Corporate Corruption:10-25-07 Verizon lightly slapped for disconnecting 13,000 NYr's with hidden bandwidth cap

[dmcowen674]

There is more and more stories coming to light about obscene "margins".

Up until now the Corporate Barons in here have been abole to get away with fraud and deception with the Oil industry because we fight glocal wars over it but closer to home products like Corn, Credit Cards and now Text Books they can't hide behind a fake war.

Corporate greed and corruption is causing a "Socialist" effect and backlash against them.

They only have themselves to blame.

How it all shajes out remains to be seen but finally the people are starting to revolt against the Corporations and the Government they have purchased.

It's looking like America wants a refund.

Poll added:

What is a "reasonable" profiot margin as mentioned by Minnesota Democratic Rep. Frank Moe?

3-10-2007 Minnesota debates tighter regulation of textbook costs

ST. PAUL, Minn. - Winona State University senior Rick Howden, a business administration major, figures he knows a bad deal when he sees it. A $4,500 tab for his college textbooks by the time he graduates? Bad deal.

That includes a $142 business text he had to buy that he has barely opened.

"It ends up sitting on the floor next to my desk," Howden said. "It's hard for me to justify."

Lawmakers around the country share Howden's concern about the heavy expense of college textbooks.

In Minnesota, legislators are considering more tightly regulating the textbook publishing industry and requiring professors to be more cost-conscious in choosing course materials. At least a dozen other statehouses, from California to Connecticut, are taking up the issue.

"This is the hidden cost to higher education," said Democratic Rep. Frank Moe, the Minnesota's bill sponsor, who also teaches at Bemidji State University.

"Reasonable profit makes sense.

But the margins they are making on these textbooks is just absurd."

Publishers have argued that such proposals interfere with their constitutional rights, threaten the academic freedom of faculty members, and ignore the economics of textbook publishing. Textbooks are costly, in part, because relatively few copies are sold, they say.

The textbook industry pulls in more than $6.5 billion a year at college bookstores, and college books which have tripled in price since 1986.
===========================================
They should have thought about "Constitutional rights" before they started ripping off their captive customer base like the Boston Tea Party didn't exist.

That's the key issue here.

They are "forced" to get these books at extreme prices that make no sense.

That already is a form of social communism the Publishers are complaining voliate their Constitutional rights.

It's like Fox's in the henhouse complaining that there are too many hens too eat.

 

[borosp1]

The other scam the school textbook publishers do is they release a new version of the same textbook 2 years later forcing students to buy the "New" book instead allowing them to buy a used book at a discount.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: borosp1
The other scam the school textbook publishers do is they release a new version of the same textbook 2 years later forcing students to buy the "New" book instead allowing them to buy a used book at a discount.

There is much scam and collusion going on.

Professors write a book for a publisher and require that book to be purchased for his or her own class and in many cases that book is never even used in the class itself.

Incredible how long this has been going on.

It stayed under the radar until these obvious massive profit margins.

Most of these books are black & white, little or no pictures.

There is no reason for them not to be on the internet these days.

Oh and by the way.

I used to print books when I was a pressman in New York.

So no trying to justify massive increases in cost when making the books has actually come down.

 

[Stunt]

You cannot merely pin point a reasonable profit margin as there are so many factors to consider when it comes to profits. Profits can be had by reducing costs of manufacture through reduced labour cost or through automation and more efficient use of resources. Margins can also be increased by raising the price of the product. For the most part margins cannot be regulated and you wouldn't want to as higher prices always encourages competition and you would never want to create a disincentive for a company to improve efficiencies.

In this case, college students are very intelligent people and when i was a student I would share a textbook with a friend or group of friends, we'd also photocopy whole textbooks and even buy blackmarket versions of the same material. If textbook companies don't understand their consumers; they fully deserve these sorts of tactics. It is up to them to determine the optimum price for their customers, and there's really nothing we can or should do about that.

Profit margins are typically the highest for technology, software, financial companies; if you were to cap margins, you would be screwing over the high-tech companies who tend to invest heavily in R&D and well educated people. Profit margins on manufactured goods is really quite low and your cap would have little effect on these companies and their blue collar workers. I don't know what you'd want to accomplish.

 

[Stunt]

I personally think there should be no limit to the amount of profit a company can make. That being said, very large profit margins are usually a result of unfair and monopolistic business practices which I do not support. A reasonable profit margin I would say is any margin there is out there right now; I don't see any brutal monopolies other than some pharma companies.

For manufacturing, a profit margin of 25% wouldn't be immoral and 50% for low capital investment companies like software and financials. Just so you know, there's no such thing as 100%+ profit margin.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: Stunt
You cannot merely pin point a reasonable profit margin as there are so many factors to consider when it comes to profits. Profits can be had by reducing costs of manufacture through reduced labour cost or through automation and more efficient use of resources. Margins can also be increased by raising the price of the product. For the most part margins cannot be regulated and you wouldn't want to as higher prices always encourages competition and you would never want to create a disincentive for a company to improve efficiencies.

In this case, college students are very intelligent people and when i was a student I would share a textbook with a friend or group of friends, we'd also photocopy whole textbooks and even buy blackmarket versions of the same material. If textbook companies don't understand their consumers; they fully deserve these sorts of tactics. It is up to them to determine the optimum price for their customers, and there's really nothing we can or should do about that.

Profit margins are typically the highest for technology, software, financial companies; if you were to cap margins, you would be screwing over the high-tech companies who tend to invest heavily in R&D and well educated people. Profit margins on manufactured goods is really quite low and your cap would have little effect on these companies and their blue collar workers. I don't know what you'd want to accomplish.

That's all very nice but you didn't address the obvious corruption and gouging by many industries such as the one at hand other than inviting a black market to take over which would be very dificult because of the nature of the captive audience involved.

Speaking of "black market" that goes against the very nature of the Corporate thugs that you hold so dearly so I'm surprised you tried to play that card. Shows you had a very weak hand to begin with. You're slipping since your heroes lost last November.

 

[GroundedSailor]

Originally posted by: Stunt
You cannot merely pin point a reasonable profit margin as there are so many factors to consider when it comes to profits. Profits can be had by reducing costs of manufacture through reduced labour cost or through automation and more efficient use of resources. Margins can also be increased by raising the price of the product. For the most part margins cannot be regulated and you wouldn't want to as higher prices always encourages competition and you would never want to create a disincentive for a company to improve efficiencies.

In this case, college students are very intelligent people and when i was a student I would share a textbook with a friend or group of friends, we'd also photocopy whole textbooks and even buy blackmarket versions of the same material. If textbook companies don't understand their consumers; they fully deserve these sorts of tactics. It is up to them to determine the optimum price for their customers, and there's really nothing we can or should do about that.

Profit margins are typically the highest for technology, software, financial companies; if you were to cap margins, you would be screwing over the high-tech companies who tend to invest heavily in R&D and well educated people. Profit margins on manufactured goods is really quite low and your cap would have little effect on these companies and their blue collar workers. I don't know what you'd want to accomplish.

My son is in college & we have tried buying used books but since the books are written by the college profs themselves he is forced to buy the 'latest edition' of the books with workbook supplements (which cannot be copied for use), in some cases only through the college bookstore at exorbitant prices - up to $400 for a book. This is undergraduate school.

I can understand a high profit margin for low volume of sales but at $400 the levels are insane. Simply because it is sold to a captive market. And that is just one subject.

 

[ProfJohn]

Could you provide proof of the 'insane profit' margin for college text books.

There is one quote in the story that claims the margins are high, but otherwise there is NO evidence at all to support your claim that the margins are 'insane'

 

[Stunt]

Originally posted by: GroundedSailor

Originally posted by: Stunt
You cannot merely pin point a reasonable profit margin as there are so many factors to consider when it comes to profits. Profits can be had by reducing costs of manufacture through reduced labour cost or through automation and more efficient use of resources. Margins can also be increased by raising the price of the product. For the most part margins cannot be regulated and you wouldn't want to as higher prices always encourages competition and you would never want to create a disincentive for a company to improve efficiencies.

In this case, college students are very intelligent people and when i was a student I would share a textbook with a friend or group of friends, we'd also photocopy whole textbooks and even buy blackmarket versions of the same material. If textbook companies don't understand their consumers; they fully deserve these sorts of tactics. It is up to them to determine the optimum price for their customers, and there's really nothing we can or should do about that.

Profit margins are typically the highest for technology, software, financial companies; if you were to cap margins, you would be screwing over the high-tech companies who tend to invest heavily in R&D and well educated people. Profit margins on manufactured goods is really quite low and your cap would have little effect on these companies and their blue collar workers. I don't know what you'd want to accomplish.

My son is in college & we have tried buying used books but since the books are written by the college profs themselves he is forced to buy the 'latest edition' of the books with workbook supplements (which cannot be copied for use), in some cases only through the college bookstore at exorbitant prices - up to $400 for a book. This is undergraduate school.

I can understand a high profit margin for low volume of sales but at $400 the levels are insane. Simply because it is sold to a captive market. And that is just one subject.

I went to university for engineering and the maximum price for a book was $200, most books were in the $100-$150 range (Canadian dollars too). I wonder why there's a large discrepancy in price? I could find the same textbooks on Amazon for similar prices as the campus bookstore (although the bookstore was run by students and they bought in bulk to lower prices from suppliers - a few dollars less than Amazon).

 

[BoberFett]

Sorry, but how is this a corporate problem? These are state school colleges, with state employee professors choosing these expensive texts. Sounds to me like it's a socialists dream. College kids are rich, poor people don't go to college, ergo college students deserve to get screwed. Come on dmctrollen, think.

 

[2Xtreme21]

When I spent $78 on a 92pg. workbook for one of my classes I realized how much I was getting totally screwed.

Sorry, but how is this a corporate problem? These are state school colleges, with state employee professors choosing these expensive texts. Sounds to me like it's a socialists dream. College kids are rich, poor people don't go to college, ergo college students deserve to get screwed. Come on dmctrollen, think.

I come from a middle class family where we make just enough that I don't qualify for aid, but not nearly enough that my parents can afford my education. Thus I'm bearing 100% of my tuition... going to a state school with relatively low tuition, and I'll probably leave over $65,000 in debt. We are the people who get screwed with college and I don't believe I deserve it.

 

[johnnobts]

apple computer has a higher profit margin selling their ipods than big oil. should we go after their windfall profits too? should there be a federally mandated cap for all business and universities that their profit can only be a certain percentage? its ridiculous.

 

[BarneyFife]

Thats insane. Didn't your parents throw you a bone at all? $65k in debt for a public university is extreme. Books are outrageous. The average for my tenure was around $900/year. Multiply that over 5 years and I spent nearly $5k on books.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: BarneyFife
Thats insane. Didn't your parents throw you a bone at all? $65k in debt for a public university is extreme. Books are outrageous. The average for my tenure was around $900/year. Multiply that over 5 years and I spent nearly $5k on books.

$65,000 for 8 semesters worth doesn't seem that unrealistic if he is also paying for his own room and board and living expenses. If living expenses are $10,000/year that's $40,000 of it.

 

[Stunt]

In Canada, I went to one of the best schools in the country and tuition was $9,000 a year; after rent, utilities, food, books, play money (lots of play )...each year was $16,000. The university gave financial assistance to those with financial need and gave up to $5,000 to each person who didn't have parental help.

With money saved from work terms and the trust fund my parents set aside for me, I was able to save enough to invest in the stock market (bought the evil oil/gas companies Dave hates) and doubled my investment. Came out of university with $15,000.

Most Canadians who go to the best schools in the country will come out with a $25,000 debt (those are the ones who aren't so good with money), if you go to a lesser known school; your debt will be much less. All grad students in Canada are paid to go to school and most serve as TA's to get extra money on the side. If you are smart you can pay off your undergrad debt while going to grad school.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: dmcowen674
There is much scam and collusion going on.

Professors write a book for a publisher and require that book to be purchased for his or her own class and in many cases that book is never even used in the class itself.

Incredible how long this has been going on.

It stayed under the radar until these obvious massive profit margins.

Most of these books are black & white, little or no pictures.

There is no reason for them not to be on the internet these days.

Oh and by the way.

I used to print books when I was a pressman in New York.

So no trying to justify massive increases in cost when making the books has actually come down.

Speaking of pictures, one of my books is in the 4th edition. I checked out one of the earlier editions in the library, from the early 1970's. The pictures were the same, but the book was much smaller. It had less than half as many pages, and the dimensions of the pages were about half the new edition.
One of my professors has a signed copy of the textbook, as he's actually met and worked with the author, Robert Mott.
It is a good book, though. Unlike many of my other textbooks, the examples do make sense, and the problems are well-written.

I don't know that dealing with high profit margins is key. These are also low-volume books, with a lot of technical information. It's not like a fiction book, where the author can make everything up. The Robert Mott book has many references for each chapter, which he had to read and decide what to extract.

My calculus textbook was $150. But it's used in Calc I, Calc II, and possibly Calc III. Of course, it is the 3rd edition. The 4th edition is out now. The teachers and students can't seem to see much difference in the text itself; the ordering has just changed, which I don't think is necessary to justify a new edition. Plenty of my teachers will cheaply remedy that problem by teaching out of order. My Strength of Materials class went normal up until chapter 9. Then it went 9, 15, 12, 14, 10, 11.

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Could you provide proof of the 'insane profit' margin for college text books.

There is one quote in the story that claims the margins are high, but otherwise there is NO evidence at all to support your claim that the margins are 'insane'

I too would like to know what these profit margins are. The $400/book example given by GroundedSailor is insanely high. $150 is the most I've ever paid for a textbook, and those with that kind of price are usually good for at least two semesters.

We do have some "texts" written by professors, but they are just small notebooks of less than 100 pages, printed and bound right at the college's Media Center. They're usually less than $20.

I'm at Penn State University's Erie, PA campus. They prefer that it be called "The Behrend College" after the people who started it, but I prefer to say "Erie, PA campus" because that indicates where it is a lot better than "Behrend" does.
I can get my textbooks from Amazon, and if I need an ISBN number, I can just e-mail the professors. One of them just flat out told me, "I don't care where you get your books from, it's not like I get a cut from the bookstore. I'd be glad to give you the ISBN numbers anytime you need them."

Originally posted by: johnnobts
apple computer has a higher profit margin selling their ipods than big oil. should we go after their windfall profits too? should there be a federally mandated cap for all business and universities that their profit can only be a certain percentage? its ridiculous.

Agreed. If I'm manufacturing something that has a market value of $10, and I find a way of making it for half the cost, there are options:
1) Drop the price and take over the market, at the risk of not being able to scale up my operation in time, and ultimately going under
2) Estimate demand at the new price, drop the price slowly (can't make the product look "cheap" in the bad sense), and ramp up demand
3) Keep charging the market price and bring in crazy profits, thanks to my R&D department's ingenuity. Giving them bonuses would be nice too, seeing how they were the ones who made the high profits possible.

 

[Trevelyan]

Seriously, I'm a college student and I get raped on textbooks every single semester. I LOVE this quote:

"Certainly there are some subjects with a legitimate need for a new textbook every couple of years because the content changes so rapidly," Katz said. But "calculus hasn't changed in 300 years, so there's no need for a new edition of a textbook every couple of years."

EXACTLY! The publishers talk about how they can't make up their margin because it costs so much to make a new edition. BULL!!! There's no need for a new Calculus book every three years!! What could you possibly be adding that would make the slightest difference??

The best part is that schools make deals with publishers and take a kickback, so they always sell the latest edition. So the school and the publishers get together to screw the students out of more money. We should be HELPING college students, not trying to make it difficult for them.

 

[judasmachine]

god and my wallet knows i blew several hundred dollars on books that just collected dust. i got to reading them a year or so after i graduated. however as far as profit goes, i'd say 15 to 20% is a large enough chunk of change without nailing the kids, or the lendors (read taxpayers who pay Pell Grants.)

 

[Whoozyerdaddy]

Having worked in retail for 15 years I need to clear up the OP's idea of a margin before I answer the poll.

I'm guessing that what the OP means by 50% margin means that profit = half of cost. Example: Product costs 100 to produce and is sold for 150.

Retail margins are actually expressed in terms of the the percentage of profit built into the retail price and iare expressed in terms of "points" and not as a percentage.

Under retail margin standards the above situation would yield a 33 point margin. (R-C)/R=M

R=Retail price
C=Retailer cost
M=Margin

Based on this, I would say that a fair margin for wholesale is about 15 points and a fair retail margin would be about 50 points.

So a book that cost 85 to produce would be sold to a retailer at 100 and resold to the student at 200.

A book that cost 50 to produce would be sold to a reatailer at 59 and then resold to the student at 119. (Rounding)

 

[johnnobts]

if you go to a lesser known school; your debt will be much less. All grad students in Canada are paid to go to school and most serve as TA's to get extra money on the side. If you are smart you can pay off your undergrad debt while going to grad school.

___________________

will canada give me in-territory tuition if i'm an illegal alien?

 

[DaveSimmons]

New textbooks come out so often because of the used book market, which publishers get $0 from.

Year 1, a textbook might sell 10,000 copies but in year 2 it might sell 2,000 copies, and 1,000 in year 3. In years 2-3 people buy used copies that might be resold 2-4 times.

If a publisher kept the same edition for 4 years, by year 4 they're selling close to 0 copies.

The initial price is high because the publishers have to make most of the money back from creating the book (author, editor, graphics design, photo rights, marketing) in the first year.

Textbook publishers aren't reporting oil-company profits on their textbooks, it's the used book operations that are cleaning up.

 

[imported_Shivetya]

why not investigate the exhorbinat cost of the college instead?

what? can't look into all the waste that they call tenured professors? Hell, my friend rarely if ever sees his teachers, its always some other student giving the class or similar.


The real travesty in college education is the cost of it. Schools just throw out too much money to deadbeats who think that because they have tenure it excuses them from teaching.

 

[Stunt]

Originally posted by: johnnobts
if you go to a lesser known school; your debt will be much less. All grad students in Canada are paid to go to school and most serve as TA's to get extra money on the side. If you are smart you can pay off your undergrad debt while going to grad school.

___________________

will canada give me in-territory tuition if i'm an illegal alien?

That's the rate for all students in Canada. International students get huge tuition hikes to make sure most spots go to Canadians. International students pay $30,000+ for the same education. Native indians from Canada get everything paid for; hell they don't even pay tax here.

 

[dmcowen674]

Originally posted by: GroundedSailor

My son is in college & we have tried buying used books but since the books are written by the college profs themselves he is forced to buy the 'latest edition' of the books with workbook supplements (which cannot be copied for use), in some cases only through the college bookstore at exorbitant prices - up to $400 for a book. This is undergraduate school.

I can understand a high profit margin for low volume of sales but at $400 the levels are insane. Simply because it is sold to a captive market. And that is just one subject.

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
Could you provide proof of the 'insane profit' margin for college text books.

There is one quote in the story that claims the margins are high, but otherwise there is NO evidence at all to support your claim that the margins are 'insane'

I would say $400 is insane. Is the cover embroidered with gold leaf?

 

[SarcasticDwarf]

Originally posted by: Shivetya
why not investigate the exhorbinat cost of the college instead?

what? can't look into all the waste that they call tenured professors? Hell, my friend rarely if ever sees his teachers, its always some other student giving the class or similar.


The real travesty in college education is the cost of it. Schools just throw out too much money to deadbeats who think that because they have tenure it excuses them from teaching.

The money that goes directly to professors is a small fraction of what the universities pay out.

FWIW, I am about to graduate with my BS from my university and have never once seen a TA teach a class. In fact, I have never even seen a TA at my university.