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I am a more simplistic person. Everything can be blamed on free/cheap money and lax credit policies - irrespective of who was in office. Free money caused the average consumer to borrow and then spend too much whether on homes or tv's. Free money caused the banks to do the same thing. Borrowing at very low rates and then making loans to people or businesses who had no business borrowing or simply using the borrowing to lever up the balance sheet to take what turned out to be unlimited risks. Heck, the U.S. government did the same thing and they print the money. And as to how we are going to reduce government spending? This should be interesting - if each of defense, social security and medicare/medicaid which have largely been regarded as untouchable take up approximately 20% of our annual budget it is going to be a very interesting debate. One last thought. What do you think of the concept of one term limits? That way all of these megalomaniac politicians will focus on something other than the next election.

This is the first time I have come accross this particular version of the venerable Asian 6497-2. There seem to be more variants than I can keep track of. Specs: 18,000 BPM 18 Jewels (normally 17) Lettering is not engraved, printed only PROBLEMS Overall view, note that some of the lettering has disapeared following cleaning: First odd item, do you see the extra sets of holes in the mainplate for the pallet cock, the two holes are an alignment pin hole and a threaded hole as well. Not sure why there are extra holes, if I was to guess, it appears as if this mainplate was designed for a pallet bridge which is fastened on both sides and includes a built in set of banking pins. Maybe this mainplate started life as a Unitas 6497... the other oddity if you look closely is that the banking pins are a long ways back towards the balance wheel than they should be, normally the pins but up against the pallet arm, in this case they are butting up against the pallet forks, very odd indeed... Next problem, the crown is fully in the winding position, but notice how the set lever has not fully switched to the winding position, the set lever alignment pin should be fully seated in the notch of the keyless cover, it's only partially seated. The reason for this is that the stem is too short and will have to be replaced with a correct length longer stem. This is not a problem that the owner would detect and was caused by whoever sized the stem to the incorrect length. If I didn't note this problem and left it as it is now, the result would be that the sliding pinion and the crown gear would not engage fully, and since this is a handwind, winding would eventually damage both the pinion and the gear. This just goes to show once again that until someone has a detailed look and services the movement correctly, you never know the condition, another reason for a servicing and detailed inspection of a new movement. IMPROVEMENTS Lets look at some improvements, they added a jewel to the top of the winding barrel arbor, a good idea since this is the pivot with the most stress. Another problem, and this is not unique to the A6497, hairsprings defects exist on 99% of Asian movements. Before photo, you can see the uneven gap between the coils, if not repaired, the timing would be inacurate and cause the movement to run fast, slow, even, all over the place. It is a fairly easy repair, I manipulated the hairspring and corrected the uneven spacing. Another timing problem, the hairspring is at rest, this is the regulator arm and pins, you can see that the hairspring is touching the inside of one of the arms only, the hairspring should be centered between the two brass arms. BEFORE I moved the regulator pins and now you can see that the hairspring is centered between both pins. AFTER Overall a good movement, but I wonder why we have gone back to 18,000 beat rate from the normal 21,600 rate... Thanks for reading, if you have any questions or comments please ask...

A friend I went to graduate school with established a financial services company several years back. He now employs roughly 160 people worldwide, most of which are in the USA. I do some work for him from time to time, and have gotten to see first hand how all this is directly affecting his business. He has been fined by regulators for things like hiring too fast, and has spent well over $1M defending himself in court over the last 5 years and now has to employ a team of lawyers full time to deal with FINRA compliance issues. And because of all this he has had to: (1) cut back on hiring even though he has been very eager to hire, (2) open offices offshore. In fact, the barriers to entry today are so much higher due to all the new regulations now in place compared to when he first established the business, that if he were trying to start it up today he'd simply be unable to do so. So the overhead is simply astounding. And on the issue of taxes, health care mandates, and whatever else might be coming down the pipe... there's no doubt in my mind that he's not too far from the breaking point and could be closing up shop in the US if much more gets piled on at this point. There are a few choice tropical islands where we could easily relocate and operate. And he's FAAAAAR from the only one. Demand for labor in the US is down (i.e. unemployment is high) in large part because the cost of labor is high. Simple economics. And this is precisely the message consistently coming from America CEOs. i.e. get government out of the way so we can hire.

Wings MOP Dial today

Show me one american citizen (at least here in Los Angeles County) that will take the job of gardener, maid, valet, or janitor. There are a ton of illegal's here in LA that do those very jobs, and we all sit back and happily pay them for their services. Why? Because they are happy to do it. Unbelievable happy. They are so gracious and thankful for the job and their work shows it. I have yet to see anyone take pride in their work like the guy who does the gardening at my house (my landloard pays him - I would never hire a gardener to cut my grass). If the job doesn't pay at least $40k a year, no one wants it (again, at least not here in Southern California). Of course, if they were legal, and had to pay taxes or form a company in order to continue doing that job, they probably wouldn't do it for the amount of money that they get now and then no one would hire them. And don't even get me started on the "adult entertainment" business. There is a massive group of people who don't claim an income, or lie about the amount that they make every year. Or the "escort" business for that matter.

Ok, first of all, I am a Canadian, so American politics are a little above my head. That being said, I have lived in Los Angeles for the past 15 years and this is the one thing that I have learned about the politics here. Bottom line: it is reserved for the most petty, selfish, self-righteous group of people i have ever encountered. Instead of working together to fix a problem, each side works to shoot down the other sides ideas and suggestions. I feel really bad for Obama. He came into office with a HUGE mess on his hands and now, 3 years later, things aren't fixed yet and it's so convenient for the Republicans to blame him directly for his inability to push anything forward when it is, in fact, the Republican party who is stalling on everything. All for the sake of what is best for them and their rich friends. As for Blue-Sphere's comment about the job situation, I have a couple of friends who lost their jobs a while back. I don't know anyone who has worked harder to find work than them. It's unfortunate that they are in a specialized field, but that is not their fault. If it weren't for the unemployment extensions, they would have nothing and their families would be out in the street. As it is they are barely making ends meet. I don't think they are sitting back, reveling in the luxuries that Obama affords them on their measly unemployment checks. Far as I am concerned, taxes should be raised, and tax cuts for large corporations should be re-evaluated. For that matter do two things: 1. Grant all illegal immigrants amnesty - make them citizens and tax them. That's about 10 million folk (probably just in California alone) that would happily pay taxes just to be legal. 2. Make marijuana legal and tax it. Just my thoughts

Thanks a lot guys! I posted in the "shoutbox" about our accidental derailing! Thanks to red to rectifying the situation! Alright well I am not sure how vested you are in the discussion but Ill take a shot... Obama economy stimulus to me mainly meant bailing out big corporations which under a free market would have failed. As it is now there is little faith in the economy and we are STILL seeing swings and fear has stayed at similar levels. I was really glad that you said "History Books" because really that was the basis of my argument against Obama. I feel there are many things Roosevelt did right which Obama REALLY needs to fix. The glass-steagall act being the biggest. The second though... Is my question Why do you think Obama is handing out unemployment benefits year after year instead of promoting government work programs? To me this is what really pisses hard working americans off. Ok you lost your job... that sucks... now you want to sit on your butt for 4 years while Obama pays you using money that he doesn't really have? Why isnt the government offering jobs to people? Painting, doing road work, cleaning up the streets, hell ANYTHING to get these welfare bums up off thier butts working! The results of the work programs during the 30's were FANTASTIC! People felt like they were DOING something and getting paid! What is Obama's mission if all he is doing is keeping the unemployed doing just that! Also at the history book comment... I know that was meant to raze. If you want to post an actual link or source I would look it over. I have done a lot of research on this and his economic policy is just plain FLAWED!

Considering the crown position the rest is more than close enough---anyone who knows about the asymetric pusher/crown will spot a rep instantly. Anyone who doesn't know about that would be fooled even if the rep were 30% less accurate. I'd happily wear the rep anywhere outside of an AD or, like, if i were going to have a drink with a guy who I knew owned a gen---wouldn't want anyone to be bummed that they essentially wasted 12 grand to get a lower crown, less legible date, and different crown guards.