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No one in their right mind would pay 150k down for a business they have to work at full-time 5 days a week that nets only 30k. That is what you call an awful investment.
A business that makes a 100k profit would sell for 200-300k. The owner will usually hold whats called a note and allow the new owner to pay him back over time or a bank can get involved as well.
I know this because this is what my brother did and I was deeply involved in the process.
The part that’s silly is that it seems that (at least someone on) each side is not recognizing the advantages of the other side.
No one in their right mind would pay 150k down for a business they have to work at full-time 5 days a week that nets only 30k.
What if they think it’s got a lot of growth potential?
Exactly what the P/E for a business is, I cant say for sure I never said i knew that number. I do know its between 10 and 1 so the better the gross revenue, the more you will pay for it
Maybe your family has $300,000 to invest in a business. Most people dont.
A year at Brooklyn college costs about $6000. meaning the degree will cost you $24,000. Sounds like a good investment to me. you will easily make back that money.
I went to a CUNY school so I know how cheap they are. I dont have one cent of college debt. it was cheap enough
No one in their right mind would pay 150k down for a business they have to work at full-time 5 days a week that nets only 30k.
What if they think it’s got a lot of growth potential?
The main worth in any business is its client list, that is not easy to create. If a business has growth you dont need as much to buy a pre-existing business
I think you’ve mentioned that you sell online. That doesn’t require a degree, does it?
If a business has growth you dont need as much to buy a pre-existing business
Hmmm?
I do sell online, I have my own business doing so.
Which is why I know the pitfalls of owning your own business more than just random critizing. I know exactly what goes on the good and the bad and hard it is to really make it work
See, you’re pushing college, and that’s not necessarily wrong for some people, but based on your own experience, you ended up in your own business rather that using your CUNY degree, so it’s not necessarily right for everyone either.
“Exactly what the P/E for a business is, I cant say for sure I never said i knew that number. I do know its between 10 and 1 so the better the gross revenue, the more you will pay for it”
Between 1 & 10 is a big range. So much so as to make your statement meaningless.
“Maybe your family has $300,000 to invest in a business. Most people don’t” It can be financed. That is how many or most do it.
“A year at Brooklyn college costs about $6000. meaning the degree will cost you $24,000. Sounds like a good investment to me. you will easily make back that money.” You are obviously ignoring the 4 years. Which newbee is focusing on. For most people, 4 years is worth something.
“I went to a CUNY school so I know how cheap they are. I dont have one cent of college debt. it was cheap enough”. And, to paraphrase, you aren’t a doctor. Or a lawyer either.
“What if they think it’s got a lot of growth potential?”
That can for sure increase its selling value but its more risky and wont increase its selling value nearly as much as a current revenue stream.
A buyer might be willing to pay for it, but its going to be hard for a seller to demand more money for his business based on potential.
zahavasdad, Im not even saying don’t go to college. I think going to college to become a doctor or dentist is a great investment if you are cut out for the math, science and the gihenom of grad school and be willing to put Torah learning on hold for a long time.
I am simply discouraging people from going to college for certain reasons and saying owning a business might be a viable alternative for many people. And even if you dont have the 100-500k I still would not suggest going to a cuny school earning a degree in English lit or something similar for most people.
The range for buying an active business where you have to work there full time is 1-3 times the yearly net. For a passive business where you mostly take in the money without working its typically 3-5 times the yearly net. This is on average.
But for someone who doesn’t use his cuny degree and owns his own business I don’t know why you are arguing with me.
Newbee
I never advocated getting a degree in English. I adocated more Accounting, Computer Science , Math or something that would help you get a decent job
And FYI there are opinions that studying things like math is NOT bittual torah and may even considered learning torah (I said some opinions, not every opinion)
There is a sefer called Josephun which is Josephus and the Vilna gaon wrote a math book (I think it was geometry) I saw a sefer written by a deciple of the Vilna Gaon about Euclidian Geometry
I read many seforim in english and Ive read regular secular english books. the english of the seforim is many times terrible and irreadable.
Those who plan on writing seforim in english would do well to learn to write proper english writing and grammar skills
I also am, as long as the person plans on furthering their education after graduating college for more years and taking very advanced math and science courses. At the same time I am also encouraging business ownership as a viable alternative. Working for yourself has pros and cons. But dont discount the pros.
A rebbe told me the Vilna Gaon only learned math in the bathroom and haas veshalom to call it Torah. I admittedly dont believe this is where he learned math.
But when I learn math I can sense it does not elevate my neshama and I cannot sense the kedusha that comes down as I do when I learn Torah.
Getting a simple BA in math probably wont get you anywhere. And most computer science courses are outdated and bloated.
Its much better to teach yourself online or go to a code learning bootcamp which is much shorter than college.
Employers care about how good you are not where you went to school for computer coding.
Yet another reason not to go to traditional college for those things.
“I read many seforim in english and Ive read regular secular english books. the english of the seforim is many times terrible and irreadable.”
Did you really just write this?
Are you really the person to make such a determination?
Perhaps you would like to provide samples so we can make objective determinations.
zahavasdad, The only problem is 99% of the people going to cuny colleges majoring in english lit are not realistically going to earn a parnasa for themselves as writers. Talk about a low probability success rate.
And while I do wholeheartedly agree with you that artscroll english writers cant hold a flame to legendary authors such as Twain or Dickens, the purpose of artscroll english is usually to translate the Hebrew on a practical level. Its not poetry or novels.
The purpose of an artscroll translation of bava kama is very different than the purpose of reading Huck Finn.
I am not referring to Art Scroll translation of Neveim for example
I am talking about Art Scroll stand alone books like the rebbe Series , jewish themed novels other books solely written in english and not from a Hebrew translation.
There is English Lit and there is creative writing. I only took basic english and my writing is poor. its not my thing
ZD,
You said you read English seforim. Which you are now comparing to Dickens.
1) The English seforim are well edited and clearly understandable. The subject matter just may be well out of your reach.
2) How can you compare seforim to literature?
3) Your comment was about grammar and proper English, now you’ve changed your tune.
4) You select stories written by the most famous authors and want to compare them to translations of books written in another language?
5) Why don’t you compare the Seforim to some of the technical pamphlets. Would be more comparable because it’s not just popular reading and then come back and compare.
6) The writers and editors of the seforim do an excellent job and write a lot better than most of the stuff you try to read. Even those writers at ArtScroll who have not gone to college.
Just ludicrous.
This is such an important point. People shouldn’t be wasting literally years of their lives on degrees that will only earn them $15-20 an hour.
A college degree in 2016 is not what it was 20-50 years ago. Its like a scam.
Worst of all is the one who graduated college with a BA with a bad gpa. Such a degree I wouldn’t even give the zechus to burn it with the chametz!
“Worst of all is the one who graduated college with a BA with a bad gpa.”
Just leave it off the resume. I heard from one person who partook in the hiring process that employers don’t care to see it on the resume even if it’s good because it makes you look too “fresh out of college.”
Seems like everyone here agrees that one should only major in something of specific use if they go to college so I’m not really sure what argument is left.
Nisht: ZD clarified that he was not referring to translations. He’s talking about books written by frum yidden in English about Jewish topics (biographies of Rebbes, etc.). He also isn’t saying that they’re illegible because of bad spelling or grammar, he is saying that they are written with very clear, remedial literary skill.
And don’t just say “as long as everything is spelled right, what difference does it make?” I think, if ZD is right, it’s worth being upset about because it makes people think frum Jews don’t get anything beyond a sixth grade education in English.
Nuevell,
This is what ZD said “I read many seforim in english and Ive read regular secular english books. the english of the seforim is many times terrible and irreadable.
Those who plan on writing seforim in english would do well to learn to write proper english writing and grammar skills”
He completely changed his tune because he very specifically said “Seforim”
Very different from story books and fiction.
And everyone knows that is is disengenuous to compare books written for a kosher market to secular fiction. It is also inane to compare every writer to Charles Dickens or Mark Twain. (Besides that ZD completely missed the underlying themes in Dickens). There is plenty published in the secular market by brand name publishers that are much worse qualitatively than what is distributed by AS, CIS or Feldheom or any of the other Jewish publishers.
Could there be better developed stories, probably, but most current writers try to accomplish that by including all sorts of gratuitous filth.
“And everyone knows that is is disengenuous to compare books written for a kosher market to secular fiction.”
It’s not unfair to hold everything, at least roughly, to the same literary standard. If there’s a trend of bad writing in this genre of books, like ZD implied, then it looks bad. I have no idea if ZD is right or not in this specific case because I don’t believe I’ve read any of the books in question, so I don’t really want to argue it any further.
A BA in English Lit is only useful if you are going to teach in the Board of Ed otherwise it is worthless. As far as writing novels, you don’t really make money unless your a best seller on the secular market and you really don’t need a degree to be a best seller.
Many employers are looking for freelances where it’s your knowledge of subject matter not degree that gets you the job. Once they see how productive you are they may hire you next time there is a opening. Moving up in a large organization will require at least a BA and possibly a MBA or higher.
CUNY at $5,000-6,000 per year is your best bet if you feel you need a degree. A year in a private college can cost between $20,000 – over 60,000 and even more if they dorm. Most students don’t decide a major until their second year and don’t give it much thought to the future. Colleges will not tell the parent how their child is doing. I know of parents (non Jewish) whose children dormed and after 4 years of college and over $100,000 in loans found out their child flunked most of the courses and has drug &/or alcohol problems.
There is no reason CIS or Artscroll cannot hire good writers, there are plenty of great jewish authors. Nobel Laurets and Pulitzer prize winners.
Potak, Roth, Wiesel , Sholom Alechem (The Jewish Mark Twain) Kafka, Issac Singer and Herman Wouk (Who did write orhtodox themed books) are all great jewish authors.
Fine you dont want to read Dickens because he was an Anti-Semite. go read someone else. There is no reason Artscroll or CIS cannot get someone like Herman Wouk to write for them
Herman Wouks books were not all that appropriate for the crowd ArtScroll is publishing for.
From what I understand, there was quite a bit that was just inappropriate entirely.
Just mentioning Sholom Aleichem shows that you really have no concept as to what is appropriate reading. You really think they should publish writers whose stories promote going off the derech?
Besides, most such Authors command huge advances. You think these publishers are going to be able to pay such advances?
But let’s return to your initial comment. You were talking about seforim. Those are very well written. That is indisputable.
You also made an issue of grammar. The books are all grammatically correct.
Now you don’t like the stories. You want Sholom Aleichem. If you are looking for stories that belittle a Torah lifestyle, don’t expect to see it from ArtScroll, CIS or Feldheim.
I apologize to the Memory of Mr. Wouk. I confused some of Potok’s stories with his.
You get what you pay for, if you pay garbage, you will get garbage
You dont seem to know the difference between Herman Wouk, Chaim Potak and Sholom Alechem as you are mixing them up.
And FYI Herman Wouk is very much alive, He is 100 years old
and BTW some Chassidic Stories are actually from the works of I.L. Perez
You can look up “If Not Higher” and “The Three Wishes”, they are not chassidicm stories, they are the fictional works of IL Perez inspired by Chassidic Stories
“There is no reason Artscroll or CIS cannot get someone like Herman Wouk to write for them”
Of course there is. They wont sell any books priced at $69.95 which is what they would have to charge to recoup any advance they would have to give someone of that stature given the relative small size of the target market relative to the general public.
I said “Like Herman Wouk” not get Herman Wouk. Herman Wouk is 100 years old and Im not sure he can write anymore.
They wont sell any books priced at $69.95 the Berel Wein books or the book pictures of the Gedolim are in that price range. so there is a market
There are people who might be willing to cut a deal for the right project. Steven Spielberg agreed to take less money to make Schindlers List (They thought it wouldnt sell and when it was a hit , he gave all the profits away) and there are others who might be willing to write a quality kosher book at a reduced cost
no but some kollel man do and work and learn.
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