, 5:06�pm, Andrew Swallow <am.swal...@btinternet.com> wrote:
>
>> Hmm. �More likely to be in the hands of a new group of rich. �Making
>> money and living off the rents from the property grandfather acquired
>> are two different skills.
>
>In fairness, living off 'grandfather's property'*, while certainly a
>benefit, isn't as easy as it sounds. A real estate property needs to
>be maintained and managed well, if not, it will decline rapidly. An
>older property will require fresh investment for major items like the
>heating system, roof, electrical, etc.
>
>Many times a business is passed down and the heirs can't run it very
>well.

Clavell wrote in one of the Noble House novels something like:

A coolie gets rich, the second generation lives off the profits,
the third generation lives off mortgaging the property, the fourth
generation is coolies.

>* That being said, it's certainly easier to make one's start in life
>at age 18 with $10,000 in the bank vs. nothing.

A certain flexibility, yes.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Gene Wirchenko]

On Sun, 16 Sep 2012 18:15:41 -0400, Michael Black <et...@ncf.ca>
wrote:

[snip]

>Then, for another cereal joke, the daughter of a friend once came up with
>"Mice Krispies", which I guess could mean little computer mice shaped
>kernels of rice.

Or connecting the mice to mains voltage.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[Peter Flass]

I used it a couple of times, and it was fairly easy - all "data
division" code and a - what, "generate" statement?

On the other hand I had a pretty simple model for a report program with
multi-level totals that I just used when required that wasn't a lot harder.


--
Pete

[Peter Flass]

They're not *always* true, but there's usually some truth to most of
them, including this one. There wouldn't have been a housing bubble if
people had been thinking of houses as residences instead of piggy-banks.
It's been shown that most Americans don't save enough, though that
improved a bit during the Great Recession.

--
Pete

[Peter Flass]

There needs to be more regulation of individual bad behavior. [I can't
believe I'm saying this] I believe new rehulations have companies
automatically signing up new employees for the 401-K unless they opt
out, rather than the other way around. It should also be harder to take
money out. I agree on the down-payment requirements - it was 20% when I
bought my first house, and they were pretty strict about it. For our
second house my wife had to get a job in order for us to meet the income
requirements - and it wasn't a very big house.

--
Pete

[Peter Flass]

On 10/8/2012 7:48 PM, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> On Oct 8, 10:31 am, Dan Espen <des...@verizon.net> wrote:
>
>> The report writer like any other reporting language (RPG, DYL260, etc.)
>> can be a time saver, but if your needs don't exactly fit the language,
>> these reporting tools can be a major problem.
>
> Back in the 1980s many shops wanted to improve programmer
> productivity. To do so, they pushed or mandated the shorthand
> languages (4GL) like Easytrieve, SAS, DYL, MarkIV, etc.
>
> But as you said, if it's not a good fit, there will be trouble. I
> remember applications using very large files ran very poorly on a
> shorthand compared to COBOL, but management demanded everything be
> written in the 4GL. (The COBOL Report Writer feature was not included
> as a shortcut tool).

At P...POE we were converting some systems from IBM COBOL to an XDS
Sigma system and the boss rewrote a lot of COBOL reports in a system
called "Manage," which did quite a competent job (Ev - are you here
anywhere?). I think Univac "Mapper" was in the same vein.

--
Pete

[Ahem A Rivet's Shot]

On Mon, 8 Oct 2012 16:48:35 -0700 (PDT)
hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:

> Back in the 1980s many shops wanted to improve programmer
> productivity. To do so, they pushed or mandated the shorthand
> languages (4GL) like Easytrieve, SAS, DYL, MarkIV, etc.

By the end of the 80s this sickness had reached the killer micros
in the form of Informix 4GL and similar offerings from Oracle and Ingres.
We started a large project with a management edict to use Informix 4GL, we
got an exception to use ESQL/C for a module that needed a YACC based parser
(which conflicted horribly with the 4GL parser). It was painful for
anything other than the simple report writing it was designed for.

After a performance test, which should have been dominated by
database activity and turned out to be dominated by type conversions to the
extent that the ESQL/C version was more than double the speed, we got
permission to ditch the 4GL.

--
Steve O'Hara-Smith | Directable Mirror Arrays
C:>WIN | A better way to focus the sun
The computer obeys and wins. | licences available see
You lose and Bill collects. | http://www.sohara.org/

[jmfbahciv]

Sure. That's true for any project. However, I'd much rather edit
the report section for formatting than innumerable output statements.
The people who see the reports will change their minds at least six times
and then end up choosing the original anyway.

>
> Given that IBM saw fit to drop the report writer, not using it was a
> wise decision.

When was it dropped?

/BAH

[jmfbahciv]

That would have made it impossible for most people to buy a house in
Mass. in the 80s. A condo was so expensive that two guys pooled
money to buy it. That way they got a start in home-ownership.

/BAH

[jmfbahciv]

Did you have sources to the OTS (we called ours LIBOL)?

/BAH

[Dan Espen]

I haven't used COBOL on S/360 for over 30 years.
That's about as close as I can get.

--
Dan Espen

[Patrick Scheible]

Yes, but prices go up when many more people have the ability to borrow
the money to pay them. Stricter down payment requirements would have
kept prices from climbing so much.

-- Patrick

[hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com]

On Oct 8, 8:11 pm, Anne & Lynn Wheeler <l...@garlic.com> wrote:

> One could say PRINT ACROSS MONTH SUM SALES BY DIVISION and receive a
> report that would have taken many hundreds of lines of Cobol to
> produce. The product grew in capability and in revenue, both to NCSS and
> to Mathematica, who enjoyed increasing royalty payments from the sizable
> customer base.

Managers saw "one line" vs. "many hundreds of lines", bought the
product, and ordered the staff to use it.

But there were several big BUTs involved.

1) As mentioned, these languages often were interpreters and ran
slowly--performance was bad when handling a large volume file.

2) Often times existing applications had to be modified so that file
structure and data names were usable by the 4GL. This could, and did,
take an extensive amount of time.

3) Many applications required much more than merely 'one line' of a
4GL, and also didn't save "many hundreds of lines".

4) Early versions of the 4GLs had bugs or were missing certain
features. In at least two languages, the vendors came out with new
versions that were significantly different than the old one, and all
programs had to be changed for the new version. (ex, Easytrieve to
EasytrievePlus; DYL260 to DYL280).


As mentioned, 4GL have their place. Unfortunately, often management
dictated their use in inappropriate situations, wasting a lot of
time. Programmers did not appreciate working free OT to fix a mgmt-
induced problem that never should've happened.

[Rod Speed]

Peter Flass <Peter...@Yahoo.com> wrote
> Scott Lurndal wrote
>> Peter Flass <Peter...@Yahoo.com> wrote

>>> People these days not only don't save, they were borrowing, as we
>>> have seen, against the value of their house to take cruises and buy
>>> SUVs and flat-screen TVs. Perhaps we need the government to do this,
>>> since people have proven that they're too stupid to do it themselves.

>> Be careful with gross generalizations, as they are almost never true.

> They're not *always* true, but there's usually some truth to most of
> them, including this one. There wouldn't have been a housing bubble if
> people had been thinking of houses as residences instead of piggy-banks.

Bullshit. The reason there was a housing bubble was because
interest rates were held FAR too low for FAR too long, with the
clowns being able to flog off loans that didn't come even close
to qualifying for AAA ratings as soon as they were written.

> It's been shown that most Americans don't save enough,

Stupid to save when those savings earn a derisory interest
rate that you have to pay tax on. MUCH better to put that
money into real estate instead.

> though that improved a bit during the Great Recession.

It in fact wiped out much of the real savings of many,
in the house they live in, when they ended up under
water on the loan on that house.

[Rod Speed]

"Patrick Scheible" <k...@zipcon.net> wrote in message
news:86haq3v...@zipcon.net...

The real reason prices went up so dramatically
was because interest rates were so low for so long.

The effect of the deposit required was a much more minor effect on prices.

[Gene Wirchenko]

^^^
Please expand this. "Off The Shelf"?

I was taking a uni course, so no, whatever OTS is.

Sincerely,

Gene Wirchenko

[jmfbahciv]

Sorry. Object Time System. It was (usually) the high seg of your
FORTRAN or COBOL program which was sharable. It did the I/O
and memory management for the user program.

/BAH

[Andreas Eder]

I think it is mostly an educational problem.
People should get a proper education -- I don't speak of skills, but
real education. Then they will always have something to do for
themselves, be it painting, making music or mathematics.

'are
--
ceterum censeo redmondinem esse delendam.

[Andreas Eder]

>>>>> "Ahem" == Ahem A Rivet's Shot <ste...@eircom.net> writes:

Ahem> I think we nearly all feel a need to contribute. But many wSuld
Ahem> not follow through on it consistently without some incentive or pressure.

Ahem> Still others would prefer to contribute in ways that are not well
Ahem> rewarded under the current systems. Some (many) find ways to do so and make
Ahem> a living (usually a thin hard one). These are the ones I feel our societies
Ahem> do not do well by and that is a pity.

Ahem> Part of me thinks we should switch to a society of largely
Ahem> supported leisure and little personal responsibility. A couple of
Ahem> generations should breed us a population that can handle it and develop
Ahem> self worth. It might be good for the race, once we finish burying the
Ahem> suicides.

It would be really nice, if we could accomplish that. I feel the same
way.

[Rod Speed]

Andreas Eder <andrea...@gmx.net> wrote

> I think it is mostly an educational problem.

I don’t.

> People should get a proper education -- I don't speak of skills,
> but real education. Then they will always have something to do
> for themselves, be it painting, making music or mathematics.

Most don’t need formal education with that stuff.

[Alan Bowler]

On 10/7/2012 11:03 PM, hanc...@bbs.cpcn.com wrote:
> The few people I knew who tried Report Writer found it to be a
> miserable experience. Many shops banned its use (along with the ALTER
> statement).

When I was doing that type of programming, Report Writer worked fine
for me.

The only problem I ever had with it was on a rather
large (for its day) program running on a 360/40 under DOS + Power.

The program was large enough that I needed to segment (overlay) it,
and the report writer generated code was always in the root
overlay. I recoded without Report Writer and moved the report
production to a overlay.

> I think modern COBOL no longer supports either.
>

Bull's Gcos8 Cobol-85 most certainly does support Report Writer.

Banning ALTER GOTOs would make sense in many cases because
of it was so easy to write unfathomable spagetti with it,
but Report Writer usually made it easier to read code
even if the generated code was not quite as efficient.

[jmfbahciv]

and a secretary could change the source if she had to change
the format of the report. There was little training involved
to teach how to read the report formating.

/BAH