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Comment: Re:Not a cargo ship (Score 1) 116

by bobbied (#48620219) Attached to: New Cargo Ship Is 488 Meters Long

If you don't make your money back in 5 years, there are better investments out there.

Low interest rates have been pushing timelines out. At 10%, 5 years makes sense. At under 5%, 10 years makes more sense.

Hadn't thought of that, but what you say is correct, lower interest rates do mean longer ROI is possible. Personally, I think we are at the very end of low interest rates right now. Russia's latest rate hike is going to bite. Low energy prices will spur economic activity in pretty short order. All this will conspire so the Fed will be tightening the money supply.

I'd stay out of a 10 year ROI unless I can get bond rates under 2.5%. About the best a corporation can get is just under 4% for a 20 year, 10 year is about 3%. This means you will need to have MINIMUM annual returns of 8% for 20 year break even on principle and interest and 13% on 10 years.

Of course if you have 20 Billion in the bank, the numbers are that much lower..

Comment: Re:Not a cargo ship (Score 2) 116

by bobbied (#48620061) Attached to: New Cargo Ship Is 488 Meters Long

It's called "sound business practice" and a few rules of thumb.

1. ROI must be break even in less than 5 years. So if you don't break even in that amount of time, you are wasting your investment dollars. If you are paying cash (not borrowing) to fund the project, you can possibly go longer, but you still need to show an annual return of better than 10% to make money over 10 years.

2. Manufacturing usually charges double the production cost for the product. Add up, labor, materials, energy, maintenance and all other production costs and that should be half the sales price. Out of the 50% you take your infrastructure costs, money costs and such to arrive at profit.

Of course all "rules of thumb" are just how the average works. There are exceptions to these rules.

Comment: Re:Not a cargo ship (Score 1) 116

by bobbied (#48619919) Attached to: New Cargo Ship Is 488 Meters Long

1.75 Billion a year, BEFORE cost of operation.

Once again, when not using made up numbers, Green energies are the same.

Thanks for the information.

I'd like to point out though, I made no secret of the fact that I was guessing based on sound business practice. If you don't make your money back in 5 years, there are better investments out there. Big Energy companies may be able to stretch this out to 10 years if they have enough cash flow, but if your numbers are correct, they are going to loose their shirts.

Comment: Re:Army? (Score 1) 176

by bobbied (#48618719) Attached to: Army To Launch Spy Blimp Over Maryland

Isn't the army supposed to protect us from foreign threats? This seems like a job for domestic law enforcement.

System testing perhaps? I'm sure the Army is well aware of the domestic nature of the data they are collecting and the fact that the Army is NOT allowed to do law enforcement work.

So, my guess is that they are doing systems testing and validation work. Which happens all the time within our borders.

Comment: Re:10000 feet (Score 2) 176

by bobbied (#48618621) Attached to: Army To Launch Spy Blimp Over Maryland

How convenient, right at flight level of commercial jets.

This is the very bottom of the airspace used by commercial jets so it's not a problem. Below 10,000 feet you have possible uncontrolled aircraft operating VFR without communications equipment to talk to ATC. Above 10,000, you have to have a minimum set of equipment and be talking to ATC.

Commercial jets won't be bothered at all. Civil aviation likely won't either, except that there will be a new bit of restricted airspace they will now need to avoid or fly around, from the ground to 10,000 feet. Likely this airspace is already restricted as a MOA, so it won't be anything new.

Comment: Re:Not a cargo ship (Score 3, Interesting) 116

by bobbied (#48618389) Attached to: New Cargo Ship Is 488 Meters Long

That's a lot of solar panels, insulation, wind mills and hell, even a nuclear plant or two.....

But, if they are thinking $20 billion is worth it, you can be it is going to process a LOT more than that number in gas. My guess is they are looking at around $10 Billion/year return from their investment which gives them a 5 year payoff with operational costs. This beast will likely produce $250 Billion in revenue with about half that being profit.

No "green energy" installation of the same price would come close to this kind of profit.

Comment: Re:The US Internet Shutdown Switch (Score 1) 388

by bobbied (#48617743) Attached to: Sony Leaks Reveal Hollywood Is Trying To Break DNS

Only by convention. You are free to start your own DNS network and dish out your own domain names, just run your own root DNS server. So any country that *really* doesn't like how DNS is structured now, can easily change that within their borders.

Comment: Re:*yawn* (Score 1) 772

by bobbied (#48600403) Attached to: CIA Lied Over Brutal Interrogations

Democrats got briefed, yes. Did they get briefed truthfully? Truth in briefing doesn't seem to be in the NSA playbook.

This was NOT the NSA and Yes the Democrats got EXACTLY what the president got and then some. The President's Daily Brief is not just for his eyes, both the house and senate intelligence committees get copies.

As for the rest of your post, because you don't understand even the basic facts and procedures all that well and I don't have time to waste trying to educate you on how the intelligence system of the USA actually works, I'm just going to dismiss it. You obviously don't understand the difference between NSA and CIA or how all this took place, not to mention that you either are *really* young and didn't watch the news during the Iraq war, or your memory is pretty short. In any case, go back and read some about 9/11 and the Iraq war, specifically about what the democrats where saying about it back then. They knew full well what was going on.

Go learn something about what you are making confident assertions about. The rest of your post is useless and I don't have time to spend educating you on where you obviously don't understand how things really work.

Comment: Here's a crazy idea.... (Score 1) 134

by bobbied (#48581183) Attached to: Facebook Offers Solution To End Drunken Posts

How about we just mandate that Facebook (or any other website that keeps personal information) be required to DELETE any and ALL history over a specific age. I figure that anything more than a year old is worthless to just about everybody anyway, but make it something like 7 years. That way, your unfortunate college posts won't haunt you all your life.

Comment: Re:No bother in commenting... (Score 1) 209

The ACA remains and it will not be removed.

I'm not so sure about that. It may take a few more years and a republican president, but I think there is a lot of pressure to repeal. At the very least, the ACA will be fundamentally modified. IMHO, it will be repealed in total, with the more popular parts re-implemented piecemeal.

However, we are stuck with it for the next two years at least, unless the democrat party goes into full revolt and enables a veto proof senate vote and override the presidential veto.
