December 2012 Camaro Sales and Production Figures (and vs. Mustang & Challenger)

[mattsfirstSS]

Originally Posted by MEDISIN

Back to your original statement, yes, many of us know what it's like to be born poor. Yes, everyone has opportunities to better themselves. The 1% were not created out of thin air. Quit with the woe is me crap.

Man I swear, three degrees I assume not in English. I never went on any woe is me spiel. Where have I ever lamented my status of which I hold now or was born with? Where have I ever said hard work was unnecessary?

I simply said you cant go from dirt damn poor to filthy rich in response to one guys statement that everyone has the same opportunities. I merely said that was fantasy because we dont all have the same opportunity. And then you all set about telling me how you went from modest to middle class with a ton of determination and effort as if it was the same thing but in my eyes really just proved my point.

[Angrybird 12]

Originally Posted by mattsfirstSS

Man I swear, three degrees I assume not in English. I never went on any woe is me spiel. Where have I ever lamented my status of which I hold now or was born with? Where have I ever said hard work was unnecessary?

I simply said you cant go from dirt damn poor to filthy rich in response to one guys statement that everyone has the same opportunities. I merely said that was fantasy because we dont all have the same opportunity. And then you all set about telling me how you went from modest to middle class with a ton of determination and effort as if it was the same thing but in my eyes really just proved my point.

You are dead wrong.

Born Poor, Drop Out and Got Rich - The Billionaire's Story

by Rod Low


It's a true fact that it's not where you are born or whom you are born to that determines how your life will be. Its what you do with your life that determines how your life will be. Not long ago, Forbes Magazine publishes a special report on The World's Billionaires. It's a snap shot of who's who of the super rich.

I have the privilege of studying their life stories and observe that many of them started out as either a poor boy from the neighborhood or a high school dropout. In this article, you too will have the privilege to read about them and hopefully get inspired by Their Billionaire Story.

The IKEA Story

IKEA Founder Ingvar Kamprad made headlines in early 2004 when Swedish business magazine Veckans Affarer reported that he had surpassed Bill Gates as the world's wealthiest person. While IKEA's unconventional ownership structure makes this the matter of some debate, there is no doubt that IKEA is still one of the largest, most successful privately held companies in the world, with over 200 stores in 31 countries, employing over 75,000 people and generating over 12 billion in sales annually.

Kamprad was born in the South of Sweden in 1926 and brought up on a farm called Elmtaryd, near the small village of Agunnaryd. Kamprad began to develop a business as a young boy, selling matches to neighbors from his bicycle. He found that he could buy matches in bulk very cheaply from Stockholm, sell them individually at a low price and still make a good profit. From matches, he expanded to selling fish, Christmas tree decorations, seeds and later ball-point pens and pencils. When Kamprad was 17, his father gave him a reward for succeeding in his studies. He used this money to establish what has grown into IKEA.

The name IKEA was formed from Kamprad's initials (I.K.) plus the first letters of Elmtaryd and Agunnaryd, the farm and village where he grew up. He continued to expand his business to a variety of goods, including wallets, watches, jewelry and stockings. When he outgrew his ability to call on his customers individually, he converted to a sort of makeshift mail order operation, hiring the local milk van to make his deliveries.

Kamprad has a reputation for being, well, "cheap". He takes the subway to work, and when he drives, it's an old Volvo. Rumor is that when he stays in a hotel, if he feels the urge to drink one of those expensive sodas from the wet bar, he replaces it later with one picked up from a nearby convenience store. He also encourages IKEA employees always to write on both sides of a paper.

Forbes magazine estimated his fortune at US$33 billion, making him the 4th richest man in the world.

Las Vegas Sands story

Sheldon Gary Adelson is an American businessman. He is a property developer and public company CEO based in Las Vegas, Nevada. He is also a Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Las Vegas Sands Corp., which owns and operates the Venetian Casino Resort and the Sands Expo and Convention Center. Adelson vastly increased his net worth upon the initial public offering of Las Vegas Sands in December 2004 by selling just 10% of the shares.

In addition, on May 26, 2006, Adelson's Las Vegas Sands was awarded a hotly contested license to construct a casino resort in Singapore's Marina Bay. The new casino is expected to open in 2009 at a rumored cost of $3.16 billion.

Adelson was born to a poor Jewish family, in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston. Son of a Boston cabdriver, he borrowed $200 from his uncle to sell newspapers at age 12. In the years that followed, he worked as a mortgage broker, investment adviser and financial consultant. To this point in his career, Adelson has created and developed to maturity more than 50 different companies, including COMDEX, a tradeshow he developed with his partners for the computer industry. Adelson together with his partners directed COMDEX to become the world's largest trade show with a presence in more than 20 countries.

According to Forbes magazine, Adelson is the 6th richest person and the third richest American in the world, with a net worth estimated at US $26.5 billion in 2007. Forbes estimates he has been earning about $1 million an hour for the past two years.

The Zara Story

The son of a railroad worker and a maid, Amancio Ortega received no formal higher education. He began his remarkable career as a teenager in La Coruña, Spain, the traditional center of the Iberian textile industry. When he was 13 years old he worked as a delivery boy for a shirt maker who produced clothing for the rich. He later worked as a draper's and tailor's assistant. In seeing firsthand how costs mounted as garments moved from designers to factories to stores, Ortega learned early on the importance of delivering products directly to customers without using outside distributors. He would later employ such a strategy with great success at Zara, attempting to control all of the steps in textile production in order to cut costs and gain speed and flexibility.

In the early 1960s Ortega became the manager of a local clothing shop, where he noticed that only a few wealthy residents could afford to buy the expensive clothes. Thus he started producing similar items at lower prices, purchasing cheaper fabric in Barcelona and cutting out pieces by hand using cardboard patterns. Ortega then sold his items to local shops; he used the profits to start his first factory in 1963 at the age of 27.

In 1975 Ortega opened his first Zara shop across the street from La Coruña's most important department store; he would become renowned for choosing the best locations for his outlets. By 1989 Ortega had opened nearly one hundred stores in Spain.

Ortega had a reputation as a private and secretive man. He never granted interviews to the media, and the company released very little personal information about its founder and chairman. For decades there was only one known photograph of Ortega in circulation. When the company issued its first annual report in 1999, a new photograph finally appeared.

Ortega rarely attended official events. When the Spanish Prince Felipe called on Inditex headquarters, the royal visitor was received by one of Ortega's representatives.

Ortega was also known for being a down-to-earth boss. He never wore a tie to work; indeed his wedding was reportedly the last time he had donned one. He hated working with investment bankers in preparation for the initial public offering of Inditex stock. One banker told the Financial Times, "We could see it was absolute torture for him" (April 28, 2001). Even on the first day of the sale of Inditex stock in 2001, when Ortega became the richest man in Spain, he did not celebrate in grand style. Rather he went to work, watched the news on television for 15 minutes to find out that he had just earned $6 billion, and then ate lunch in the company cafeteria.

According to Forbes magazine, Ortega is the 8th richest person and the richest Spaniard in the world, with a net worth estimated at US $24 billion in 2007.

Rich as they may seem, but their poor start leaves a message that says "its not where you started, its where you end up, that is important".

[mattsfirstSS]

Originally Posted by Angrybird 12

You are dead wrong.

Man how many people are in this world?! You point out 3 examples to me like its the norm?! Are you serious? You point out .00000004% of the population to me? Now we are going to talk about other countries too soo all the poor starving people born into tribes in third world countries they gonna become something? They dont even have food they going to have the same opportunity as everyone else? This is getting beyond ridiculous, I'm out.

[FenwickHockey65]

This thread is beyond saving.

[Angrybird 12]

Originally Posted by mattsfirstSS

Man how many people are in this world?! You point out 3 examples to me like its the norm?! Are you serious? You point out .00000004% of the population to me? Now we are going to talk about other countries too soo all the poor starving people born into tribes in third world countries they gonna become something? They dont even have food they going to have the same opportunity as everyone else? This is getting beyond ridiculous, I'm out.

You said and I quote," you can't go from dirt damn poor to filthy rich". I was showing you it could be done plus he said many had done just that, he couldn't publish the story of every self made billionaire in one article. Geesh admit it when you are wrong...

[Angrybird 12]

Originally Posted by FenwickHockey65

This thread is beyond saving.

Sorry, I am really done now. Maybe a mod can delete all the crap in this thread and get it back on track.

[mattsfirstSS]

Originally Posted by Angrybird 12

You said and I quote," you can't go from dirt damn poor to filthy rich". I was showing you it could be done plus he said many had done just that, he couldn't publish the story of every self made billionaire in one article. Geesh admit it when you are wrong...

I said like ten times it was very rare or almost impossible, you pick out the one time i got tired of repeating myself and didnt add the almost ever qualifier. I am far from wrong, even if I was i would just change the rules...

I think .000000004% qualifies as almost never

[mattsfirstSS]

Originally Posted by Angrybird 12

Sorry, I am really done now. Maybe a mod can delete all the crap in this thread and get it back on track.

LOL yeah someone needs to come at this one with a machete, sorry lol

[MEDISIN]

Originally Posted by mattsfirstSS

I dont blame anyone for anything. Fact is I was born into a certain economic status as were they.

True

Originally Posted by mattsfirstSS

Just takes a hell of a lot of work for me to get up into their status. So much so that its virtually not achievable.

Indeed. If you're too lazy to invest the time and effort that's no one's fault but your own.

Originally Posted by mattsfirstSS

Having said that they dont need billions of dollars, they could afford to raise pay for employees and lower their own DRAMATICALLY

This is where I take issue. Who are you to decide how much money people need or what they can afford to do? Wealth is relative. I could argue that you don't need but a fraction of YOUR income to survive.

[lawdog]

You guys are way to entertaining ! I wrote out a page yesterday then deleted it cause I knew you were both going to get into it but here goes.

I too was astounded bythose 1979 sales figures compared to the other years until I started thinking about it


Political contribution laws did play a part.
UNIONS played a bigger part, In the early 80's Unions pushed harder.
manufacturing corps started looking at exit strategies ever since.
You can't run a country on service industry jobs or the tech market.
The unions wanted more for their workers, the economy got dragged down by energy costs and guess what, manufacturing got tired of more and more taxes and appeased their shareholders by leaving the country! And they have been leaving in alarming numbers ever since.
Now all of a sudden every politician is screaming the same tune, I am going to get the jobs back. Well that isn't going to happen unless they dangle something in front of these corps like incentives that will appease their shareholders.
AND while all that was going on, Americans forgot to think some of their purchase decisions through, if you buy foreign products the resources and capital LEAVE the country and are not reinvested here. Dont tell me they make this car here or there, the Corp and the money tracing exits the country.
IT'S REAL SIMPLE, you want a good economy, BUY AMERICAN GOODS AND AMERICAN CARS, and the American corps need to make them HERE! I am so HAPPY that GM decided to bring 6th Gen manufacturing back here, what a smart and great move, I hope the other manufacturers follow suit. Yes I know that a lot of parts that go into them do come from other countries, I can live with some of that., LOL
that's my 2 cents,

BUY AMERICAN CARS MADE IN AMERICA! and help keep that American home and garage to park it in, LOL

Now I will leave you all on that note while I go have a cup of coffee, produced by an American company in my Route 66 cup, hehe

[NovaDaddy]

Originally Posted by DrSkull

i wonder why the Camaro and Firebird had the their best sales in 1979 ? just sems like a odd year for the most units sold ? wasn't the economy also bad around that time ?

Looks like this is a hot topic. Everyone has valid points which I won't dispute. With that said, I don't think any noted that in either 78 or 79 Smoky and the Bandit was a huge movie with the 78 Firebird. The second movie came along soon after. There were a lot more motor heads around back then and a movie like that could have spurred some good sales.

[Sweet Zness]

Originally Posted by DrSkull

i wonder why the Camaro and Firebird had the their best sales in 1979 ? just sems like a odd year for the most units sold ? wasn't the economy also bad around that time ?

A Movie...simply put.


Smokey and the Bandit was released in 1977. Burt Reynolds and his black and gold Trans Am was in full popularity and the second movie was about to be released.


This is why.