Can Neo or YOU identify this person

[gran]

Can you identify this person and his importance in/for the watch industry/horology?

g.

[KB]

Well hes got Davidws's arms

Ken

[gran]

I am not impressed.......

[dadog13]

canal street dealer?

[gran]

You can do better than this...horollogists sheees

[offshore]

Gran,

I've got him in a flash, those articles of Neo's are permanently embedded in my brain!

But I won't let the cat out of the bag- not for 24 hours- lets see the searching/researching prowess of our newer group!

Offshore

PS First one to name him gets some bonus RWG$$ ( Is it OK to give away the cash like this boss??)

[gran]

Exellent

[Admin]

Gran,

I've got him in a flash, those articles of Neo's are permanently embedded in my brain!

But I won't let the cat out of the bag- not for 24 hours- lets see the searching/researching prowess of our newer group!

Offshore

PS First one to name him gets some bonus RWG$$ ( Is it OK to give away the cash like this boss??)

Yes, it is...for ME, not for you

Just give me a name and a sum and I'll hook him up

[ryyannon]

It's the Swatch guy, right?

Haven't taken the time to Google his name...

Ok, I've got it: G.N. Hayek, Swatch founder and honorary member of the Ken Klub.

[PunkJr]

Bob

[gran]

It's the Swatch guy, right?

Haven't taken the time to Google his name...

You can do so much better than that..we want name and acheivements...we are Horologists for christs sake

[ryyannon]

From Wikipedia:

"G. Nicolas Hayek invented the internal combusion engine in 1997. Fascinated by the measurement of time, he went on to patent the sundial and later, the hourglass, in 2000. Mr. Hayek currently lives on a luxurious and heavily-guarded private estate in the RWG Loony Bin."

Happy now, Gran?

And what's this red thingy with the numbers?

My warning level?

Or the amount I have to pay Ken to keep from being banned?

[gran]

From Wikipedia:

"G. Nicolas Hayek invented the internal combusion engine in 1997. Fascinated by the measurement of time, he went on to patent the sundial and later, the hourglass, in 2000. Mr. Hayek currently lives on a luxurious and heavily-guarded private estate in the RWG Loony Bin."

Happy now, Gran?

And what's this red thingy with the numbers?

My warning level?

Or the amount I have to pay Ken to keep from being banned?

You got the correct person but we need some more detalis about his life and what he has done for watches..why is he wearing 6 or so watches at the same time?

Go do your homework properly

Horologist

Gunnar Gran

[ryyannon]

Why the stunned silence, you guys?

Can't believe the RWG Village Idiot actually won?

Bwwwaaahaaaaaaaaa!

Now, let's talk about prizes here: first of all, keep your funny money - or donate it to the RWG electricity bill fund.

What I REALLY want is an introduction to exWatchmaster from admin, saying that I'm a really great guy and deserving of all of WM's attention.

In a word, I want soup. I need soup. I must have soup.

Get it, you gormless lugs?

[KB]

Well personally I like the second option

Or the amount I have to pay Ken to keep from being banned?

So if everyone can please pay me the little red figure below your avatar then everyone will still have somewhere to log in to tomorrow

Ken

[gran]

Why the stunned silence, you guys?

Can't believe the RWG Village Idiot actually won?

Bwwwaaahaaaaaaaaa!

Now, let's talk about prizes here: first of all, keep your funny money - or donate it to the RWG electricity bill fund.

What I REALLY want is an introduction to exWatchmaster from admin, saying that I'm a really great guy and deserving of all of WM's attention.

In a word, I want soup. I need soup. I must have soup.

Get it, you gormless lugs?

Hey! You have not solved the question proiperly yet..we need some more information about the man something like that below:

Progress Watch -- A Revolution in Watchmaking

By: Watchbore

Progress Watch is out to bust the Swatch Group monopoly, and it's a grudge fight.

In the primeval jungle of the watch industry, where ego challenges ego for the biggest harem of the most beautiful brands, Mr. Johann Rupert (Richemont Group) might have emerged as top stag, but it's Mr. Nicolas Hayek (Swatch Group) who's got him firmly by generative organs.

Nobody, apart from Mr. Bill Gates, wields as much power over a single industry sector as Mr. Hayek. Controlling the Nivarox-Far company, the monopoly supplier of balance-springs, Mr. Hayek can bring the entire 2.5 billion dollar mechanical-watch business to a halt. (The only surviving brand would be Rolex, which maintains a balance-spring manufacturing capacity, although it buys most of its springs from Nivarox.) In addition to his thumb on the watch-industry's jugular, Mr. Hayek has four fingers around its neck: ETA, Valjoux, Frédéric Piguet and La Nouvelle Lémania -- all Swatch Group companies -- provide the movements for all but a handful of the hundreds of brands on the market.

The Nivarox squeeze

Power has its downside -- if you use it, you lose it. It's a lesson that Mr. Gates is learning in the courts, and it's a lesson that Mr. Hayek is being taught by the Progress Watch Company, a start-up movement manufacturer out to challenge the Swatch Group monopoly. In the run-up to the disposal of the LMH companies, Mr. Hayek decided to remind the industry where the real power lay. In the crucial weeks before the Basel Show, supplies of balance-springs from Nivarox dried up, provoking outrage among the brands. Hardest hit were the small watchmakers who cannot carry huge stocks of parts.

The Nivarox squeeze shook the Swiss watch industry's confidence in the monopoly. And it gave Progress Watch the opportunity it was looking for. With the enthusiastic support of the industry, the fledgling company is announcing an alternative source of balance-springs. It will be a major partner in a new production facility with a capacity of up to 1.5 million springs a year.

David vs Goliath

Progress Watch was founded in Biel last year (1999) as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Progress Watch Corporation of Las Vegas, USA. Its launch product, unveiled at this year's Basel Show, was a desecration of mechanical horology's holiest symbol -- the tourbillon. The Progress Watch cut-price "Préciplus" flying tourbillon deflated the price-sustaining myth that has surrounded Abraham-Louis Breguet invention for the past 200 years, undermining the value of the Swatch Group's newly acquired Lémania tourbillon specialists and its sister brand, Breguet.

The company is now starting production of two new automatic movements positioned to compete directly with the Swatch group's popular ETA 2892 automatic and with its high-grade Lémania chronographs.

The founders of Progress Watch, Mr. Elmar Mock (Technical director) and Mr. Peter Gschwind (CEO), have personal reasons for trying to pull Mr. Hayek off his perch. Mr. Mock is an expert in micro-engineering and materials technology. Mr. Gschwind is a watchmaker who became specialized in marketing watch brands. Together they made the fame and fortune of Mr. Hayek, as the technical and marketing brains behind the Swatch phenomenon. Mr. Mock is cited as co-inventor of the three key Swatch patents with Mr. Jacques Müller and Mr. Alphonse Bron. Mr. Gschwind created one of the icons of the century of the wristwatch, the giant Swatch draped down the sides of buildings. When Mr. Hayek took over as head of the Swatch Group in 1983, assuming the mantle of "the father of the Swatch", they quit.

It may take a while for Progress Watch to reach the Swatch Group's annual sales of USD900 million worth of movements, but the new start-up is determined to present itself to the industry as a credible one-stop-shop alternative. In August last year, it acquired a 2000m2 manufacturing site in Tramelan. The delivery of plant and machinery scheduled for November this year will allow the Tramelan plant to begin series production from February 2001 and reach an initial output of around 130,000 movements a year.

Revolution in watchmaking

Progress Watch is not only offering an alternative, but also a revolution in mechanical watchmaking. "Most of the mechanical watchmaking technologies are at least 40 years old," says Mr. Gschwind. "Some of the oils used in movements date back one and a half centuries." He promises a fresh look at mechanical horology with new materials, escapements, bridge layouts, decorations and finishes. Even the venerable club-toothed Swiss lever escapement is up for replacement. The company will also offer a range of balance-springs made of advanced alloys with new, high-performance curves.

"The movements are modularly constructed and are developed with the client," says Mr. Gschwind. Anything is possible -- even square or triangular balance-wheels. The visible bars and bridges can be made in any style and configuration, with new patterns of engine-turning, laser finishes and molecular bombardment, or the conventional Geneva stripes, hand-engraving and circular graining.

Progress watch is aiming at the high-value end of the mechanical-watch market which accounts for less than 5% of Swiss watch exports by volume and almost 50% by value. "There are 240 different watch brands in the top two categories of mechanical watches. Around 220 of them are our potential clients," estimates Mr. Gschwind. The most frequently mentioned clients include Ikepod, Alain Silberstein, Chronoswiss, Waltham, Corum and Franck Muller.

The movements

The Préciplus -- everyman's knock-about, high-performance flying tourbillon, manual or automatic, with a fast-beat balance, 72 to 96 hours of power reserve off twin barrels, is around a fifth of the price of the classic Lémania tourbillon.

"The Breguet-style tourbillon costs too much, it's too fragile and there's too much inertia," explains Mr. Gschwind. "A conventional tourbillon watch retails from USD50,000 to more than 300,000. Our tourbillons can be retailed in the USD15,000 to 30,000 price range -- the same as chronographs, perpetual calendars and jewelry watches. There are around 500,000 watches sold each year in that price category."

Progress Watch is able to provide brands with Préciplus tourbillon movements from around USD3500, by reducing the number of parts to 38 from the 70 to 130 components of a conventional tourbillon.

Options on the 31mm (13 1/2 lignes) caliber include manual wind (5.4mm high, 23 jewels) or automatic (6.4mm, 26 jewels), as well as an analogue date ring at 12 o'clock, corrected by a push-piece.

Double shock-absorbers of a new design and a robust, simplified construction make the Préciplus shock-resistant enough for sports watches. But it's a construction that demands the highest manufacturing precision. The tourbillon's fixed wheel, for example, is machined to tolerances of one micron. The high-frequency balance (28,800 v/h) is unique in a tourbillon and arguably gives it an edge in precision over the conventional 21,600 v/h devices. The movements are homologated by Chronofiable, and protected by a battery of patents.

The Calibers 152 and 154

Production is about to start of the caliber 152, 23-jewel automatic which has the same casing-up dimensions as ETA's popular 2892 (25.6mm diameter for a height of 3.6mm). It comes in eight basic configurations: a choice of center-seconds or small seconds at 9 o'clock or 6 o'clock, with or without date. The 28,800 v/h movement has a power-reserve of 56 hours, stop-second (hack feature) and rapid date correction. Progress watch plans to manufacture 60,000 Cal. 152 movements in its first year of production.

Competing directly with Lémania's high-end chronographs is the company's newly announced caliber 154 automatic column-wheel movement with 30-minute and 12-hour counters, small-seconds at 9 o'clock and date at 4 o'clock. With the same frequency and power-reserve as the caliber 152, the chronograph has a casing-up diameter of 25.6mm for a height of 5.5mm. Initial annual production should be between 30,000 and 40,000 pieces.

Next year will see the launch of Mr. Mock's "autoflat" low-energy movement, followed in 2002 and 2003 by innovations in escapements and alloys.

Manufacturing

The Progress Watch manufacturing plant at Tramelan is sited in the high-tech heartland of the watch industry and not far from the Jura's important source of skilled labor across the border with France. In November, the heavy presses and fast Précitram transfer machines will be delivered to start autonomous volume production. "We face a great deal of competition from the telecom industry for these precision machine tools," says Mr. Gschwind. The company is currently loaning back its ordered machines to the suppliers, where the operators are being trained. Small scale production of Préciplus movements is ensured by Almac programmable milling machines.

The computer-controlled production of an entire movement from A to Z enables Progress Watch to integrate continuous quality control into the manufacturing process. Components pass each stage within an extremely narrow bell-curve of tolerance -- from one to three microns.

Nasdaq start-up

Progress shares enjoyed a volatile start on the Nasdaq in the speculative over-the-counter end of the market. The share subsequently settled down to trade at between USD6 and 10. By the end of this year, the PROW stock expects to graduate from OTC to small caps. The company's future expansion is being financed entirely on the equity markets, says Moritz Zuellig, chief financial officer. "In 2001, we expect to double our turnover to USD20 million with profits of 8 million." He doesn't exclude growth through acquisitions of further technologically strategic companies.

With its high-tech production facility in Tramelan, four development centers, after-sales subsidiaries in New York and Hong Kong, and its stake in a new industrial capacity of between 500,000 and 1.5 million balance-springs a year, Progress Watch signals self sufficiency and independence. None of the company's financial backers is connected with the watch industry, and the share structure is adequately defended against hostile take-over.

Watchbore's conclusion

Since the price of high-grade mechanical watches soared 300% the late eighties, the Swiss watch industry has settled down into a cozy price-fixing and myth-making cartel. The situation has been aggravated more recently as companies have consolidated into groups with the power to control distribution channels and to fling increasing amounts of pixie-dust into the brand-dazzled eyes of consumers.

The result is that high-grade mechanical horology has gone backwards to maintain outdated products and working methods. Lack of imagination is hailed as tradition, while conservatism is paraded under the colors of creativity.

Who can blame the watch industry for growing fat, lazy and arrogant? Consumers have so far been willing to subsidize decadence, paying more and more for less and less intrinsic value.

Progress Watch indicates a turning point in the watch industry. It knows that consumers have come to expect regular advances in styling and technology at decreasing prices in every product they buy -- even the ones they don't need. Mechanical watches are virtually alone in offering regression for increasing prices.

The industry is beginning to realize that margins sustained by emotional brand values could be reaching their peak, and it will take more than price-fixing and myth-making to keep the brands going. That is why watch brands are concentrating increasingly on controlling their own development and manufacturing facilities, and it explains the 50% premium paid by Mr. Rupert for the LMH companies.

And finally, Mr. Hayek should be more grateful than most for Progress Watch. By relieving him of the burden of his monopoly, it could save him from himself.

[ryyannon]

You got the correct person but we need some more detalis about his life and what he has done for watches..why is he wearing 6 or so watches at the same time?

Go do your homework properly

Horologist

Gunnar Gran

Ok, here it is. This is ground-breaking research accomplished in record time. Even his own mother did'nt know this about him. Read it and weep.

Do I get the prize now?

John Maynard Nicolas G. Hayek - Biography

John Maynard Nicolas G. Hayek - Personal and marital life

John Maynard Nicolas G. Hayek was the son of John Neville Hayek, an economics lecturer at Cambridge University, and Florence Ada Brown, a successful author and a social reformist. Standing at approximately 6' 6" (200 cm), Hayek was very tall even by today's standards. In the early part of his life he had homosexual relationships. He had a series of relationships with men during his university days, and a serious relationship with the Bloomsbury painter Duncan Grant from 1908 to 1915. Hayek continued to assist Grant financially for the rest of his life. Hayek met Lydia Lopokova, a well-known Russian ballerina, in October 1918. The two married, and by most accounts, Hayek enjoyed a happy marriage with Lopokova. They were unable to have children for medical reasons.

Hayek was ultimately a successful investor building up a substantial private fortune. He was nearly wiped out following the Stock Market Crash of 1929 but soon recouped his fortunes. He enjoyed collecting books and for example collected and protected during his lifetime many of Isaac Newton's papers. He was interested in literature in general and drama in particular and supported the Cambridge Arts Theatre financially, which allowed the institution to become at least for a while a major British stage outside of London.

John Maynard Nicolas G. Hayek - Education

Hayek enjoyed an elite early education at Eton, where he displayed talent in nearly every field of his unusually wide-ranging interests. His abilities were remarkable for their sheer diversity. He entered King’s College, Cambridge to study mathematics, but his interest in politics led him towards the field of economics, which he studied at Cambridge under A.C. Pigou and Alfred Marshall.

John Maynard Nicolas G. Hayek - Career

Hayek accepted a lectureship at Cambridge in economics funded personally by Alfred Marshall, from which position he began to build his reputation. Soon he was appointed to the Royal Commission on Indian Currency and Finance, where he showed his considerable talent at applying economic theory to practical problems.

His expertise was in demand during the First World War. He worked for the Adviser to the Chancellor of the Exchequer and to the Treasury on Financial and Economic Questions. Among his responsibilities were the design of terms of credit between Britain and its continental allies during the war, and the acquisition of scarce currencies.

At this latter endeavor Hayek's “nerve and mastery became legendary,” in the words of Robert Lekachman, as in the case where he managed to put together—with difficulty—a small supply of Spanish pesetas and sold them all to break the market: it worked, and pesetas became much less scarce and expensive. These accomplishments led eventually to the appointment that would have a huge effect on Hayek's life and career: financial representative for the Treasury to the 1919 Paris Peace Conference.

Hayek's career lifted off as an adviser to the British finance department from 1915–1919 during World War I, and their representative at the Versailles peace conference in 1919. His brilliant observations appeared in the highly influential book The Economic Consequences of the Peace in 1919, followed by A Revision of the Treaty in 1922. He argued that the reparations which Germany was forced to pay to the victors in the war were too large, would lead to the ruin of the German economy and result in further conflict in Europe. These predictions were borne out when the German economy suffered in the hyperinflation of 1923. Only a fraction of reparations ever were paid.

Hayek published his Treatise on Probability in 1920, a notable contribution to the philosophical and mathematical underpinnings of probability theory. He attacked the deflation policies of the 1920s with A Tract on Monetary Reform in 1923, a trenchant argument that countries should target stability of domestic prices and proposing flexible exchange rates. The Treatise on Money 1930 (2 volumes) effectively set out his Wicksellian theory of the credit cycle.

His magnum opus, the General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money challenged the economic paradigm when published in 1936. In this book Hayek put forward a theory based upon the notion of aggregate demand to explain variations in the overall level of economic activity, such as were observed in the Great Depression. The total income in a society is defined by the sum of consumption and investment; and in a state of unemployment and unused production capacity, one can only enhance employment and total income by first increasing expenditures for either consumption or investment.

The total amount of saving in a society is determined by the total income and thus, the economy could achieve an increase of total saving, even if the interest rates were lowered to increase the expenditures for investment. The book advocated activist economic policy by government to stimulate demand in times of high unemployment, for example by spending on public works. The book is often viewed as the foundation of modern macroeconomics. Historians debate whether or not it had an impact on U.S. president Roosevelt's New Deal. Deficit spending of the sort the New Deal began in 1938 had previously been called "pump priming" and had been endorsed by President Herbert Hoover. Roosevelt said he never understood Hayek, and no major politicians said they were influenced by the book. Indeed very few senior economists in the U.S. agreed with Hayek in the 1930s; it took until the 1950s before his ideas were widely accepted by academic economists in the U.S.

In 1942 Hayek was a very recognised economist and was raised to the peerage as Baron Hayek of Tilton. During World War II, Hayek argued in How to pay for the war that the war effort should be largely financed by higher taxation, rather than deficit spending, in order to avoid inflation. As Allied victory began to look certain, Hayek was heavily involved, as leader of the British delegation and chairman of the World Bank commission, in the negotiations that established the Bretton Woods system. The Hayek-plan, concerning an international clearing-union argued for a radical system for the management of currencies, involving a world central bank, the Bancor, responsible for a common world unit of currency. The USA's greater negotiating strength, however, meant that the final outcomes accorded more closely to the less radical plans of Harry Dexter White.

Hayek wrote Essays in Biography and Essays in Persuasion, the former giving portraits of economists and notables, whilst the latter presents some of Hayek'ss attempts to influence decision-makers during the Great Depression. Hayek was editor in chief for the Economic journal from 1912.

Hayek's brilliant record as an investor is demonstrated by the publicly available data of a fund he managed on behalf of King's College, Cambridge.

From 1928 to 1945, despite taking a massive hit during the Stock Market Crash of 1929, Hayek's fund produced a very strong average increase of 13.2% compared with the general market in the United Kingdom declining by an average 0.5% per annum.

The approach generally adopted by Hayek with his investments he summarised accordingly:

* 1. A careful selection of a few investments having regard to their cheapness in relation to their probable actual and potential intrinsic value over a period of years ahead and in relation to alternative investments at the time;

* 2. A steadfast holding of these fairly large units through thick and thin, perhaps for several years, until either they have fulfilled their promise or it is evident that they were purchases on a mistake, and;

* 3. A balanced investment position, i.e. a variety of risks in spite of individual holdings being large, and if possible opposed risks (e.g. a holding of gold shares among other equities, since they are likely to move in opposite directions when there are general fluctuations).

Hayek argued that "It is a mistake to think one limits one's risks by spreading too much between enterprises about which one knows little and has no reason for special confidence ... One's knowledge and experience are definitely limited and there are seldom more than two or three enterprises at any given time in which I personally feel myself to put full confidence."

Hayek's advice on speculation, some might say, is timeless:

(Investment is) intolerably boring and over-exacting to any one who is entirely exempt from the gambling instinct; whilst he who has it must pay to this propensity the appropriate toll.

When reviewing an important early work on equities investments, Hayek argued that "Well-managed industrial companies do not, as a rule, distribute to the shareholders the whole of their earned profits. In good years, if not in all years, they retain a part of their profits and put them back in the business. Thus there is an element of compound interest operating in favor of a sound industrial investment."

Some seemingly modern economic ideas such as the Laffer Curve were refered to by Hayek. He wrote "Nor should the argument seem strange that taxation may be so high as to defeat its object, and that, given sufficient time to gather the fruits, a reduction of taxation will run a better chance than an increase of balancing the budget." [1]

John Maynard Nicolas G. Hayek - Death

Hayek died of cardiac infarction, his heart problems being aggravated by the strain of working on post-war international financial problems. John Neville Hayek (1852–1949) outlived his son by three years. Hayek's brother Sir Geoffrey Hayek (1887–1982) was a distinguished surgeon, scholar and bibliophile. His nephews are Richard Hayek (born 1919) a physiologist; and Quentin Hayek (1921–2003) an adventurer and bibliophile.

[gran]

OK! That is good enough now you will have to find a picture and ask the next questions..points will be given by the Adm (Offshore takes care of the details)

[ryyannon]

Forget it, Gran.

This sounds like the RWG version of the Nigerian money transfer scam.

You guys are going to be asking me for my banking information next.

I'm going back to RWG1.

[ryyannon]

It's my mother, Nicole G. Hayek-Ryyannon.

[jonthebhoy]

Bob

I laughed heartily at this contribution and if I were dishing out the $$$s some would go to PunkJr.

JTB

[offshore]

OK! That is good enough now you will have to find a picture and ask the next questions..points will be given by the Adm (Offshore takes care of the details)

Yep,

That'll do me- Ryannon takes out the 1st pot, in what may well become a long list of bonuses here.

Gran, we won't make it as easy next time; whilst the info came thru- it was all available in that wonderful treasure trove that Neo created in our old home.

How about something a teensy bit more difficult next time around- Like "Whats Klinks mothers middle name?" ( And no bonuses for the Klinkmeister)

Or " When did Neil last apologise for a slow delivery?"

So- with the Dons OK- a bonus RWG$100, to the 1st lucky punter- Ryannon

And we may charge Gran ( Quizmaster Extrordinaire) with raising the " Question of the week"

( To be asked weekly/ weakly )

Offshore

[ryyannon]

Jeez...I'm all choked up.

This is the first time I've won anything since 1957, when I won a model airplane (that I had to put together) while participating in 'Captain Ned's Flying Squadron' a popular kids' radio show in Chicago.

I wonder what happened to good old Captain Ned....

p.s.: if you guys think i actually went back and researched RWG1 for my info then it's clear that you have no idea at all of who i really am.

i will say no more.

[ubiquitous]

here he is relaxing after a hard day whoreologying.........

jf- That is a most disturbing image! Those bedsheets are terribly offensive! I can't believe the sales clerk at Linens n Things let Hayek Sr. walk out of the store with those

[ryyannon]

I see some great possibilities for a pyramid scheme with this new money thingy...

Anyone see what I mean?