Gents, please spare a kind thought or a prayer for one of my colleagues who took her own life on 6 September. I've been working with the family to ensure paperwork accuracy, and plan funeral stuff. The army calls this a CAO (casualty assistance officer). I expected to have my card punched for this duty at some point... it's terribly sad that it's for a young colleague that I mentored through much of her first year in the AGR program.
There were no signs, it was out of the blue. I'm still gathering my thoughts on what all of this means, but I have an unshakable feeling that decreases in *actual* community, coupled with increases in bullshit mental/behavioral health "resources" could be to blame here. Where there once was a web of civic/cultural/religious engagement and people who care, there is now just reddit and a hotline.
I haven't grieved yet. I'm sure it'll hit after tomorrow's funeral. If you're the praying type, please do so for Melissa, her fiancé, and her family.
My St Mary hold Melissa’s hand as she travels into the forever, and may St Peter make a note in the tablet of good deeds for your assistance in Melissa’s family time of need.
Thanks Jack. I really appreciate you pinning this. She was a helluva kid. I'm doing a 28 mile ruckmarch - coincidentally - the day after her funeral. I'm praying for some catharsis, grieving, and tears on the walk.
It's 28 miles in memory of the 28th division fallen. So it kinda fits.
please forgive me for any perceived insensitivity; long ago my wife, who had an immense number of social contacts, said that ALL of the several suicides she was aware of involved drugs. a couple were of all things antidepressants.
No insensitivity detected. I haven't seen the toxicology report. But I'll say that that's extremely unlikely. Monthly random drug testing, complete transparency of medical information, use of antidepressants (and other psychoactive drugs) is generally disqualifying. She'd have been medically separated if she were dependent on those kinds of drugs.
A silly TV show once had an observation about suicide I thought cogent; every single one is like a bomb going off. It doesn't just take out the person committing the act, but is destructive to everyone around them. The closer you are the more damage you take from the blast.
I've prayed for your colleague and their family. May grace and peace be with them and you.
An update. Funeral was today. The honor guard, assembled with little notice, and provided with barely 3 hours of training, absolutely kicked ass. I'm humbled to have been part of it. Helping provide her family with a dignified and solemn military honors ceremony was one of the most memorable things I've ever done in uniform.... that's nearly 25 years.
I hope to never have to do that again, but I'm equally hopeful that we were able to provide some comfort.
All, thanks for reading and commenting. Your prayers and notes have definitely been felt....
I'm not anti-immigrant and neither is my Han Chinese spouse... but we'd like to have a word with whomever can refund the money we spent on legally immigrating and naturalization.
What utter bullshit for those of us who follow the rules. The elites are laughing at us.
I just spent $100 on US Customs Global Entry, and it took me over a year to get a 5 minute interview with a Customs agent because it was impossible to arrange an interview in the entire Southeast US within a day’s drive of North Carolina.
This reminds of when I had decades of seniority on my job but it was obvious to everyone that the old guys were treated the worst. As I explained to a young coworker, “the longer you’re here, the less seniority you have”. Even when I got a package on the way out, they capped the number of years of service I could get paid for.
When I worked for DuPont, the lab lost its most experienced paint chemist. He just had a BS from literally a mining school in Kansas but PhD's wore a path to his office. He had been working there for 43 years and when they instituted a new policy capping the number of service years eligible for a pension multiplier at 35, he said screw 'em and retired.
I trained everyone I worked with and many of the people above me. I was not a “yes” man and spoke my mind, so was never going to get promoted further, which I was fine with because I was not going to lie to get ahead.
It was good that things went from bad to worse on my job, because if they didn’t I’d probably still be sitting there hating life. I was extremely lucky to arrange a package. A year after I left a coworker came back to work after a bout with prostate cancer and asked for a package, was turned down, so he just left.
I hope this will make your experience feel less bad, if not, then it's just an excuse for my grousing. To get my global entry years ago I had to do it via a connecting international flight at a PNW airport. I can live with the constraints of the connection. I can't find any reason for the TSA agent talking down to me about the importance of not breaking the rules which the privilege of global entry should grant me. As in the penalty for accidentally bringing in fruit is that much worse because I should know better.
Fast forward a few years, and coincidence would have it a propos this article, I'm flying out of an Ohio airport. My GE line is mixed in with CLEAR; no problem. The magnetometer pops off. Instead of asking whether I forgot to take anything off/out, I'm told the scanner "randomly chose" me to get into the (millimeter wave) scanner. The pat down was, I am convinced, worse for what appeared to be the new hire than myself.
I haven't checked the TSA's website today, but when I looked at it the last time, part of the GE deal was to keep one's shoes, belt, and jacket on. The flight out of OH was domestic. Who else is subject to that kind of scrutiny for what is arguably expensive travel?
Kind of makes me wonder why we paid the $100 for the GE. My customs agent was very professional on my interview. I had to arrange the interview at O’Hare on a trip back to Chicago since it was never going to happen in the South.
The TSA is just punitive and intentionally humiliating security theater. Friend of mine had his balls grabbed by a male agent during an inspection.
Well with roughly 1 Billion individual boarding flights per year in the US, and you fly a lot, being randomly selected less than a 100? times is not bad. Just think of all the hundreds of millions that are not randomly selected. 😁
I should add that for me to get the same visa in Japan as my wife has here it only costs around a hundred dollars and there's not much paperwork to fill out.
Oscar won the race by managing his tires on a long stint better than Leclerc! As the youngest girl I ever dated would say "one point for Gryfendor!"
It was incredibly thrilling to watch. Around lap 40 I said to my daughter that there was no way he could keep Leclerc behind the rest of the race. I have seldom gotten so much enjoyment from being wrong.
I have not spent money on a poster since I have been old enough to drive, but I am sure there is a great shot of Piastri and Leclerc sideways through the corner together on lap 42. I will buy that and a frame for it. It made me feel like I had time traveled. That is managing tires.
Verstappen mentioned after the race he was "on three wheels" most corners. It goes to my theory about the suspension pick up points and packaging for the Red Bulls, part of the newey design that got them so much aero efficiency for the last few years, now being a limiting factor for further development. I would love to see some slow motion comparisons from this season to last for corners in Baku, with cornering speed comparisons. Obviously they are faster now, but...
Glad to see Williams on the way to being everyone second favorite team. I wish the season would never end
I'm curious what the case is for anyone liking the current iteration of Williams. I think James Vowles is positively villainous, that Dorilton Capital has a fairly nefarious element to its business structure, and that Williams often operates as a Toto Wolff satellite, which makes them rent seekers in a sport in which they don't even aspire to competing.
I thought about that during the race, recalling that Williams once represented the very tip of the spear with cars like the FW14B, the FW18, the FW07, and so on. And now look at them.
Watching Vowles do an Instagram video taking responsibility for one of Logan's many crashes, then seeing his response to the infamous episode where the Williams was lifted by a crane to display its very basic floor, changed my opinion of him for the better.
It seems to me that Williams is now trying very hard to compete. They're not Minardi. The car gets into Q2 and even Q3.
Wouldn't Vowles be responsible for Logan Sargeant's last half dozen crashes? Logan shouldn't have had a sophomore season. It was an affront to all of the Formula 2 champions who've never started a grand prix. Vowles recently made a statement about how neither Mick Schumachar nor the guy who was about to replace Logan Sargeant were special talents. Why? I'm not saying that Mick Schumacher is a special talent, but badmouthing Colapinto on the eve of his first F1 weekend was a pretty lousy thing for the chinless wonder to do.
saw a vid on the interesting new flexibility of the mclarens rear wing assembly and wondered how long it would take for the fia to get around to making a rule so they cant do that anymore
as far as the haitian problem goes there is some blame to be placed on the heads of people that hire them because while there is a similar situation here i dont know if there exists a government incentive to hire haitians in lieu of the native populations or if its just a case of employers looking for cheap labour at the cost of everything else
i wonder if anyone has made a ship of theseus remark about hundreds of millions of immigrants into america over the next few decades
anyway the main takeaway we can all agree on is that there isnt a virology lab in springfield so eating animals is probably okay despite being morally and ethically evil so its unlikely to get another covid out of this
You could clear up the problem with the illegals by just auditing these industries where they all work and dropping heavy fines on the corporation and its management. Because we are ruled and not governed it will never happen.
We're pretty close to the machine having to admit that the Haitians are eating cats and geese. That's when they'll say it is a rare occurrence. Then they'll say they don't know what the big deal is. Eating cats is normal in some of the most populous countries in the world, and they're countries that didn't use slaves to pick cotton! Then they'll say that only racists ever cared that Haitians eat cats.
I don't think Lando will be able to maintain the perception of superiority over Oscar Piastri for much longer. At best he is 2017 Daniel Ricciardo. He's doing well against his teammate now, but the handwriting is on the wall. He's had the best car for thirteen races now. He's had upgrades rounds before his less-experienced teammate has received them. He's been given pit preference even when he is trailing Piastri. He's been given a win by an unscrupulous Mercedes safety car driver.
All of this has netted him a grand total of two wins. Max has won three of the races since Lando gained the advantage. Lando having the best car has revitalized the careers of Hamilton, Russell, and Leclerc, in addition to providing his somewhat raw teammate with a couple of wins. A year from now, it may be hard to find a commentator who remembers thinking that Lando Norris was a WDC in the making. Sainz will be taking up space at Williams. Ricciardo will be commentating in Australia. Piastri will be the favorite for the 2025 title, and Lando Norris' character flaws will be obvious to almost everyone.
Norris seems like a delicate hot-house flower, that will wilt if he loses the WDC and then have a bad 2025. It would be fun to Oscar and Max in the same team in. 2026 (AM?). Prost vs. Senna version 2.
“In a stunning admission, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, said he was willing “to create stories” on the campaign trail while defending his spreading false, racist rumors of pets being abducted and eaten in a town in his home state of Ohio.
Vance’s remarks came during an appearance on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, where he said he felt the need “to create stories so that the … media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people”.”
I watched the interview. Vance misspoke at best, and there still isn't anyone on the left talking about the havoc caused by mass immigration in small towns targeted by the installed regime. As for who is lying, that video I posted is the cat-bbq-denying Springfield City Manager talking about Haitians eating pets in March of this year, long before Trump had anything to say about it. You've got to want to believe the lies to still be letting the intel community coordinated media lead you around by the nose. Hillary Clinton was so disappointed by Trump surviving another CIA assassination attempt that she was trying to reanimate the Russian Collusion hoax that everyone in the country with a three-digit IQ knows her campaign fabricated and paid for by now.
There's also a long line of deranged, CIA-groomed assassins who are motivated by the fear the blob is creating with their 'threat to democracy' brainwashing while they're running a woman who didn't merit a primary delegate and was one of the least popular left wing national political figures a year ago.
He also doesn't want to neuter and mutilate children or engage in WWIII to launder money and destroy the bill of rights, but I suppose your priorities are different than his.
I spent the first 18 years of my life living in Appalachia. I went to a terrible pre-school, then a terrible elementary school, then a terrible middle school, then a terrible high school.
JD Vance is from Middletown, Ohio, which is nowhere near Appalachia.
The literal title of his book is a lie. I read it when it was published, and it left a terrible taste in my mouth. I know multiple people who know him - and Vivek - from Yale Law School. They are also legitimate hillbillies (I grew up with them), and they found Vance contemptible and craven.
The good news is that he is SUCH a terrible running mate that he’s helping to ensure that the Orange Man loses an election that was his to lose after the FIRST assassination attempt.
It is good news for people who want WWIII, children to have their lives ruined before they have a chance to understand the decisions they're being groomed to make, the dollar to be obliterated by the expenses of the mass replacement invasion, and the end of free speech that's necessary to get away with it all. It's a tragedy for good people.
Middletown is 20 miles from Appalachia and he spent much of his childhood in Breathitt County, Kentucky but you are already fully aware of this. If people would base their arguments on facts rather than lies perhaps some common ground could be found in this country but your livelihood depends on your relationships with the Regime's Corporate cousins so carry on.
If you're looking for an honest response, I'm not sure what I'd do. There are lots of dogs and cats in my neighborhood. If I had one and it disappeared I'd probably start off by mentioning that my dog or cat was gone to they who live near me and ask if they've seen it. If others were having the same issue, and the neighborhood went from lots of pets to no pets over X amount of months, I can't say I wouldn't engage in vigilante justice, but I doubt I'd be a leader. I know that the fuzz wouldn't be able to do much about it (and perhaps they just wouldn't have the political capital and will to do so) so I'm not sure I'd call them, and I actually know the township supervisor and I'm not sure he'd have the power to do anything about it, either. What's he going to do? Find where the Haitians have been stashed and go to their doors to explain to them it's wrong to eat people's pets? I can see other people wanting to talk to him because they don't really know how local politics work. Maybe the worst they get is a ticket and a fine. Would they pay it? Would they even care if they didn't?
To sum up, I'd most likely join a coalition of similarly-victimized neighbors were we to discover a community of pet-eating Haitians was killing and eating our pets. I'm not sure what we'd do in reprisal. I wouldn't want it to be violent.
Speaking of my dogs, my older cattle dog mix 86'd a copperhead in our yard this morning, unfortunately he took a bite to his lip in the process. After a quick trip to the emergency vet, several 100s of dollars exchanged, and some strong pain killers, he's back ruling him kingdom; high as a kite with a very swollen right lip, leaving drops of ooze along his path of travel. I may slip some of those meds to my wife to try and calm her down, you'd think she got bit not the dog.
What's Stroll Sr's play in owning a F1 team? Are the teams actually profitable or is just some vanity project for his son?
The Guardian? Really?In context it was clear that Vance was talking about putting the reported events in Springfield before the media, which would otherwise have ignored the wider issues of importing tens of thousands of Haitians there, and the even wider issue of border control and illegal migration (the Haitians that the Biden-Harris administration brought into the U.S. are only legal under parole conditions and could be deported with the stroke of a pen).
Let me ask you, and I've worked writing news and spent time in press gaggles, how is what Vance described any different from what the Democrats and the establishment media do 247/365? Most of the "news" we consume is packaged goods intent on promoting particular narratives.
I think the immediate seizing on his use of the phrase "create a story" by the establishment media and those who eagerly ingest its predigested "news" is meant to obscure the fact that Vance pulled back the curtain just a bit on today's journalism.
Right now the Democrats and the media are trying to make stories out of side cases relating to abortion and IVF.
I don't know anything about f-1 profitability but I do have some familiarity with Professional Sports team profitability. Most of these teams are vanity projects for the owners. The dodgers purchase price was so insane, there is no way they ever had a positive ROI
What I'm more interested is that the people are actually reporting these things, the city mayor/manager says it's unsubstantiated and so called real journalists are rolling their eyes at the situation.
20 years ago real journalists would have gone to Springfield and actually investigated instead of trusting the government. When did media start trusting the government?
Sunday found me driving the Wife's Baby Bronco an hour north to the Costco in Hudson to stock up on Mexican bubbly water that the location 10 minutes from my tractorless condo hooked me on but now insists on only stocking the lime tainted version which I abhor. Strolling through the warehouse it occurred to me that fully 40% of those around me looked like nobody I grew up with many speaking a language wholly unrecognizable to me. I am not looking forward to what is undoubtedly heading south towards me.
Indulge me please, I woke up yesterday and reading the news this story came to mind:
And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.
2And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.
3And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel.
4And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife.
5¶And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter: now his sons were with his cattle in the field: and Jacob held his peace until they were come.
6And Hamor the father of Shechem went out unto Jacob to commune with him.
7And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter; which thing ought not to be done.
8And Hamor communed with them, saying, The soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter: I pray you give her him to wife.
9And make ye marriages with us, and give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you.
10And ye shall dwell with us: and the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein.
11¶And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give.
12Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife.
13¶And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully, and said, because he had defiled Dinah their sister:
14And they said unto them, We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised; for that were a reproach unto us:
15But in this will we consent unto you: If ye will be as we be, that every male of you be circumcised;
16Then will we give our daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people.
17But if ye will not hearken unto us, to be circumcised; then will we take our daughter, and we will be gone.
18¶And their words pleased Hamor, and Shechem Hamor's son.
19And the young man deferred not to do the thing, because he had delight in Jacob's daughter: and he was more honourable than all the house of his father.
20¶And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the gate of their city, and communed with the men of their city, saying,
21These men are peaceable with us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade therein; for the land, behold, it is large enough for them; let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters.
22Only herein will the men consent unto us for to dwell with us, to be one people, if every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised.
23Shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours? only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us.
24And unto Hamor and unto Shechem his son hearkened all that went out of the gate of his city; and every male was circumcised, all that went out of the gate of his city.
25¶And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males.
26And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went out.
27The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and spoiled the city, because they had defiled their sister.
28They took their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field,
29And all their wealth, and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive, and spoiled even all that was in the house.
30¶And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.
31¶And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?
When I first read this story I was disquieted and after reading the news of exploding pagers I was, well honestly after laughing first but upon further reflection, disquieted.
Rashi, the biblical commenter, says that in this context "k'zonah", literally "like a prostitute," means someone who is unprotected. "Should he treat our sister as someone who is unprotected?" Remember, this is a tribal middle eastern culture wherein kin relationships are essential. It's interesting that Rashi doesn't say the brothers were upset over the sexual aspect and that's not because he would shy away from that topic. The Midrash on Gen. 34, with which Rashi was undoubtedly familiar, interprets "laying with her" as regular PIV sex, and "defile" as sodomy.
What brought it to mind was killing them all after circumcision compared to injuries the Hezbollah members would have received. Also Jacob's response; setting off thousands of small bombs in the midst of civilians will not help Israel's support.
Also this offered me an opportunity to push back at the misguided notion taught by so many churches now that Christianity is all about tolerance, acceptance and JOY. The Bible is about judgement, retribution, and extreme violence. FAFO is Bible through and through.
"Also Jacob's response; setting off thousands of small bombs in the midst of civilians will not help Israel's support."
From the usual suspects, sure, but for them anything Israel does outside of laying down and dying as their door is kicked in will not help Israel's support. The bombs were literally anti-personnel devices targeting individual Hamas affiliates. In one video the explosion goes off right as the Hezballess operative was standing in a produce market right next to a stand with tomatoes, which didn't seem to be harmed by the bomb in his pants.
I don't know if you saw it or not, but there's some measure for measure in that the Iranian general who was in charge of Iran's dealings with Hezballess had one eye destroyed and the other damaged. Elahe Tavokolian was shot by Iranian security forces during protests near Mashhad in September. The PhD student lost the sight in her right eye.
Yea verily, thou shalt not horn in on thy neighbor's racket, and thou shalt not maketh thyself at home upon thy neighbor's couch, nor shalt thou mooch, nor freeload upon his goodwill, nor devour his household beasts, nor defile his children, nor operate thy chariots upon his roads, but shalt thou stayeth in the land of thy fathers and cleaneth up thine own act, so sayeth the Lord thy God.
I got to witness Nathan's ultralight in action yesterday, and it was marvelous. I had zero hope of even watching his line after giving him a point-by. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure the little Subaru diff let go, as it ended up making some rear-centrally located knocking sounds. Sharper knocking than a CV joint.
I saw a Facebook comment that the new 200tw Hoosiers won't actually be legal for a lot of rules due to their 5/32 tread depth. This person alleged most 200tw rules also include a 7/32 new treadmill depth. Can anyone confirm this?
O P E N T H R E A D (kinda long, TL;DR I did some drifting and it went well. If anyone wants to come witness or ride along, we'll be sliding the skid pad at Milan Dragway on Sept 28th!)
We’re about a month away from the Formula Drift finale, but I’ve been approved for a personal weekend round-up on this Wednesday O/T!
Saturday was Mid Michigan Drift Club’s “DOUBLE TIME” drift day, called such because we had a hot track from 12 noon until 10:30 at night, with a “duos” team comp from 4-6pm. In addition to the incredible dollar/lap value (only $100 entry!) for drivers, we had a number of things for spectators and family members to do and see. Such as: 3 different food trucks, live bands next to the start line (I also loved this as a driver), another music trailer down on the other end of the track, a car show, mobile car washing service, and even a tattoo artist! Camping was an option Friday and Saturday nights, though I elected to not do that given my 75 minute drive to the track. Before loading my car onto the trailer Friday, I aired the rear tires (Fullway HP108s in 215/45R17) up to 75psi and the front tires (Ironman iMove gen 2s in 205/40R17) to 55psi, though looking back I should have set them at 65psi. Jackson Speedway is a concrete surface and generates a lot of grip while somehow still giving long tire life. Meaning, I run much higher tire pressures there than at, say, Milan Dragway’s skid pad where I only need 50 front, 45-50 rear. The vehicle speeds achieved at Jackson are also way slower than most tracks, and the overall size/length of the course is very small. The course layout we ran this weekend fits into the PADDOCK at Waterford Hills. Slower speed means less momentum, which means more effort to overcome the greater mechanical grip of concrete, which begets “extreme” tire pressures for my 200-ish horse E36 sedan.
My goal for this event was to get some tandem practice in with my buddy Dylan, who is an enabler and sold me my car in 2021. He drove his white ZHP sedan to the track. The ZHP has about 40hp on my car, a better gear ratio, and more steering angle; but it is also on wide 245 tires and carries a higher curb weight, which means we have similar effective speeds in drift. After some warmup laps to learn the new lines created by wonderful new track extensions, we filed in and started tandem practice. In my 3 seasons of drifting, I’ve only started to seriously tandem with others very recently. Dylan has been drifting for longer than me, and has a good few years of tandem experience, so running with him as much as possible was a great way for me to learn. And learn I did! For the sake of time I won’t regale you all with a lap-by-lap summary (I don’t remember every lap anyway). By the time 4 o'clock came ‘round, I felt ready as I was going to be to take on the other driver pairs in the duos comp. My leads were ok, and Dylan was doing a great job chasing me. Dylan’s leads were fantastic, but after the initiation I wasn’t matching his angle. After the initial flick left on the run-up, we huck the cars into a right hand turn. For some reason when I chase people here, I don’t get a full transition into that turn. I think I’m being too careful and need to throw my car harder like I do when leading. What ends up happening here is me closing on the lead car too fast, and on a bad line which makes the next transition and turn even harder. In the second turn, I’m closer to Dylan but far too shallow in line and angle, forcing me to lift and slow down so the back of his car doesn’t clip the front of mine on the “manji” section down a short straight. After the pause I can clutch kick back in behind him into the final left sweeper for a decent looking finish. We went on like this for the whole 75 minute jam session that acted as the preliminary judging portion (my mom was one of the spectator judges!) of the competition. The jam session was tandems only. No solos, no triples, just tandems that the judges would pick a top 5 out of to go into final judging. We did not make the top 5, but those who did were judged with numbers and points to determine a final winner. It was great fun overall, and I’d do it again and again! Part of the success was not even getting the jack or any tool out of the truck all day. The tires I started with only gave up 10-15% of their life, Dylan and I didn’t crash despite some close calls, and nothing broke! One extra thing nobody knew was going to happen, though, was recording for a music video for Detroit rapper “Dej Loaf.” I never heard of her until that day, but my fiancè and some friends know some of Dej’s songs. I didn’t participate in the music video, and could personally care less about the whole thing, but the club organizers thought it was very cool and good for the club… as if we needed more help filling the 80 driver cap, which was achieved by Friday. After a nice chicken sammich from a food vendor, I loaded back up and headed home because
0: I hate loading after dark
1: although I’m not 30 yet, I’m not 21 anymore so I don’t care to stay and party until 1am
Sunday morning I unloaded everything, drove the car to Lowe’s to grab some bolts for a new trailer winch (yes, I was thankful I didn’t need it Saturday). Monday morning, the BMW resumed commuter car duty, and got 6.5 gallons of 93 put back into its tank in preparation for a private Waterford Hills Tuesday… which was amazing, but a story for another time ;)
Measure around your dome with a tape and look up the sizing chart of your prospective helmet maker. When you try it on, it should be snug but not tight, and it shouldn't have pressure points. If you feel any, the shape doesn't match your head and you may need to try another brand. Motorcycle helmets seem more sensitive to head shape than car ones, at least at the entry level, so for car stuff you might find it to be a non-issue. Lots of videos and guides on the internet for this stuff, and if you have a retailer near you it can be helpful to visit them and try some on. They can also help you measure your head if they're worth doing business with.
There are domains where the current approach to LLMs are legitimately ground-breaking: molecular biology, astrophysics, chemical modeling, etc. Basically areas where large data sets needed to be manipulated in ways that were structurally and compute prohibitive, if not impossible.
That said, this approach is just one kind of machine learning... and a deeply inefficient one at that. Most big leaps in optimization so far have been swamped by much bigger bloat in the foundation models.
But the * capital raising environment * for AI rewards biggest (models) and fastest (GPUs), not the best (outcomes), so they just keep throwing parameters and watts at it.
TBH, if you really wanted to address climate change AND work on grid resiliency/efficiency, you should regulate data center energy usage in some pretty drastic ways.
Amen, the energy and water usage is incredible, and frankly insulting to those who are already in drought prone areas. Big Capital says climate change and pollution is *our* fault for driving 15mpg pickups (or 20mpg, 27 year old compact German sedans) to work, but until "they" exchange some of those perennially record profits for reduced pollution, I'm not giving up a damn thing. My 10 year old Ram, 27 year old BMW, and 60 year old Imperial are nothing compared to container ships or "AI" data centers. Truly insulting!
At least the data centers are using power from the grid, which is produced under pretty rigid EPA rules. Container ships are essentially unregulated when it comes to emissions outside of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, and as you probably know since you mentioned them, burn bunker fuel, the stuff left over after all the lower molecular weight petrochemicals are boiled off, and it produces a lot of pollution.
Indeed I am familiar with the use of bunker fuel! And yes, the data centers use regulated grid power, but the amount they use boggles the mind. And the same people who own those are pushing BEVs into the automobile market. It's unsustainable, but you knew that already.
I think the water use is even more egregious than the power draw, though. Imagine being a farmer or just someone who needs to take a shower and OpenAI says you can't because it's during peak LLM hours.
It appears that the major need for water is for cooling. The automotive industry figured out that complete-loss cooling systems were a bad idea 120 years ago. One would assume that the geniuses in Silicon Valley would figure out a less wasteful method of keeping the silicon cool.
Right on, but they aren't really geniuses now are they? Wouldn't be so bad if they ran the water thru, cooled the chips, and put it back with little to no contamination. I don't think it's that hard.
Once you see the cabling in Infiniband, you see how nuts it is. The raw weight and mass in cabling alone, I suspect, makes adding pass-through cooling almost impossible.
From Nvidia's POV, the status quo is a "let's not make perfect the enemy of the good" solution. But they're not focused on power and water like we are in this sub-thread.
anti nuke people arguments pretty much boil down to muh chernobyl and muh fukushima so as long as theyre not built by communists or on a fault line we should be alright
dunno why we cant store the minimal amount of waste in the sahara desert or something
Okay, that was a brilliant race. Too bad Chuckie couldn't put the puck in the net, but Oscar was flawless with his defence. I'm very very impressed with the kid.
As for the Sainz and Perez desperados battling behind them, it was always going to end in tears. Just bizarre. I mean, I get that Sainz was getting back on the racing line, but he knew that the Red Bull was sniffing around there somewhere, and you can never relax when Cheko is on your ass.
“The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth.”
In his book about the development of steam power, The Most Powerful Idea in the World, William Rosen argues that the most powerful idea in the world is the concept of intellectual property, that you own your creative thoughts and work. It is powerful because it allows you to turn an idea into wealth, a genuinely revolutionary concept as it relates to socio-economic mobility. Earlier in the book, Rosen asks why, if the Greeks and Chinese experimented with steam, did it only become a practical source of kinetic power in Britain in the 18th century? One reason is the UK's first patent law, the Statute of Monopolies, in 1624.
1. Every book on intellectual property mentions the greeks invented it with a law that if a chef invents a particular dish, he had exclusive right to cook that dish for a period of time. Too bad they didn't apply it to more physical arts.
2. Steam power and AI do have parallels. One could say that the purpose of steam power was to permit wealth to access manual labor without labor having access to wealth. And that worked out pretty well.
Jack, a moron's opinion of your choice to creatively interpret the highlighted paragraph from the deranged fellow:
YOU are deliberately choosing to expand the meaning of the words he wrote. He did not say all white Americans, nor did he say all rural Americans. At best my read of what he wrote is 'young people in Springfield, Ohio'.
Before anyone decides to come after me, I don't condone Haitians, nor illegal immigration. Do your worst. I have to call Jack out on trying to stoke unnecessary umbrage and grief, while the real problem is bad enough as it is.
On F1: Nobody said Albon is some genius, but I will say Sargent sucked spectacularly, almost as much as one er... Jolyon Palmer. That either of them stuck around for so long was mostly due to favors, media pressure, or wallets.
There is a simple reason for the Red Bull suddenly working worse in Verstappen's hands instead of better in Perez's - they ran drastically different setups and Verstappen screwed his choices up. Horner also said perhaps Verstappen has been driving around the inherent flaws in the car which have tripped up Perez, but now that others are competitive they can't make progress on the same path and have to retrace steps.
You dismiss Yuki's crash as if it was a bumper on a spec Focus, not a complete sidepod and floor on an F1 car. Also as far as crashes go, it was stupid for top tier racing.
I had suspected that the under-the-radar investment bank Stephens was a Williams sponsor because of Logan Sargeant given his uncle’s business interests. And yet, they’re still on the car…
"He did not say all white Americans, nor did he say all rural Americans. At best my read of what he wrote is 'young people in Springfield, Ohio."
Not sure that's in any way exculpatory. Can I give an interview to the NYT and say "Young men in Baltimore are drug addicts who won't work"? What would happen to anyone who made that claim?
I was programming video games on the Atari 800 when I was nine years old. Any image you have of me as some sort of normal who needs encouragement to think logically and take things literally... is my fault as a writer.
You and I probably see things the same way a majority of the time. I've spent my whole life trying to understand how 100-IQ people think and operate. Because THEY determine the reality on the ground, not the one-in-10k people who can immediately pick up concepts on the boundary of human knowledge.
One of my greatest insights was that most people extract nothing more than a feeling from what they read or see or hear. The pathway from media to message is irrational in almost everyone. So while you might read what someone says at face value and evaluate it like a proof, most people take a feeling and run with it.
"One of my greatest insights was that most people extract nothing more than a feeling from what they read or see or hear."
^ This
It drives me crazy that TeamBlue isn't reading between the lines. That is, we (liberals) need to listen to this symbolically rather than take it literally.
Even the NYT has detailed how besieged Springfield is by the migration crisis. Rather than jump all over Trump's (crass and stupid) debate comment with memes, we should focus on why the community isn't being heard, supported and better resourced.
0-Lando may not yet realize this, but Oscar is the lead McLaren driver and is in pole position to win the title next year if car performance is broadly where it is today.
1-Now for more important discussion:
“How did we get to the point in American history where some laptop-class softie can sit at a bodega drinking an $11 sugar-blasted latte while banging out an NYT article dumping on American citizens for not wanting to do a job for the rest of their lives that the writer, personally, couldn’t do for an hour — and somehow the softie is the good guy?”
I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer to a comment I made to a recent article (copied below):
“What extraordinary arrogance to believe that someone is entitled to a job vs someone else just because they were born in America (whereas the other, more affordable person was not)!
Apparently the hard-working, red-blooded, patriotic, pickup truck driving, (self-proclaimed) Alpha (Fe)Male REAL Americans are so threatened by hapless, primitive, pet-eating low IQ migrants from “shithole” countries that they need Uncle Sam to put his thumb on the scale of the labor market to protect them from competition! Talk about Socialism!”
As for Jack’s claim about the latte-swilling NYT-contributing liberal … could the putative worker losing the labor market battle against a migrant get a job writing for the NYT? Doubtful. Would that sort of person even WANT that job? Again, doubtful.
"What extraordinary arrogance to believe that someone is entitled to a job vs someone else just because they were born in America (whereas the other, more affordable person was not)!"
i thought living in the country for generations and contributing to the govt via taxes would make an adequate case for not being immediately tossed aside when cheaper illegals were sprung upon your community
I used to hate unions. Now I'm all for protectionism because EVERY OTHER COUNTRY ON EARTH DOES IT and because libertarian economics don't work when you import the Third World.
Libertarians are the stupidest group of people on the planet. Their libertarian paradise wouldn't survive one election cycle. "Let's import a bunch of people who hate us and don't agree with anything we say and let them vote!" It's even dumber than communism. I'm still fairly libertarian oriented but the open borders thing is just so cosmically stupid I can't have anything to do with them.
Under Obamacare, there is a $3,000 incentive to hire immigrants instead of citizens due to immigrants not needing to purchase insurance through ACA exchanges. Meanwhile, employers may be required to pay $3,000 penalties if their employees are eligible for tax credits to purchase health insurance through the law’s marketplaces, which means hires who are citizens. Does that sound like socialism?
“What extraordinary arrogance to believe that someone is entitled to a job vs someone else just because they were born in America (whereas the other, more affordable person was not)!
Is the concept of citizenship alien to you? Do you not know how national borders work? Nobody is "entitled" to a job, however nobody is entitled to cross a border without the consent of the people who already live there (spare me your nation of immigrants bs, we are adults). The immigration laws in 2024 are written, or not, because your buddies at the cigar club want them to be that way, not because the vast majority of citizens have any choice in the matter.
I reject that as being the essential question. The essential question is are countries and the people therein sovereign? If they are, then We the People can say that no, you do not have the right to work here at any job if you are not a citizen, no matter how much Sherman and his rich cronies wish you could so that they could pay you slave wages to mow their lawns.
I don’t think I have ever met a “rich cronie,” by which I mean someone with real stroke, in my life. Well, I have met Rudy Giuliani a few times, but he’s neither rich nor in the favored in-group at this point.
It genuinely rankles me that someone would believe that they are entitled to have the economic upper hand permanently by virtue solely of having been born in this country; no merit, no achievement, no work, no sacrifice. Just a hand out demanding favoritism and protection.
We don’t want an upper hand. Just a fair shot at a good life and not getting screwed by corporations trying to pay the lowest possible wages (often a illegal levels).
I will presume that you were born in America; provided that is the case, you are the recipient of extraordinary, exorbitant privilege by that fact alone.
Corporations exist on behalf of shareholders, not employees. Those who are not shareholders (or asset owners more generally) should endeavor to become so if they want to enjoy upward economic mobility.
It is not a secret that over the long run interest rates in developed, first world economies must remain relatively low, due to: (1) elevated financing costs due to debt issuance and (2) declining birth rates (i.e., family formation spurs consumption) / aging populations (older people are savers / on a fixed income). Low(er) interest rates leads to expanding asset values.
Do you know how numbers work? It doesn't matter what YOU mean. Percentages and standard deviations matter. I don't know where you are at, but I can ballpark that it is top 1%, maybe higher, and your circle is much higher still, which is you come around here crying poor. Meanwhile the average American that you are so contemptuous of is dying of fentanyl overdoses and stealing your catalytic converter because your buddies moved the factory overseas.
Again, I know lots of people from all walks of life. There are very few people with real stroke, by which I mean pick up the phone, call someone, and get something significant done with one simple request / directive: “Approve this loan”; “Change this law” ; etc. I don’t think I have ever met any such person.
I am not contemptuous of average Americans; I am contemptuous toward the attitude that they are simultaneously (1) far superior to migrants and (2) deserving of economic protectionism.
I'm with Sherman on this one. It's kind of like letting your kids win at competition. It might feel nice for a moment, but you're doing them a disservice.
"It genuinely rankles me that someone would believe that they are entitled to have the economic upper hand permanently by virtue solely of having been born in this country; no merit, no achievement, no work, no sacrifice. Just a hand out demanding favoritism and protection."
I have ZERO, I mean absolutely ZERO issue with one group of people having special privileges and rights for soley being born in a particular country.
In real life, nobody wants to, or is willing to, endure a life of endless and constant competition for basic jobs. That sort of bullshit only works in gigs where people can earn well above subsistence level.
If you create a world where Joe Average has to reapply for his job every 90 days, he will eventually decide that his effort is better spent cutting your throat and taking everything you have. You wind up with, I don't know, Liberia or Zimbabwe.
As ever, there are things more important than the material or economic.
You are posing a question which neglects major economic factors such as: there is no childcare and associated cost with an adult immigrant which hides significant cost because another country had economically paid it. The comparison is wrong from the jump and recent data from the EU shows that if you remove that the average citizen contributes more.
Anyway, it's also bullshit in the case of Springfield because there are big subsidies provided for housing and food which allow them to work for less. There are also large landlords making money off the housing credits who are on the city council. Their actions are rotten. They are robbing taxpayers citizens to further harm other citizens who need help.
You appear to have no sense of connection to the vertical and a purely mercenary economic heart but these things are evil. Destroying the lives and livelihoods of people close to you by importing foreigners is evil.
And if the immigrants are so wonderful and such a boon why aren't they lifting their own countries up?
It is because immigrants are, in fact, the mercenaries who are willing to abandon everything and everyone they know and move to a foreign land in hopes of climbing up the rungs of the economic ladder.
The economic might of the present day US was built on the backs of the slaves who built the wealth your family inherited, the Chinese and Irish immigrants who built the transcontinental railroads, the eastern European immigrants who built Chicago*, and so on. You and your ilk are stealing their inheritance, keeping the bulk of it, and giving the crumbs to people who just stepped off the plane.
Edit-*and let us not forget your wasps and the plurality of Germans in the North and South made up the bulk of the population until very recently, without whom we would not have our founding documents.
For most of us, our "inheritance" was intact families, a work ethic, a moral code of right & wrong, basic education, clean food/air/water, and a functioning legal system.
And it's available to anyone born in America -- though many parents choose not to pass on this inheritance.
Only in rare instances is it in the form of trust funds and the like "built on the backs of slaves."
OK Boomer. Springfield should be home to 50,000 food trucks and Etsy shops and vertically integrated cloud hosting solutions. They just all need to tug real hard on their bootstraps.
Do me a favor. Drive however far it takes you to get to a Dollar General and take a rough assessment of the first fifty people you see walking out. Then estimate what percentage of them are going to succeed at anything more than a menial job. Live in reality.
Now understand that you are personally reliant on the goodwill of those people. Without it, the whole country is unfathomably dangerous. The whole reason you can drive a 911GT3 in public without having your eyeballs removed is because those people bear you little to no ill will. Don't change that.
Cultural homogeneity contributes an awful lot to a successful economy. When everyone believes in broadly the same things they can trust each other and business can get done. If you import a bunch of outsiders from a different culture that trust breaks down and it's a drain on everything that matters despite what some corporation's balance sheet shows.
Immigration isn't easy. I lived in Japan for many years and we're considering retiring there. I could tell when I walked into certain places that I wasn't wanted. But I did everything I could to assimilate and that put a lot of Japanese people's anxiety to rest around me. I had friends on the teaching staffs of my schools who were not any kind of a part of the English programs. I was not there to disrupt Japanese social norms and did what I could to fit in, with varying degrees of success. Now, for any of the illegals crossing our borders, I would expect the same from them. Unfortunately, that is not the reality. Many, if not most, of them are being trafficked here. Are they prepared to learn English? To deal with native Americans on their terms? Because it looks like they're being separated, put up in hotels and other forms of ghetto away from the rest of us and set to work in menial jobs at low wages. This has costs far beyond the leger.
Old Sweden and Japan are peaceful, prosperous countries because everybody comes from the same ancestral stock, speaks the same language and plays by the same rules. California's a goddamn nightmare because every other person's from somewhere else but never really left and decided the rules of the realm don't apply to them.
It's not that anyone is entitled to a job if they're willing to do it for less money... It's that those people shouldn't be imported into the country to undercut American labor.
Let these companies go open up a factory in Haiti if they want to keep wages down that way
What if these superior, native-born REAL American workers are freed up to perform even higher value labor by an influx of migrants who are ready, willing, and able to take on their old (and now lower paying) jobs?
Why would a company BUILD a factory in Haiti if they have a perfectly good one in America?
It's more of a zero sum game than you're painting it to be.
There aren't higher value jobs in Midwestern rural areas for these people to just slide into. They're not going to learn to code.
Instead, you have employers looking to hire people at below market wages, aided and abetted by the government.
A company would go build a new factory in Haiti or wherever if they wanted cheaper labor, presuming the place their current factory was located had objections about them importing cheaper labor to that factory.
Were "REAL American workers ... freed up to perform even higher value labor" in 18th/19th c. slaveholding regions? Or, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, what about modern SoCal and its Mexican crop-pickers? Serious question.
I'm sure that model works in some circumstances for some people, but I'm also guessing there are hard limits to who or how many see benefits. Maybe some historical examples would convince me otherwise.
If I was an American citizen owning a small or medium company: why would I hire a non-citizen when I have no idea what the loyalty of that non-citizen is in relation to my community, State, or Country? Could I be funding a terrorist? What are my ethical or legal obligations here?
If it is a large multinational conglomerate: they obviously care little.
This is why non-citizens who want to work here need to be properly vetted. I mean we allow non-citizens in the military. I have no issue with that.
A citizen is entitled to a job over a non-citizen who is willing to do the same job for less money because the United States is supposed to be a nation and not an economy. -- Of course, your mileage may vary depending on what you value.
If Mr. McCoy's value system gives primacy to the economy, he is absolutely correct that the slovenly entitled "winners" of the geographic birth lottery who happened to have emerged from their mothers' fetid wombs in Ohio have no right to expect any preference in the employment marketplace. As such any policy or actions to impart such a preference to them is irrational and inefficient and perhaps even "wrong". Hence comment to this being "socialism." - Please note Mr. McCoy that I am not certain that is what you actually believe but your statements lend to that interpretation.
Alternatively, if your value system gives first billing to the idea of a nation as being a common bond of citizens, then our fellow citizen Ohio brothers and sisters should be preferred over our distant fellow men and women who are not as close to the center of our relationship circle.
Which is the preferrable value system? I do not believe that can ever be proven empirically and any discussion of that would be ill suited for a comment thread statement. Many excellent books and essays have been devoted to that fundamental question of governing with good faith competing views coming from all sides. If you are interested, seek them out. As someone who as "power adjacent" I could detail my own thoughts but that would take at least a whole article that I assume few would find interesting.
However, because I have been in the room (rarely at the actual table) when important decisions are made, I believe that full service to the economy is a poor long-term planning strategy for individuals and for nations as a strategy for governance. Rather than go into the details I will speak through analogies. I believe it is bad for individuals because the economy is like a like an attractive waitress flirting with you at a restaurant. I believe it is bad as a governance strategy for nations, because just as Eisenhower claimed to believe that there were no atheists in the foxholes* during the war, it is my belief that there were no "economists" in the recruiter's office on December 8, 1941.
Rant over. Everyone have a great day!
* I am aware that Eisenhower was not the originator of the statement or sentiment.
Were it my business, I'd hire Americans on principle because they're my countrymen, and would not even consider a foreigner for any role in my company.
i think if you were to break it down to the brass tacks there really arent that many jobs in which you actually need someone from somewhere else because the person doesnt exist in north america
Uncle Sam already has his thumb on the labor market by allowing the exploitation of illegal immigrant labor to drive down labor costs for the ruling class. I never suggested a need to protect citizens from legal immigrants working under the same labor laws as citizens. What I want is a sane and enforced immigration law that has every worker competing under the same rules.
The entitlement is to compete with workers operating under the same rules, not workers in violation of immigration law who gain an advantage by forfeiting otherwise legally required workplace protections (wage, safety, etc).
If we're talking about extraordinary arrogance, I'd be inclined to look a little harder at the extraordinary arrogance of holding that just because a corporation wants cheaper labor that the citizens who live nearby have to endure their own government flying in people from wherever on the planet with boatloads of government assistance to sustain them, watch the limited resources already in their own communities get redirected away from their own children and their neighbors to the newcomers that only the corporate masters are excited to see, and to then hold that anyone being even slightly upset about all this happening without so much as a by-your-leave in what is supposed to be a representative democracy must be some kind of moral reprobate.
I would note that the people of Martha's Vineyard, when presented with a mere 50 migrants, mobilized the National Guard to remove them *at gunpoint*, but the citizens of Springfield, Ohio don't have that kind of wealth and power so I guess they don't get a say. I'm sure any of those migrants would have been willing to give a good honest go on any of the jobs possessed by the people who own those mansions for a much lower wage. Why not give them the shot?
You're certainly free to argue for corporate profit interest uber alles in society and hold that no spec of soil belongs to anyone save he who will work the lowest possible wage to get it, but when submitting that take to the marketplace of ideas don't be shocked when a large percentage of the population tells you to go fuck yourself.
Corporations have no right to cheap labor, or to impoverish the American heartland because they can get virtual slave labor from the Global South to make their cheap junk.
I suspect you'd be singing a different tune if you thought that the third world workers you want to import had any hope of competing with you for your own job. The same goes with "journalists" like the dolt Jack mentioned.
If the people coming over our borders could immediately practice law or work in FIRE, it would be a trickle.
The only reason Americans won't do certain jobs is because American companies don't want to pay American wages for the work.
I'll be HAPPY to drive a garbage truck or build McMansions for $150,000 a year. Frankly, that sounds more satisfying than my you-need-a-bachelor's-degree-doesn't-matter-in-what professional white-collar job.
1. Immigration needs to be capped and controlled. That chart needs to be at the center of every discussion around immigration. A country, place, company or organization won’t retain its special sauce with that level of new entrants.
2. I’m not sure if there’s a mathematical answer to both: increase wages enough to entice more people off the couch to work menial jobs AND not increase inflation to the point that their net lifestyle changes in a meaningful way vs today.
$40k a year today won’t by the American dream, so why take a shit job for it? But if all of those $40k shit jobs become $70k shit jobs, the cost of the widget or hamburger they are making will go up too. The numbers are bigger but the problem is the same.
Yes, there’s a reallocation of profit needed between capital and labor, but not sure that there’s enough. Call up our French cousins to unretire the guillotine; redistribution of Bezos’s entire net worth would give each American around $600.
I don’t know what the answer is, but know most of the sound bite solutions from both sides are BS.
As a single guy, it could probably be a lot lower. I could get y living in a glorified shed and drive a 20 year old vehicle.
Married with kids? Not even close. At least 150k. There is lifestyle creep that comes with higher salaries. With kids involved, It isn't just jealousy or keeping up with the neighbors or living beyond your means because you don't know better. You are going to target communities with good schools and low crime (read - expensive), spend on better child care solutions, more activities, more reliable and safer transportation, etc.
I have no idea how anyone supports a family on less than 150 these days. I'm flying solo on half that, don't spend lavishly unless you count sushi and I'm always just waiting for payday.
Define “getting ahead.” I live in a moderately high cost of living area and know quite a few households with incomes in the $150-200k range that are struggling economically.
When they are staring down 65 years of age, with maybe $250k in a 401k, two car payments, co-signed student debt for kids, and a house that was treated like an ATM, are they really ahead vs prior generations?
try not using your most important investment like an ATM . this seems obvious to me but not to the many I know who've lost their homes due to this sort of foolishness .
10% contribution with a decent employer match, 3% annual raises, and 30 years of work will easily get you there. This is calculated based upon a 5% return rate.
A 30 year old making that today could probably dump 10% into one of those pre-packaged 2054 target date funds and walk away with a few million to retire on. What a few million will ACTUALLY be worth in 30 years is another story entirely.
Disclaimer: I don’t know shit about finance, all I did was punch numbers into a calculator.
You wound me. I've carried the same (high) wage since January 2020 across three employers now. Of the nine companies I've worked for since 2004, only three had a 401k match. No match at $CURRENT_EMPLOYER. I did not receive a raise with my positive performance review around my one-year anniversary. I did receive a $70 Gerber multitool for all the Autumn '23 overtime and whip cracking I did to launch this company's first new product in 7 years. But the co-founder CTO tries to keep me on the hook by dropping hints that maybe, just maybe, if I keep being by far the most successful middle manager they've ever hired... I might eventually be bumped to the next salary tier without getting a change in title or any official nod to increased responsibilities. Lucky me!
You would be surprised at the number of highly paid people who do not make prudent financial decisions or have no plan for their future. People love to spend on the present and ignore the future. They also assume that if they are in a good position, the good position will go on forever.
All of those stunning statistics we read about how little Americans have saved start with ignoring the future. Even if you lived in a wealthy neighborhood full of nice houses, you would be stunned at the poor balance sheets of your neighbors. Appearances are very deceiving.
My buddy makes 190k and he's struggling. He's struggling cause he's stupid with money. Outside of a few cities, 200k is still a lot of money. I guess I can see it being tight if it's 200k household income with 3 kids in daycare that costs 50k
$150k is the new $50k. hell, in 2015 i was paying $1000 for rent, downtown in a nice small city in the northeast, with a $288 a month WRX lease, making $48k a year. now its $2200 a month, $500 a month, etc.
_THIS_ I why I was so adamant about buying a piece of property, didn't matter if it was nice or whatnot, just a place I could afford to live in and not get priced out of in the future .
"Dad, $50k doesn't get you to first base in the Big Apple!" -- Charlie Sheen, in Wall Street
Now that's $250k, which doesn't get you to first base in the Big Apple. I don't see how you could have two children and an apartment to house them on $250k.
Hell, in Columbus, Ohio it will cost you $2500 a month to live somewhere that doesn't strongly resemble Jo-Motherfuckin'-hannesburg.
I read a good poast elsewhere talking about how two decades ago, you talked about portions of cities being expensive (IE, beverly hills is expensive, UES is expensive, on the water in Greenwich is expensive), then about a decade ago it moved to major cities (new york city is expensive, LA is expensive, miami is expensive) and now we are at whole states and tier 2 cities (new york state is expensive, florida is expensive, charlotte is expensive, portland is expensive). where we go from here is anyone's guess.
anecdotally, i had a buddy at a tier 3 bank on the sales & trading side who was taking down approx. $400-500k for 5-6 years. his girlfriend (now wife) got used to the lifestyle, quit her job, they moved to a nicer apt in UES, she had a second kid.... and then poof, the bank merged with another, he had to try out for his position, and oh, the salary is now $275k. no more luxury vacations, no more prada bags, wife is back to part time work (and probably evaluating her options)...
Pre vs post covid is such a deal changer. My mortgage is 1200 a month including property taxes. It was 1800 before I refinanced from 15 to 30 at 2.5%. Now, my house is small but it's perfectly livable (my wife disagrees)
"$40k a year today won’t by the American dream, so why take a shit job for it?"
i think the more that number goes up the more people will check out of the system because if working multiple jobs and burning yourself out only just barely gets you by in life then whats the point so just do your own thing however you can i suppose
RE: #2. One of my friends was just over and complained about this very thing. Through a combination of cowardice and laziness, he’s pigeonholed himself into a “career” as an auto parts counter guy. In 2021, he hopped jobs and got an additional $6 per hour. He and his wife probably make close to $100k together and they’re struggling more than they were 4-5 years ago. In a way, I can understand why people in this type of situation would want to check out.
Counterpoint: My dad. Started in auto parts, sold building materials and commercial truck tires, then back to auto parts. Most of this was B2B sales. Over the years, he’s bounced around different jobs and built his knowledge base to include tools and equipment, HD truck parts, etc. The guy can sell you a $50 set of brake pads and turn around to sell the next guy a $40k ADAS alignment rack.
My friend, on the other hand, lacks those skills. More importantly, he’s too afraid to upset the apple cart and gain experience elsewhere. I have a hard time feeling bad for our friends who complain about their jobs but don’t take action. A few of these guys have never had a job where they didn’t have a friend give them a reference. It’s pathetic. They’d rather get zero raise per year and hate their lives vs. face rejection in the job market. I guess it may be different when you’re living paycheck to paycheck, I honestly don’t know.
I had this discussion with my best friend the other day. He’s a dentist and his wife a pharmacist. We both agreed that we had a hard time feeling bad for auto parts guy and some of our other friends when they complain like this. All of us went to the same school and were of similar means.
A few went to college and did well for themselves. Others got decent jobs and dropped out. The majority had dead-end jobs, some better than others.
My friend and I saw the writing on the wall and we both went back to school in our mid-20s. I finally finished undergrad and got my Master’s. He and his wife became doctors. Yeah I had a good time partying, but also had to I put my life on hold for four years where I should’ve been getting married and having children. It really grinds my gears to hear them incessantly complain and/or imply that I have it easy.
that last paragraph hit hard for me as ive come to the same conclusion unfortunately a few years later as im planning to start university next september but i try to tell myself that its better late than never
if you only have one life you should probably live it
canadian university is cheap with the full 4 years costing about 55k if i dont get any assistance from the govt whatsoever and what loans i can get are pretty much interest free
If I may ask, what are you going for? At the very least, it sounds like you’re approaching this with the right attitude. I went in treating it like a job and walked away happy. There was definitely fun to be had, but my goal was to walk away with a career so my classes came first.
At the time, I was roommates when my other best friend. He went into it expecting something between Animal House and Van Wilder, wish a side of finding a wife. Despite forcing it at every opportunity, he accomplished none of that. If anything, I got closer to that goal than he did. He had such a miserable time that we ended up not talking to each other over it.
im going to see if i can get into mechanical engineering
i had a buddy that did it right out of highschool and it was basically 14hr days for 4 years straight so thats what im going to attempt to emulate because i really havent got the time to waste
i got unbeliveably lucky with a few people close to me stating that if i had a degree they could get me in somewhere in the us so id like to capitalize on that opportunity while it still exists
You’re too young to be telling yourself that you are late in this endeavor. You’re building a skill set, of which university and what you learn there will be more skills in your set. Then when you’re done with university, you will gain more skills with different jobs. At some point you will have a skill set that few others will have, which is the goal. Hopefully happiness and increased earning power will follow.
I’m late to the party, but that’s a good thing. Most will have moved on to the next post. I don’t want to draw attention to myself; I want to address this directly to you. I graduated with a diploma (not a degree) because my school didn’t offer one in my field, and entered the workforce. Eventually it did offer a degree and I studied part-time ‘til I got it. I graduated at 34 years old. I never regretted the effort for one second. I was already established, but my subsequent career was completely different because of that piece of paper (which I proudly framed). Because, when it comes right down to it, about 20% of Americans have degrees. You will be competing with them for jobs, obviously, but also for assignments, promotions etc. and this document will be your edge, everything else being equal. So, allow me to add my encouraging voice to the rest. By all means, get your degree, no matter what. It will be worth it. It was for me.
As an addendum, my brother did not get a degree; he got a diploma. He spent his career as a technologist, reporting to engineers. He did the engineering work, but could not sign the documents; the engineers had to. No value judgement is implied; this career path worked for him. It would not have, for me. And that’s probably more than you want to read.
Still, $100K per year for two people, net, isn’t bad, especially if you just watch things a bit. (As a single person, I do just fine on around $60K. I can still afford a nice, top-of-the-line car every six to seven years, my condo is paid for, and I’ve got a decent stash in the bank.) Obviously, any dependents are going to add up..quickly!
And if you don’t have any sort of financial discipline, especially in this inflation, you’re going to be hurting, big-time! For instance, I have a strict rule of three years between cell phones! No ifs, ands, or buts! And a computer, usually a laptop: 7 years! Loving my iPhone 15 Pro that I obtained in March, no need to go to the 16 Pro..there’s not enough compelling features to be worth the cost of upgrading! And except for ONE period when I purchased a computer, all credit cards are paid! In full! Every month!
[Edit:] I should have said that this is in the Toledo, OH area, where the cost of living is very low, and the highest price of a Big Mac is probably around $6! Your mileage may vary in other places.
Radley Balko’s “Rise of the Warrior Cop” was a pretty good read, I learned a bit, didn’t walk away as a fanboi of Balko but he’s capable of decent journalship/scholarism.
I read that one and it did a great job of getting into the psyche of why police violence occurs. I wrote a summary paper based on a a few of the studies and it turned out really well in describing why cops act the way they do.
My guess is that some of those people were bullied in school, and want to make up for it!
Not nice for the poor schmuck who just got pulled over for 83 in a 65 who’s got no idea of those previous events as he’s getting physically yanked from his vehicle over the simple misdemeanor violation!.
Open Thread Post -
Gents, please spare a kind thought or a prayer for one of my colleagues who took her own life on 6 September. I've been working with the family to ensure paperwork accuracy, and plan funeral stuff. The army calls this a CAO (casualty assistance officer). I expected to have my card punched for this duty at some point... it's terribly sad that it's for a young colleague that I mentored through much of her first year in the AGR program.
There were no signs, it was out of the blue. I'm still gathering my thoughts on what all of this means, but I have an unshakable feeling that decreases in *actual* community, coupled with increases in bullshit mental/behavioral health "resources" could be to blame here. Where there once was a web of civic/cultural/religious engagement and people who care, there is now just reddit and a hotline.
I haven't grieved yet. I'm sure it'll hit after tomorrow's funeral. If you're the praying type, please do so for Melissa, her fiancé, and her family.
My St Mary hold Melissa’s hand as she travels into the forever, and may St Peter make a note in the tablet of good deeds for your assistance in Melissa’s family time of need.
Amen
Pinned.
Thanks Jack. I really appreciate you pinning this. She was a helluva kid. I'm doing a 28 mile ruckmarch - coincidentally - the day after her funeral. I'm praying for some catharsis, grieving, and tears on the walk.
It's 28 miles in memory of the 28th division fallen. So it kinda fits.
Eternal Rest, Grant Her, O Lord.
john
'bullshit mental/behavioral health "resources"'
lots of evidence that most of this does more harm than good
That's my fear.
please forgive me for any perceived insensitivity; long ago my wife, who had an immense number of social contacts, said that ALL of the several suicides she was aware of involved drugs. a couple were of all things antidepressants.
No insensitivity detected. I haven't seen the toxicology report. But I'll say that that's extremely unlikely. Monthly random drug testing, complete transparency of medical information, use of antidepressants (and other psychoactive drugs) is generally disqualifying. She'd have been medically separated if she were dependent on those kinds of drugs.
A silly TV show once had an observation about suicide I thought cogent; every single one is like a bomb going off. It doesn't just take out the person committing the act, but is destructive to everyone around them. The closer you are the more damage you take from the blast.
I've prayed for your colleague and their family. May grace and peace be with them and you.
An update. Funeral was today. The honor guard, assembled with little notice, and provided with barely 3 hours of training, absolutely kicked ass. I'm humbled to have been part of it. Helping provide her family with a dignified and solemn military honors ceremony was one of the most memorable things I've ever done in uniform.... that's nearly 25 years.
I hope to never have to do that again, but I'm equally hopeful that we were able to provide some comfort.
All, thanks for reading and commenting. Your prayers and notes have definitely been felt....
My condolences. Can’t imagine ever having to fulfill CAO duty.
Honestly, it was an honor. It has certainly interfered somewhat with my own grieving process - she was a friend and close colleague.
I'm honored to have had the opportunity.
I'm not anti-immigrant and neither is my Han Chinese spouse... but we'd like to have a word with whomever can refund the money we spent on legally immigrating and naturalization.
getting into the us legally seems more and more like a fools errand which doesnt bode well
What utter bullshit for those of us who follow the rules. The elites are laughing at us.
I just spent $100 on US Customs Global Entry, and it took me over a year to get a 5 minute interview with a Customs agent because it was impossible to arrange an interview in the entire Southeast US within a day’s drive of North Carolina.
This reminds of when I had decades of seniority on my job but it was obvious to everyone that the old guys were treated the worst. As I explained to a young coworker, “the longer you’re here, the less seniority you have”. Even when I got a package on the way out, they capped the number of years of service I could get paid for.
When I worked for DuPont, the lab lost its most experienced paint chemist. He just had a BS from literally a mining school in Kansas but PhD's wore a path to his office. He had been working there for 43 years and when they instituted a new policy capping the number of service years eligible for a pension multiplier at 35, he said screw 'em and retired.
He’s lucky to have a pension.
I trained everyone I worked with and many of the people above me. I was not a “yes” man and spoke my mind, so was never going to get promoted further, which I was fine with because I was not going to lie to get ahead.
It was good that things went from bad to worse on my job, because if they didn’t I’d probably still be sitting there hating life. I was extremely lucky to arrange a package. A year after I left a coworker came back to work after a bout with prostate cancer and asked for a package, was turned down, so he just left.
I'll never be promoted because God made me a craftsman, one who makes things with his own mind and his own hands.
He didn't make me a leader or a delegator of tasks to others.
Not being a good leader hasn't stopped 90% of leaders in the Fortune 500. Don't let it stop you!
Well, they're grifters. That's worse.
I also have an overactive conscience.
I’m envious. I was just a high priced paper shuffler.
I hope this will make your experience feel less bad, if not, then it's just an excuse for my grousing. To get my global entry years ago I had to do it via a connecting international flight at a PNW airport. I can live with the constraints of the connection. I can't find any reason for the TSA agent talking down to me about the importance of not breaking the rules which the privilege of global entry should grant me. As in the penalty for accidentally bringing in fruit is that much worse because I should know better.
Fast forward a few years, and coincidence would have it a propos this article, I'm flying out of an Ohio airport. My GE line is mixed in with CLEAR; no problem. The magnetometer pops off. Instead of asking whether I forgot to take anything off/out, I'm told the scanner "randomly chose" me to get into the (millimeter wave) scanner. The pat down was, I am convinced, worse for what appeared to be the new hire than myself.
I haven't checked the TSA's website today, but when I looked at it the last time, part of the GE deal was to keep one's shoes, belt, and jacket on. The flight out of OH was domestic. Who else is subject to that kind of scrutiny for what is arguably expensive travel?
Kind of makes me wonder why we paid the $100 for the GE. My customs agent was very professional on my interview. I had to arrange the interview at O’Hare on a trip back to Chicago since it was never going to happen in the South.
The TSA is just punitive and intentionally humiliating security theater. Friend of mine had his balls grabbed by a male agent during an inspection.
Me. I have been "randomly" selected close to a hundred times.
Well with roughly 1 Billion individual boarding flights per year in the US, and you fly a lot, being randomly selected less than a 100? times is not bad. Just think of all the hundreds of millions that are not randomly selected. 😁
Tulsi Gabbard
We spent literally thousands of dollars for my wife to come here. This is a pretty bad state of affairs.
I should add that for me to get the same visa in Japan as my wife has here it only costs around a hundred dollars and there's not much paperwork to fill out.
Sounds exactly like the respective car importation laws.
Almost everything that happens in DC is retarded.
You’ve probably realized by now that the government works better at the local level, and gets exponentially worse as you go up!
Yes, and there are plenty of criticisms in my county about our administrators!
Oscar won the race by managing his tires on a long stint better than Leclerc! As the youngest girl I ever dated would say "one point for Gryfendor!"
It was incredibly thrilling to watch. Around lap 40 I said to my daughter that there was no way he could keep Leclerc behind the rest of the race. I have seldom gotten so much enjoyment from being wrong.
I have not spent money on a poster since I have been old enough to drive, but I am sure there is a great shot of Piastri and Leclerc sideways through the corner together on lap 42. I will buy that and a frame for it. It made me feel like I had time traveled. That is managing tires.
Verstappen mentioned after the race he was "on three wheels" most corners. It goes to my theory about the suspension pick up points and packaging for the Red Bulls, part of the newey design that got them so much aero efficiency for the last few years, now being a limiting factor for further development. I would love to see some slow motion comparisons from this season to last for corners in Baku, with cornering speed comparisons. Obviously they are faster now, but...
Glad to see Williams on the way to being everyone second favorite team. I wish the season would never end
I'm curious what the case is for anyone liking the current iteration of Williams. I think James Vowles is positively villainous, that Dorilton Capital has a fairly nefarious element to its business structure, and that Williams often operates as a Toto Wolff satellite, which makes them rent seekers in a sport in which they don't even aspire to competing.
I thought about that during the race, recalling that Williams once represented the very tip of the spear with cars like the FW14B, the FW18, the FW07, and so on. And now look at them.
Watching Vowles do an Instagram video taking responsibility for one of Logan's many crashes, then seeing his response to the infamous episode where the Williams was lifted by a crane to display its very basic floor, changed my opinion of him for the better.
It seems to me that Williams is now trying very hard to compete. They're not Minardi. The car gets into Q2 and even Q3.
Wouldn't Vowles be responsible for Logan Sargeant's last half dozen crashes? Logan shouldn't have had a sophomore season. It was an affront to all of the Formula 2 champions who've never started a grand prix. Vowles recently made a statement about how neither Mick Schumachar nor the guy who was about to replace Logan Sargeant were special talents. Why? I'm not saying that Mick Schumacher is a special talent, but badmouthing Colapinto on the eve of his first F1 weekend was a pretty lousy thing for the chinless wonder to do.
dueling slides through the corner was absolutely glorious. I, too, would buy that photo or poster.
3 wheel corners and tandem drifting. Is this F1 or Formula Drift?
saw a vid on the interesting new flexibility of the mclarens rear wing assembly and wondered how long it would take for the fia to get around to making a rule so they cant do that anymore
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAGdX4Fxo3I
as far as the haitian problem goes there is some blame to be placed on the heads of people that hire them because while there is a similar situation here i dont know if there exists a government incentive to hire haitians in lieu of the native populations or if its just a case of employers looking for cheap labour at the cost of everything else
i wonder if anyone has made a ship of theseus remark about hundreds of millions of immigrants into america over the next few decades
anyway the main takeaway we can all agree on is that there isnt a virology lab in springfield so eating animals is probably okay despite being morally and ethically evil so its unlikely to get another covid out of this
You could clear up the problem with the illegals by just auditing these industries where they all work and dropping heavy fines on the corporation and its management. Because we are ruled and not governed it will never happen.
a man can dream though
a man can dream
https://x.com/amuse/status/1836230457052000598
We're pretty close to the machine having to admit that the Haitians are eating cats and geese. That's when they'll say it is a rare occurrence. Then they'll say they don't know what the big deal is. Eating cats is normal in some of the most populous countries in the world, and they're countries that didn't use slaves to pick cotton! Then they'll say that only racists ever cared that Haitians eat cats.
I don't think Lando will be able to maintain the perception of superiority over Oscar Piastri for much longer. At best he is 2017 Daniel Ricciardo. He's doing well against his teammate now, but the handwriting is on the wall. He's had the best car for thirteen races now. He's had upgrades rounds before his less-experienced teammate has received them. He's been given pit preference even when he is trailing Piastri. He's been given a win by an unscrupulous Mercedes safety car driver.
All of this has netted him a grand total of two wins. Max has won three of the races since Lando gained the advantage. Lando having the best car has revitalized the careers of Hamilton, Russell, and Leclerc, in addition to providing his somewhat raw teammate with a couple of wins. A year from now, it may be hard to find a commentator who remembers thinking that Lando Norris was a WDC in the making. Sainz will be taking up space at Williams. Ricciardo will be commentating in Australia. Piastri will be the favorite for the 2025 title, and Lando Norris' character flaws will be obvious to almost everyone.
Norris seems like a delicate hot-house flower, that will wilt if he loses the WDC and then have a bad 2025. It would be fun to Oscar and Max in the same team in. 2026 (AM?). Prost vs. Senna version 2.
see now that could be great to watch
watching checo shit the bed weekly is getting dull
I day-dreamed earlier about Max and Oscar at Aston Martin in 2026.
With Fernando Alonso as Team Principal, obviously.
On the other hand:
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/vance-trump-pet-eating-lies-springfield-ohio-haitian-migrants.html
And also:
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/sep/15/jd-vance-lies-haitian-immigrants
“In a stunning admission, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, JD Vance, said he was willing “to create stories” on the campaign trail while defending his spreading false, racist rumors of pets being abducted and eaten in a town in his home state of Ohio.
Vance’s remarks came during an appearance on Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union, where he said he felt the need “to create stories so that the … media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people”.”
I watched the interview. Vance misspoke at best, and there still isn't anyone on the left talking about the havoc caused by mass immigration in small towns targeted by the installed regime. As for who is lying, that video I posted is the cat-bbq-denying Springfield City Manager talking about Haitians eating pets in March of this year, long before Trump had anything to say about it. You've got to want to believe the lies to still be letting the intel community coordinated media lead you around by the nose. Hillary Clinton was so disappointed by Trump surviving another CIA assassination attempt that she was trying to reanimate the Russian Collusion hoax that everyone in the country with a three-digit IQ knows her campaign fabricated and paid for by now.
Speaking of lying .
There's votes in the fear they're peddling .
-Nate
There's also a long line of deranged, CIA-groomed assassins who are motivated by the fear the blob is creating with their 'threat to democracy' brainwashing while they're running a woman who didn't merit a primary delegate and was one of the least popular left wing national political figures a year ago.
Thank you for proving my point better than I ever could .
-Nate
Vance is a “storyteller,” by which I mean a “liar.”
(S)Hillbilly Elegy is premised on a number of lies. In the first place - unlike me - he is NOT a hillbilly at all.
He also doesn't want to neuter and mutilate children or engage in WWIII to launder money and destroy the bill of rights, but I suppose your priorities are different than his.
Whataboutism is not the foundation of a persuasive argument.
I've yet to see someone cry whataboutism who wasn't a hypocrite losing an argument.
When you look at a business deal, don't you take a global approach?
Evaluating and comparing competing political candidates' positions on a wide variety of issues is reasonable, wouldn't you say?
Saw a figure recently, Victoria Nuland’s brothers war hit the 1 million casualties mark. Sad.
Victoria Nuland might be the most blood thirsty figure in human history.
if kamala can force a fake southern accent maybe he should too
I give up. According to this definition Sherman is far more hillbilly than JD.
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/hillbilly
I spent the first 18 years of my life living in Appalachia. I went to a terrible pre-school, then a terrible elementary school, then a terrible middle school, then a terrible high school.
JD Vance is from Middletown, Ohio, which is nowhere near Appalachia.
The literal title of his book is a lie. I read it when it was published, and it left a terrible taste in my mouth. I know multiple people who know him - and Vivek - from Yale Law School. They are also legitimate hillbillies (I grew up with them), and they found Vance contemptible and craven.
The good news is that he is SUCH a terrible running mate that he’s helping to ensure that the Orange Man loses an election that was his to lose after the FIRST assassination attempt.
It is good news for people who want WWIII, children to have their lives ruined before they have a chance to understand the decisions they're being groomed to make, the dollar to be obliterated by the expenses of the mass replacement invasion, and the end of free speech that's necessary to get away with it all. It's a tragedy for good people.
Middletown is 20 miles from Appalachia and he spent much of his childhood in Breathitt County, Kentucky but you are already fully aware of this. If people would base their arguments on facts rather than lies perhaps some common ground could be found in this country but your livelihood depends on your relationships with the Regime's Corporate cousins so carry on.
It's probably not very healthy to carry around resentment and envy.
I'm sure most of us would like the world to recognize our wonderfullness, but that's not always in the cards.
theyre still eating cats
haitians eating cats isnt anything new
I still don’t understand why it’s racist to point out that they’re eating cats.
it isnt
it is however convenient to suppress ideas you dont like by calling them racist because the term has an outsized amount of power
Only if you're afraid of being called a racist.
I'm not, so their armor-piercing attack doesn't work on me.
i dont care either but for some being called a racist is going to affect their employment
The only thing that makes me doubt this at all is: what would you do if you found out a person in your neighborhood ate your cat?
Complain to the city manager like the people of Springfield, OH did?
You're positive that you'd do that instead of [FEDPOST REDACTED]?
If you're looking for an honest response, I'm not sure what I'd do. There are lots of dogs and cats in my neighborhood. If I had one and it disappeared I'd probably start off by mentioning that my dog or cat was gone to they who live near me and ask if they've seen it. If others were having the same issue, and the neighborhood went from lots of pets to no pets over X amount of months, I can't say I wouldn't engage in vigilante justice, but I doubt I'd be a leader. I know that the fuzz wouldn't be able to do much about it (and perhaps they just wouldn't have the political capital and will to do so) so I'm not sure I'd call them, and I actually know the township supervisor and I'm not sure he'd have the power to do anything about it, either. What's he going to do? Find where the Haitians have been stashed and go to their doors to explain to them it's wrong to eat people's pets? I can see other people wanting to talk to him because they don't really know how local politics work. Maybe the worst they get is a ticket and a fine. Would they pay it? Would they even care if they didn't?
To sum up, I'd most likely join a coalition of similarly-victimized neighbors were we to discover a community of pet-eating Haitians was killing and eating our pets. I'm not sure what we'd do in reprisal. I wouldn't want it to be violent.
If I actually witnessed someone eat one of my dogs, I'd be in jail sleeping like a baby, no need to go into more detail than that.
Exactly
Speaking of my dogs, my older cattle dog mix 86'd a copperhead in our yard this morning, unfortunately he took a bite to his lip in the process. After a quick trip to the emergency vet, several 100s of dollars exchanged, and some strong pain killers, he's back ruling him kingdom; high as a kite with a very swollen right lip, leaving drops of ooze along his path of travel. I may slip some of those meds to my wife to try and calm her down, you'd think she got bit not the dog.
Glad to hear your boy is doing okay! That had to be quite the scare.
I can't blame your wife for worrying, it's a scary thing. We lost one of our cats to pancreatic cancer a couple of months ago, it's been rough.
What's Stroll Sr's play in owning a F1 team? Are the teams actually profitable or is just some vanity project for his son?
The Guardian? Really?In context it was clear that Vance was talking about putting the reported events in Springfield before the media, which would otherwise have ignored the wider issues of importing tens of thousands of Haitians there, and the even wider issue of border control and illegal migration (the Haitians that the Biden-Harris administration brought into the U.S. are only legal under parole conditions and could be deported with the stroke of a pen).
Let me ask you, and I've worked writing news and spent time in press gaggles, how is what Vance described any different from what the Democrats and the establishment media do 247/365? Most of the "news" we consume is packaged goods intent on promoting particular narratives.
I think the immediate seizing on his use of the phrase "create a story" by the establishment media and those who eagerly ingest its predigested "news" is meant to obscure the fact that Vance pulled back the curtain just a bit on today's journalism.
Right now the Democrats and the media are trying to make stories out of side cases relating to abortion and IVF.
I don't know anything about f-1 profitability but I do have some familiarity with Professional Sports team profitability. Most of these teams are vanity projects for the owners. The dodgers purchase price was so insane, there is no way they ever had a positive ROI
I honestly don't care what Vance says.
What I'm more interested is that the people are actually reporting these things, the city mayor/manager says it's unsubstantiated and so called real journalists are rolling their eyes at the situation.
20 years ago real journalists would have gone to Springfield and actually investigated instead of trusting the government. When did media start trusting the government?
Sunday found me driving the Wife's Baby Bronco an hour north to the Costco in Hudson to stock up on Mexican bubbly water that the location 10 minutes from my tractorless condo hooked me on but now insists on only stocking the lime tainted version which I abhor. Strolling through the warehouse it occurred to me that fully 40% of those around me looked like nobody I grew up with many speaking a language wholly unrecognizable to me. I am not looking forward to what is undoubtedly heading south towards me.
Indulge me please, I woke up yesterday and reading the news this story came to mind:
And Dinah the daughter of Leah, which she bare unto Jacob, went out to see the daughters of the land.
2And when Shechem the son of Hamor the Hivite, prince of the country, saw her, he took her, and lay with her, and defiled her.
3And his soul clave unto Dinah the daughter of Jacob, and he loved the damsel, and spake kindly unto the damsel.
4And Shechem spake unto his father Hamor, saying, Get me this damsel to wife.
5¶And Jacob heard that he had defiled Dinah his daughter: now his sons were with his cattle in the field: and Jacob held his peace until they were come.
6And Hamor the father of Shechem went out unto Jacob to commune with him.
7And the sons of Jacob came out of the field when they heard it: and the men were grieved, and they were very wroth, because he had wrought folly in Israel in lying with Jacob's daughter; which thing ought not to be done.
8And Hamor communed with them, saying, The soul of my son Shechem longeth for your daughter: I pray you give her him to wife.
9And make ye marriages with us, and give your daughters unto us, and take our daughters unto you.
10And ye shall dwell with us: and the land shall be before you; dwell and trade ye therein, and get you possessions therein.
11¶And Shechem said unto her father and unto her brethren, Let me find grace in your eyes, and what ye shall say unto me I will give.
12Ask me never so much dowry and gift, and I will give according as ye shall say unto me: but give me the damsel to wife.
13¶And the sons of Jacob answered Shechem and Hamor his father deceitfully, and said, because he had defiled Dinah their sister:
14And they said unto them, We cannot do this thing, to give our sister to one that is uncircumcised; for that were a reproach unto us:
15But in this will we consent unto you: If ye will be as we be, that every male of you be circumcised;
16Then will we give our daughters unto you, and we will take your daughters to us, and we will dwell with you, and we will become one people.
17But if ye will not hearken unto us, to be circumcised; then will we take our daughter, and we will be gone.
18¶And their words pleased Hamor, and Shechem Hamor's son.
19And the young man deferred not to do the thing, because he had delight in Jacob's daughter: and he was more honourable than all the house of his father.
20¶And Hamor and Shechem his son came unto the gate of their city, and communed with the men of their city, saying,
21These men are peaceable with us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade therein; for the land, behold, it is large enough for them; let us take their daughters to us for wives, and let us give them our daughters.
22Only herein will the men consent unto us for to dwell with us, to be one people, if every male among us be circumcised, as they are circumcised.
23Shall not their cattle and their substance and every beast of theirs be ours? only let us consent unto them, and they will dwell with us.
24And unto Hamor and unto Shechem his son hearkened all that went out of the gate of his city; and every male was circumcised, all that went out of the gate of his city.
25¶And it came to pass on the third day, when they were sore, that two of the sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, Dinah's brethren, took each man his sword, and came upon the city boldly, and slew all the males.
26And they slew Hamor and Shechem his son with the edge of the sword, and took Dinah out of Shechem's house, and went out.
27The sons of Jacob came upon the slain, and spoiled the city, because they had defiled their sister.
28They took their sheep, and their oxen, and their asses, and that which was in the city, and that which was in the field,
29And all their wealth, and all their little ones, and their wives took they captive, and spoiled even all that was in the house.
30¶And Jacob said to Simeon and Levi, Ye have troubled me to make me to stink among the inhabitants of the land, among the Canaanites and the Perizzites: and I being few in number, they shall gather themselves together against me, and slay me; and I shall be destroyed, I and my house.
31¶And they said, Should he deal with our sister as with an harlot?
When I first read this story I was disquieted and after reading the news of exploding pagers I was, well honestly after laughing first but upon further reflection, disquieted.
Rashi, the biblical commenter, says that in this context "k'zonah", literally "like a prostitute," means someone who is unprotected. "Should he treat our sister as someone who is unprotected?" Remember, this is a tribal middle eastern culture wherein kin relationships are essential. It's interesting that Rashi doesn't say the brothers were upset over the sexual aspect and that's not because he would shy away from that topic. The Midrash on Gen. 34, with which Rashi was undoubtedly familiar, interprets "laying with her" as regular PIV sex, and "defile" as sodomy.
What brought it to mind was killing them all after circumcision compared to injuries the Hezbollah members would have received. Also Jacob's response; setting off thousands of small bombs in the midst of civilians will not help Israel's support.
Also this offered me an opportunity to push back at the misguided notion taught by so many churches now that Christianity is all about tolerance, acceptance and JOY. The Bible is about judgement, retribution, and extreme violence. FAFO is Bible through and through.
"Also Jacob's response; setting off thousands of small bombs in the midst of civilians will not help Israel's support."
From the usual suspects, sure, but for them anything Israel does outside of laying down and dying as their door is kicked in will not help Israel's support. The bombs were literally anti-personnel devices targeting individual Hamas affiliates. In one video the explosion goes off right as the Hezballess operative was standing in a produce market right next to a stand with tomatoes, which didn't seem to be harmed by the bomb in his pants.
I don't know if you saw it or not, but there's some measure for measure in that the Iranian general who was in charge of Iran's dealings with Hezballess had one eye destroyed and the other damaged. Elahe Tavokolian was shot by Iranian security forces during protests near Mashhad in September. The PhD student lost the sight in her right eye.
“Hezballess.”
Love it! Describes the whole cohort to a “T!”
My guess is that cohort is now rather low T.
😂😂
At least the US doesn't sell 100mm iphones a year manufactured at plants in a country we aren't super friendly with.
Yea verily, thou shalt not horn in on thy neighbor's racket, and thou shalt not maketh thyself at home upon thy neighbor's couch, nor shalt thou mooch, nor freeload upon his goodwill, nor devour his household beasts, nor defile his children, nor operate thy chariots upon his roads, but shalt thou stayeth in the land of thy fathers and cleaneth up thine own act, so sayeth the Lord thy God.
Speaking of defiled children I read that may have something to do with the Sheriff murdering a Judge down in Whitesburg, KY.
I like Whitesburg. AirBnB'd a whole house for $60 a night.
I got to witness Nathan's ultralight in action yesterday, and it was marvelous. I had zero hope of even watching his line after giving him a point-by. Unfortunately I'm pretty sure the little Subaru diff let go, as it ended up making some rear-centrally located knocking sounds. Sharper knocking than a CV joint.
I saw a Facebook comment that the new 200tw Hoosiers won't actually be legal for a lot of rules due to their 5/32 tread depth. This person alleged most 200tw rules also include a 7/32 new treadmill depth. Can anyone confirm this?
O P E N T H R E A D (kinda long, TL;DR I did some drifting and it went well. If anyone wants to come witness or ride along, we'll be sliding the skid pad at Milan Dragway on Sept 28th!)
We’re about a month away from the Formula Drift finale, but I’ve been approved for a personal weekend round-up on this Wednesday O/T!
Saturday was Mid Michigan Drift Club’s “DOUBLE TIME” drift day, called such because we had a hot track from 12 noon until 10:30 at night, with a “duos” team comp from 4-6pm. In addition to the incredible dollar/lap value (only $100 entry!) for drivers, we had a number of things for spectators and family members to do and see. Such as: 3 different food trucks, live bands next to the start line (I also loved this as a driver), another music trailer down on the other end of the track, a car show, mobile car washing service, and even a tattoo artist! Camping was an option Friday and Saturday nights, though I elected to not do that given my 75 minute drive to the track. Before loading my car onto the trailer Friday, I aired the rear tires (Fullway HP108s in 215/45R17) up to 75psi and the front tires (Ironman iMove gen 2s in 205/40R17) to 55psi, though looking back I should have set them at 65psi. Jackson Speedway is a concrete surface and generates a lot of grip while somehow still giving long tire life. Meaning, I run much higher tire pressures there than at, say, Milan Dragway’s skid pad where I only need 50 front, 45-50 rear. The vehicle speeds achieved at Jackson are also way slower than most tracks, and the overall size/length of the course is very small. The course layout we ran this weekend fits into the PADDOCK at Waterford Hills. Slower speed means less momentum, which means more effort to overcome the greater mechanical grip of concrete, which begets “extreme” tire pressures for my 200-ish horse E36 sedan.
My goal for this event was to get some tandem practice in with my buddy Dylan, who is an enabler and sold me my car in 2021. He drove his white ZHP sedan to the track. The ZHP has about 40hp on my car, a better gear ratio, and more steering angle; but it is also on wide 245 tires and carries a higher curb weight, which means we have similar effective speeds in drift. After some warmup laps to learn the new lines created by wonderful new track extensions, we filed in and started tandem practice. In my 3 seasons of drifting, I’ve only started to seriously tandem with others very recently. Dylan has been drifting for longer than me, and has a good few years of tandem experience, so running with him as much as possible was a great way for me to learn. And learn I did! For the sake of time I won’t regale you all with a lap-by-lap summary (I don’t remember every lap anyway). By the time 4 o'clock came ‘round, I felt ready as I was going to be to take on the other driver pairs in the duos comp. My leads were ok, and Dylan was doing a great job chasing me. Dylan’s leads were fantastic, but after the initiation I wasn’t matching his angle. After the initial flick left on the run-up, we huck the cars into a right hand turn. For some reason when I chase people here, I don’t get a full transition into that turn. I think I’m being too careful and need to throw my car harder like I do when leading. What ends up happening here is me closing on the lead car too fast, and on a bad line which makes the next transition and turn even harder. In the second turn, I’m closer to Dylan but far too shallow in line and angle, forcing me to lift and slow down so the back of his car doesn’t clip the front of mine on the “manji” section down a short straight. After the pause I can clutch kick back in behind him into the final left sweeper for a decent looking finish. We went on like this for the whole 75 minute jam session that acted as the preliminary judging portion (my mom was one of the spectator judges!) of the competition. The jam session was tandems only. No solos, no triples, just tandems that the judges would pick a top 5 out of to go into final judging. We did not make the top 5, but those who did were judged with numbers and points to determine a final winner. It was great fun overall, and I’d do it again and again! Part of the success was not even getting the jack or any tool out of the truck all day. The tires I started with only gave up 10-15% of their life, Dylan and I didn’t crash despite some close calls, and nothing broke! One extra thing nobody knew was going to happen, though, was recording for a music video for Detroit rapper “Dej Loaf.” I never heard of her until that day, but my fiancè and some friends know some of Dej’s songs. I didn’t participate in the music video, and could personally care less about the whole thing, but the club organizers thought it was very cool and good for the club… as if we needed more help filling the 80 driver cap, which was achieved by Friday. After a nice chicken sammich from a food vendor, I loaded back up and headed home because
0: I hate loading after dark
1: although I’m not 30 yet, I’m not 21 anymore so I don’t care to stay and party until 1am
Sunday morning I unloaded everything, drove the car to Lowe’s to grab some bolts for a new trailer winch (yes, I was thankful I didn’t need it Saturday). Monday morning, the BMW resumed commuter car duty, and got 6.5 gallons of 93 put back into its tank in preparation for a private Waterford Hills Tuesday… which was amazing, but a story for another time ;)
"If anyone wants to come witness or ride along, we'll be sliding the skid pad at Milan Dragway on Sept 28th!"
i might be able to but wont i need a helmet or something
Yeah, if you come please bring a helmet! If you don't, I can't take you for 3rd gear backie attempts and that would make me sad.
noted
will start looking for suitable helmets
Any SA2020 will do, open or closed face. Racequips are under $300USD on Summit.
thanks bud
Since this is an open thread, I'm gonna ask.
How do you select the proper size and all that? I've never worn a hat without an adjustable band. II wouldn't know a proper fit if I had one.
Measure around your dome with a tape and look up the sizing chart of your prospective helmet maker. When you try it on, it should be snug but not tight, and it shouldn't have pressure points. If you feel any, the shape doesn't match your head and you may need to try another brand. Motorcycle helmets seem more sensitive to head shape than car ones, at least at the entry level, so for car stuff you might find it to be a non-issue. Lots of videos and guides on the internet for this stuff, and if you have a retailer near you it can be helpful to visit them and try some on. They can also help you measure your head if they're worth doing business with.
There are domains where the current approach to LLMs are legitimately ground-breaking: molecular biology, astrophysics, chemical modeling, etc. Basically areas where large data sets needed to be manipulated in ways that were structurally and compute prohibitive, if not impossible.
That said, this approach is just one kind of machine learning... and a deeply inefficient one at that. Most big leaps in optimization so far have been swamped by much bigger bloat in the foundation models.
But the * capital raising environment * for AI rewards biggest (models) and fastest (GPUs), not the best (outcomes), so they just keep throwing parameters and watts at it.
TBH, if you really wanted to address climate change AND work on grid resiliency/efficiency, you should regulate data center energy usage in some pretty drastic ways.
Amen, the energy and water usage is incredible, and frankly insulting to those who are already in drought prone areas. Big Capital says climate change and pollution is *our* fault for driving 15mpg pickups (or 20mpg, 27 year old compact German sedans) to work, but until "they" exchange some of those perennially record profits for reduced pollution, I'm not giving up a damn thing. My 10 year old Ram, 27 year old BMW, and 60 year old Imperial are nothing compared to container ships or "AI" data centers. Truly insulting!
At least the data centers are using power from the grid, which is produced under pretty rigid EPA rules. Container ships are essentially unregulated when it comes to emissions outside of sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide, and as you probably know since you mentioned them, burn bunker fuel, the stuff left over after all the lower molecular weight petrochemicals are boiled off, and it produces a lot of pollution.
Indeed I am familiar with the use of bunker fuel! And yes, the data centers use regulated grid power, but the amount they use boggles the mind. And the same people who own those are pushing BEVs into the automobile market. It's unsustainable, but you knew that already.
I think the water use is even more egregious than the power draw, though. Imagine being a farmer or just someone who needs to take a shower and OpenAI says you can't because it's during peak LLM hours.
It appears that the major need for water is for cooling. The automotive industry figured out that complete-loss cooling systems were a bad idea 120 years ago. One would assume that the geniuses in Silicon Valley would figure out a less wasteful method of keeping the silicon cool.
Right on, but they aren't really geniuses now are they? Wouldn't be so bad if they ran the water thru, cooled the chips, and put it back with little to no contamination. I don't think it's that hard.
Once you see the cabling in Infiniband, you see how nuts it is. The raw weight and mass in cabling alone, I suspect, makes adding pass-through cooling almost impossible.
From Nvidia's POV, the status quo is a "let's not make perfect the enemy of the good" solution. But they're not focused on power and water like we are in this sub-thread.
Isn't bunker fuel basically used motor oil?
its worse
It's the high molecular weight stuff that's left from the raw petroleum after they've boiled off all the napthas, gasoline, and kerosene.
And sometimes can’t be maneuvered down a river without taking out the occasional bridge!
Better yet, we can treat "climate change" as the weather it really is, and Drill Baby Drill and cover the realm with nuclear reactors.
anti nuke people arguments pretty much boil down to muh chernobyl and muh fukushima so as long as theyre not built by communists or on a fault line we should be alright
dunno why we cant store the minimal amount of waste in the sahara desert or something
One of the best ways to find fault lines is to look at where reactors are.
👀
Okay, that was a brilliant race. Too bad Chuckie couldn't put the puck in the net, but Oscar was flawless with his defence. I'm very very impressed with the kid.
As for the Sainz and Perez desperados battling behind them, it was always going to end in tears. Just bizarre. I mean, I get that Sainz was getting back on the racing line, but he knew that the Red Bull was sniffing around there somewhere, and you can never relax when Cheko is on your ass.
Dumbest most avoidable crash i can remember.
Avoidable contact.
forever
“The underlying purpose of AI is to allow wealth to access skill while removing from the skilled the ability to access wealth.”
In his book about the development of steam power, The Most Powerful Idea in the World, William Rosen argues that the most powerful idea in the world is the concept of intellectual property, that you own your creative thoughts and work. It is powerful because it allows you to turn an idea into wealth, a genuinely revolutionary concept as it relates to socio-economic mobility. Earlier in the book, Rosen asks why, if the Greeks and Chinese experimented with steam, did it only become a practical source of kinetic power in Britain in the 18th century? One reason is the UK's first patent law, the Statute of Monopolies, in 1624.
Two things:
1. Every book on intellectual property mentions the greeks invented it with a law that if a chef invents a particular dish, he had exclusive right to cook that dish for a period of time. Too bad they didn't apply it to more physical arts.
2. Steam power and AI do have parallels. One could say that the purpose of steam power was to permit wealth to access manual labor without labor having access to wealth. And that worked out pretty well.
Jack, a moron's opinion of your choice to creatively interpret the highlighted paragraph from the deranged fellow:
YOU are deliberately choosing to expand the meaning of the words he wrote. He did not say all white Americans, nor did he say all rural Americans. At best my read of what he wrote is 'young people in Springfield, Ohio'.
Before anyone decides to come after me, I don't condone Haitians, nor illegal immigration. Do your worst. I have to call Jack out on trying to stoke unnecessary umbrage and grief, while the real problem is bad enough as it is.
On F1: Nobody said Albon is some genius, but I will say Sargent sucked spectacularly, almost as much as one er... Jolyon Palmer. That either of them stuck around for so long was mostly due to favors, media pressure, or wallets.
There is a simple reason for the Red Bull suddenly working worse in Verstappen's hands instead of better in Perez's - they ran drastically different setups and Verstappen screwed his choices up. Horner also said perhaps Verstappen has been driving around the inherent flaws in the car which have tripped up Perez, but now that others are competitive they can't make progress on the same path and have to retrace steps.
You dismiss Yuki's crash as if it was a bumper on a spec Focus, not a complete sidepod and floor on an F1 car. Also as far as crashes go, it was stupid for top tier racing.
I had suspected that the under-the-radar investment bank Stephens was a Williams sponsor because of Logan Sargeant given his uncle’s business interests. And yet, they’re still on the car…
Probably have a contract that runs through the end of the season at least.
It makes no sense whatsoever for them to be involved in F1. Stephens is private, based in Little Rock, and Warren Stephens owns the entire thing.
The only more secretive investment bank is Allen & Co., which is a tech investment bank that literally does not have a website. Huge flex, obviously.
"He did not say all white Americans, nor did he say all rural Americans. At best my read of what he wrote is 'young people in Springfield, Ohio."
Not sure that's in any way exculpatory. Can I give an interview to the NYT and say "Young men in Baltimore are drug addicts who won't work"? What would happen to anyone who made that claim?
I don't agree with the 'implied meaning' interpretation in that case either. I'm sorry, you're just acting like a 10 year old girl in either case.
Sometimes words need to have literal meaning, ESPECIALLY in written form, where tone and non-verbal cues don't accompany.
I'm just trying to get you to think differently, not disputing the point your making.
I was programming video games on the Atari 800 when I was nine years old. Any image you have of me as some sort of normal who needs encouragement to think logically and take things literally... is my fault as a writer.
You and I probably see things the same way a majority of the time. I've spent my whole life trying to understand how 100-IQ people think and operate. Because THEY determine the reality on the ground, not the one-in-10k people who can immediately pick up concepts on the boundary of human knowledge.
One of my greatest insights was that most people extract nothing more than a feeling from what they read or see or hear. The pathway from media to message is irrational in almost everyone. So while you might read what someone says at face value and evaluate it like a proof, most people take a feeling and run with it.
Sure, cant disagree with any of that, but are you writing here for the NPC?
Yes, because I'm here
"One of my greatest insights was that most people extract nothing more than a feeling from what they read or see or hear."
^ This
It drives me crazy that TeamBlue isn't reading between the lines. That is, we (liberals) need to listen to this symbolically rather than take it literally.
Even the NYT has detailed how besieged Springfield is by the migration crisis. Rather than jump all over Trump's (crass and stupid) debate comment with memes, we should focus on why the community isn't being heard, supported and better resourced.
There is so much gaslighting and so many untruths being promulgated at present that the Twitter quote hits like a bolt of lightning!
If the dreams of these shortsighted elites come true, there is going to be a lot of dead elites.
0-Lando may not yet realize this, but Oscar is the lead McLaren driver and is in pole position to win the title next year if car performance is broadly where it is today.
1-Now for more important discussion:
“How did we get to the point in American history where some laptop-class softie can sit at a bodega drinking an $11 sugar-blasted latte while banging out an NYT article dumping on American citizens for not wanting to do a job for the rest of their lives that the writer, personally, couldn’t do for an hour — and somehow the softie is the good guy?”
I have yet to receive a satisfactory answer to a comment I made to a recent article (copied below):
“What extraordinary arrogance to believe that someone is entitled to a job vs someone else just because they were born in America (whereas the other, more affordable person was not)!
Apparently the hard-working, red-blooded, patriotic, pickup truck driving, (self-proclaimed) Alpha (Fe)Male REAL Americans are so threatened by hapless, primitive, pet-eating low IQ migrants from “shithole” countries that they need Uncle Sam to put his thumb on the scale of the labor market to protect them from competition! Talk about Socialism!”
As for Jack’s claim about the latte-swilling NYT-contributing liberal … could the putative worker losing the labor market battle against a migrant get a job writing for the NYT? Doubtful. Would that sort of person even WANT that job? Again, doubtful.
"What extraordinary arrogance to believe that someone is entitled to a job vs someone else just because they were born in America (whereas the other, more affordable person was not)!"
i thought living in the country for generations and contributing to the govt via taxes would make an adequate case for not being immediately tossed aside when cheaper illegals were sprung upon your community
Damn that sounds like socialism!
sounds good to me
I used to hate unions. Now I'm all for protectionism because EVERY OTHER COUNTRY ON EARTH DOES IT and because libertarian economics don't work when you import the Third World.
"don't work when you import the Third World"
this goes for a lot of things ive found living in canada
nepostism is awful until youre the only one not doing it
SUPPORT UNIONS ! .
-Nate
(who suffered under a shitty union for 32 years but saw how much worse those who didn't have -any- Unions were treated .)
Yet many libertarians are cool with it. Many don't believe in national borders.
Libertarians are the stupidest group of people on the planet. Their libertarian paradise wouldn't survive one election cycle. "Let's import a bunch of people who hate us and don't agree with anything we say and let them vote!" It's even dumber than communism. I'm still fairly libertarian oriented but the open borders thing is just so cosmically stupid I can't have anything to do with them.
Same.
Under Obamacare, there is a $3,000 incentive to hire immigrants instead of citizens due to immigrants not needing to purchase insurance through ACA exchanges. Meanwhile, employers may be required to pay $3,000 penalties if their employees are eligible for tax credits to purchase health insurance through the law’s marketplaces, which means hires who are citizens. Does that sound like socialism?
well thats awful
im against that
No, it doesn’t.
Having a country with borders is socialism. Got it.
Because it is!
Remember when the guy with 40 years of experience was the one everyone wanted to hire?
Same thing.
sounds like a great idea if hes not going to retire within 2 years
ah, but late-stage capitalism demands maximizing shareholder value, and one excellent way of doing that is reducing labor costs.
that's not how capitalism works though
“What extraordinary arrogance to believe that someone is entitled to a job vs someone else just because they were born in America (whereas the other, more affordable person was not)!
Is the concept of citizenship alien to you? Do you not know how national borders work? Nobody is "entitled" to a job, however nobody is entitled to cross a border without the consent of the people who already live there (spare me your nation of immigrants bs, we are adults). The immigration laws in 2024 are written, or not, because your buddies at the cigar club want them to be that way, not because the vast majority of citizens have any choice in the matter.
Can anyone answer the essential question:
Why should one person be entitled to a job over someone else who is willing to do the same job for less money? Citizen or not.
I haven’t made any “nation of immigrants” claims. My father’s side of the family was here before the country existed.
"Citizen or not"
well you cant just put the answer in the question
"My father’s side of the family was here before the country existed"
same bro but for canada obvs
I reject that as being the essential question. The essential question is are countries and the people therein sovereign? If they are, then We the People can say that no, you do not have the right to work here at any job if you are not a citizen, no matter how much Sherman and his rich cronies wish you could so that they could pay you slave wages to mow their lawns.
I know a lot of people, from all walks of life.
I don’t think I have ever met a “rich cronie,” by which I mean someone with real stroke, in my life. Well, I have met Rudy Giuliani a few times, but he’s neither rich nor in the favored in-group at this point.
It genuinely rankles me that someone would believe that they are entitled to have the economic upper hand permanently by virtue solely of having been born in this country; no merit, no achievement, no work, no sacrifice. Just a hand out demanding favoritism and protection.
We don’t want an upper hand. Just a fair shot at a good life and not getting screwed by corporations trying to pay the lowest possible wages (often a illegal levels).
I will presume that you were born in America; provided that is the case, you are the recipient of extraordinary, exorbitant privilege by that fact alone.
Corporations exist on behalf of shareholders, not employees. Those who are not shareholders (or asset owners more generally) should endeavor to become so if they want to enjoy upward economic mobility.
It is not a secret that over the long run interest rates in developed, first world economies must remain relatively low, due to: (1) elevated financing costs due to debt issuance and (2) declining birth rates (i.e., family formation spurs consumption) / aging populations (older people are savers / on a fixed income). Low(er) interest rates leads to expanding asset values.
"by which I mean someone with real stroke"
Do you know how numbers work? It doesn't matter what YOU mean. Percentages and standard deviations matter. I don't know where you are at, but I can ballpark that it is top 1%, maybe higher, and your circle is much higher still, which is you come around here crying poor. Meanwhile the average American that you are so contemptuous of is dying of fentanyl overdoses and stealing your catalytic converter because your buddies moved the factory overseas.
Again, I know lots of people from all walks of life. There are very few people with real stroke, by which I mean pick up the phone, call someone, and get something significant done with one simple request / directive: “Approve this loan”; “Change this law” ; etc. I don’t think I have ever met any such person.
I am not contemptuous of average Americans; I am contemptuous toward the attitude that they are simultaneously (1) far superior to migrants and (2) deserving of economic protectionism.
I'm with Sherman on this one. It's kind of like letting your kids win at competition. It might feel nice for a moment, but you're doing them a disservice.
Unless you make your kids work in the iPhone factory, you're protecting them from global realities. After that it's just a matter of degree.
"It genuinely rankles me that someone would believe that they are entitled to have the economic upper hand permanently by virtue solely of having been born in this country; no merit, no achievement, no work, no sacrifice. Just a hand out demanding favoritism and protection."
I have ZERO, I mean absolutely ZERO issue with one group of people having special privileges and rights for soley being born in a particular country.
Every other nation does so. To do otherwise is foolish.
"My father’s side of the family was here before the country existed. "
It shows.
In real life, nobody wants to, or is willing to, endure a life of endless and constant competition for basic jobs. That sort of bullshit only works in gigs where people can earn well above subsistence level.
If you create a world where Joe Average has to reapply for his job every 90 days, he will eventually decide that his effort is better spent cutting your throat and taking everything you have. You wind up with, I don't know, Liberia or Zimbabwe.
What if Joe Average were motivated to take charge of his economic circumstances and start a business?
Does Joe Average contribute any more economically than the average immigrant?
should contributions only be measured economically
i think an argument could be made for a cohesive society over a muddled and disjointed swath of a more productive one
but not much of one
As ever, there are things more important than the material or economic.
You are posing a question which neglects major economic factors such as: there is no childcare and associated cost with an adult immigrant which hides significant cost because another country had economically paid it. The comparison is wrong from the jump and recent data from the EU shows that if you remove that the average citizen contributes more.
Anyway, it's also bullshit in the case of Springfield because there are big subsidies provided for housing and food which allow them to work for less. There are also large landlords making money off the housing credits who are on the city council. Their actions are rotten. They are robbing taxpayers citizens to further harm other citizens who need help.
You appear to have no sense of connection to the vertical and a purely mercenary economic heart but these things are evil. Destroying the lives and livelihoods of people close to you by importing foreigners is evil.
And if the immigrants are so wonderful and such a boon why aren't they lifting their own countries up?
It is because immigrants are, in fact, the mercenaries who are willing to abandon everything and everyone they know and move to a foreign land in hopes of climbing up the rungs of the economic ladder.
Depends on how you define "motivated."
"Willing to do whatever it takes" is a formula for creating monsters.
The economic might of the present day US was built on the backs of the slaves who built the wealth your family inherited, the Chinese and Irish immigrants who built the transcontinental railroads, the eastern European immigrants who built Chicago*, and so on. You and your ilk are stealing their inheritance, keeping the bulk of it, and giving the crumbs to people who just stepped off the plane.
Edit-*and let us not forget your wasps and the plurality of Germans in the North and South made up the bulk of the population until very recently, without whom we would not have our founding documents.
For most of us, our "inheritance" was intact families, a work ethic, a moral code of right & wrong, basic education, clean food/air/water, and a functioning legal system.
And it's available to anyone born in America -- though many parents choose not to pass on this inheritance.
Only in rare instances is it in the form of trust funds and the like "built on the backs of slaves."
OK Boomer. Springfield should be home to 50,000 food trucks and Etsy shops and vertically integrated cloud hosting solutions. They just all need to tug real hard on their bootstraps.
Do me a favor. Drive however far it takes you to get to a Dollar General and take a rough assessment of the first fifty people you see walking out. Then estimate what percentage of them are going to succeed at anything more than a menial job. Live in reality.
Now understand that you are personally reliant on the goodwill of those people. Without it, the whole country is unfathomably dangerous. The whole reason you can drive a 911GT3 in public without having your eyeballs removed is because those people bear you little to no ill will. Don't change that.
I grew up less than half a mile from a Dollar General. My mother shops there frequently.
I know “those” people, because I was one of them for 18 years! I don’t need a translator to help me understand.
Cultural homogeneity contributes an awful lot to a successful economy. When everyone believes in broadly the same things they can trust each other and business can get done. If you import a bunch of outsiders from a different culture that trust breaks down and it's a drain on everything that matters despite what some corporation's balance sheet shows.
Immigration isn't easy. I lived in Japan for many years and we're considering retiring there. I could tell when I walked into certain places that I wasn't wanted. But I did everything I could to assimilate and that put a lot of Japanese people's anxiety to rest around me. I had friends on the teaching staffs of my schools who were not any kind of a part of the English programs. I was not there to disrupt Japanese social norms and did what I could to fit in, with varying degrees of success. Now, for any of the illegals crossing our borders, I would expect the same from them. Unfortunately, that is not the reality. Many, if not most, of them are being trafficked here. Are they prepared to learn English? To deal with native Americans on their terms? Because it looks like they're being separated, put up in hotels and other forms of ghetto away from the rest of us and set to work in menial jobs at low wages. This has costs far beyond the leger.
Old Sweden and Japan are peaceful, prosperous countries because everybody comes from the same ancestral stock, speaks the same language and plays by the same rules. California's a goddamn nightmare because every other person's from somewhere else but never really left and decided the rules of the realm don't apply to them.
If a strict meritocracy were the rule, only about one in 10,000 people would have jobs.
It's not that anyone is entitled to a job if they're willing to do it for less money... It's that those people shouldn't be imported into the country to undercut American labor.
Let these companies go open up a factory in Haiti if they want to keep wages down that way
Our rulers are importing scab labor
What if these superior, native-born REAL American workers are freed up to perform even higher value labor by an influx of migrants who are ready, willing, and able to take on their old (and now lower paying) jobs?
Why would a company BUILD a factory in Haiti if they have a perfectly good one in America?
It's more of a zero sum game than you're painting it to be.
There aren't higher value jobs in Midwestern rural areas for these people to just slide into. They're not going to learn to code.
Instead, you have employers looking to hire people at below market wages, aided and abetted by the government.
A company would go build a new factory in Haiti or wherever if they wanted cheaper labor, presuming the place their current factory was located had objections about them importing cheaper labor to that factory.
Well then let’s outlaw computers to protect workers.
Then let’s stop using machinery to dig ditches. Let’s use 100 guys with shovels. Better yet, let’s use 1,000 guys with teaspoons!
Were "REAL American workers ... freed up to perform even higher value labor" in 18th/19th c. slaveholding regions? Or, as mentioned elsewhere in this thread, what about modern SoCal and its Mexican crop-pickers? Serious question.
I'm sure that model works in some circumstances for some people, but I'm also guessing there are hard limits to who or how many see benefits. Maybe some historical examples would convince me otherwise.
Well said!
This in my estimation depends on the employer.
If I was an American citizen owning a small or medium company: why would I hire a non-citizen when I have no idea what the loyalty of that non-citizen is in relation to my community, State, or Country? Could I be funding a terrorist? What are my ethical or legal obligations here?
If it is a large multinational conglomerate: they obviously care little.
This is why non-citizens who want to work here need to be properly vetted. I mean we allow non-citizens in the military. I have no issue with that.
i dunno about having non citizens in the military
it seems like they would be more willing to turn their guns on the average american than one who was born there
We absolutely SHOULD NOT allow non-citizens in the military. That stunt directly led to the fall of the Roman Empire.
i was hoping someone would bring that point up
the future is not that rosy
That is an easy one.
A citizen is entitled to a job over a non-citizen who is willing to do the same job for less money because the United States is supposed to be a nation and not an economy. -- Of course, your mileage may vary depending on what you value.
If Mr. McCoy's value system gives primacy to the economy, he is absolutely correct that the slovenly entitled "winners" of the geographic birth lottery who happened to have emerged from their mothers' fetid wombs in Ohio have no right to expect any preference in the employment marketplace. As such any policy or actions to impart such a preference to them is irrational and inefficient and perhaps even "wrong". Hence comment to this being "socialism." - Please note Mr. McCoy that I am not certain that is what you actually believe but your statements lend to that interpretation.
Alternatively, if your value system gives first billing to the idea of a nation as being a common bond of citizens, then our fellow citizen Ohio brothers and sisters should be preferred over our distant fellow men and women who are not as close to the center of our relationship circle.
Which is the preferrable value system? I do not believe that can ever be proven empirically and any discussion of that would be ill suited for a comment thread statement. Many excellent books and essays have been devoted to that fundamental question of governing with good faith competing views coming from all sides. If you are interested, seek them out. As someone who as "power adjacent" I could detail my own thoughts but that would take at least a whole article that I assume few would find interesting.
However, because I have been in the room (rarely at the actual table) when important decisions are made, I believe that full service to the economy is a poor long-term planning strategy for individuals and for nations as a strategy for governance. Rather than go into the details I will speak through analogies. I believe it is bad for individuals because the economy is like a like an attractive waitress flirting with you at a restaurant. I believe it is bad as a governance strategy for nations, because just as Eisenhower claimed to believe that there were no atheists in the foxholes* during the war, it is my belief that there were no "economists" in the recruiter's office on December 8, 1941.
Rant over. Everyone have a great day!
* I am aware that Eisenhower was not the originator of the statement or sentiment.
"I could detail my own thoughts but that would take at least a whole article that I assume few would find interesting."
nah id read that
you compose your thoughts well
Were it my business, I'd hire Americans on principle because they're my countrymen, and would not even consider a foreigner for any role in my company.
i think if you were to break it down to the brass tacks there really arent that many jobs in which you actually need someone from somewhere else because the person doesnt exist in north america
Uncle Sam already has his thumb on the labor market by allowing the exploitation of illegal immigrant labor to drive down labor costs for the ruling class. I never suggested a need to protect citizens from legal immigrants working under the same labor laws as citizens. What I want is a sane and enforced immigration law that has every worker competing under the same rules.
The entitlement is to compete with workers operating under the same rules, not workers in violation of immigration law who gain an advantage by forfeiting otherwise legally required workplace protections (wage, safety, etc).
If we're talking about extraordinary arrogance, I'd be inclined to look a little harder at the extraordinary arrogance of holding that just because a corporation wants cheaper labor that the citizens who live nearby have to endure their own government flying in people from wherever on the planet with boatloads of government assistance to sustain them, watch the limited resources already in their own communities get redirected away from their own children and their neighbors to the newcomers that only the corporate masters are excited to see, and to then hold that anyone being even slightly upset about all this happening without so much as a by-your-leave in what is supposed to be a representative democracy must be some kind of moral reprobate.
I would note that the people of Martha's Vineyard, when presented with a mere 50 migrants, mobilized the National Guard to remove them *at gunpoint*, but the citizens of Springfield, Ohio don't have that kind of wealth and power so I guess they don't get a say. I'm sure any of those migrants would have been willing to give a good honest go on any of the jobs possessed by the people who own those mansions for a much lower wage. Why not give them the shot?
You're certainly free to argue for corporate profit interest uber alles in society and hold that no spec of soil belongs to anyone save he who will work the lowest possible wage to get it, but when submitting that take to the marketplace of ideas don't be shocked when a large percentage of the population tells you to go fuck yourself.
And consider yourself to be very lucky if that large percentage ONLY tells you to go fuck yourself, and nothing further.
Corporations have no right to cheap labor, or to impoverish the American heartland because they can get virtual slave labor from the Global South to make their cheap junk.
I suspect you'd be singing a different tune if you thought that the third world workers you want to import had any hope of competing with you for your own job. The same goes with "journalists" like the dolt Jack mentioned.
If the people coming over our borders could immediately practice law or work in FIRE, it would be a trickle.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GG0mm4-7TgU
The only reason Americans won't do certain jobs is because American companies don't want to pay American wages for the work.
I'll be HAPPY to drive a garbage truck or build McMansions for $150,000 a year. Frankly, that sounds more satisfying than my you-need-a-bachelor's-degree-doesn't-matter-in-what professional white-collar job.
1. Immigration needs to be capped and controlled. That chart needs to be at the center of every discussion around immigration. A country, place, company or organization won’t retain its special sauce with that level of new entrants.
2. I’m not sure if there’s a mathematical answer to both: increase wages enough to entice more people off the couch to work menial jobs AND not increase inflation to the point that their net lifestyle changes in a meaningful way vs today.
$40k a year today won’t by the American dream, so why take a shit job for it? But if all of those $40k shit jobs become $70k shit jobs, the cost of the widget or hamburger they are making will go up too. The numbers are bigger but the problem is the same.
Yes, there’s a reallocation of profit needed between capital and labor, but not sure that there’s enough. Call up our French cousins to unretire the guillotine; redistribution of Bezos’s entire net worth would give each American around $600.
I don’t know what the answer is, but know most of the sound bite solutions from both sides are BS.
From what I've been able to figure, $150,000 is the LEAST you have to make in America these days to get ahead.
Doesn't matter where in the country.
150k is steep
"to get ahead"
what exactly does this mean
That's about where your finances are no longer sidelined by life's random bullshit.
gotcha
thanks
As a single guy, my number was significantly lower. As a married man, 150k seems right if not slightly low for household income.
As a single guy, it could probably be a lot lower. I could get y living in a glorified shed and drive a 20 year old vehicle.
Married with kids? Not even close. At least 150k. There is lifestyle creep that comes with higher salaries. With kids involved, It isn't just jealousy or keeping up with the neighbors or living beyond your means because you don't know better. You are going to target communities with good schools and low crime (read - expensive), spend on better child care solutions, more activities, more reliable and safer transportation, etc.
I have no idea how anyone supports a family on less than 150 these days. I'm flying solo on half that, don't spend lavishly unless you count sushi and I'm always just waiting for payday.
You dont eat sushi. I had a stay at home wife at 105k a year. It was tight. I did buy my house pre covid so my mortgage is cheap.
Define “getting ahead.” I live in a moderately high cost of living area and know quite a few households with incomes in the $150-200k range that are struggling economically.
When they are staring down 65 years of age, with maybe $250k in a 401k, two car payments, co-signed student debt for kids, and a house that was treated like an ATM, are they really ahead vs prior generations?
Well ;
try not using your most important investment like an ATM . this seems obvious to me but not to the many I know who've lost their homes due to this sort of foolishness .
-Nate
Correct, sir!
I guess it depends on age, but I would hope someone making $150k would be retiring with at least 10x that.
How? 150k doesn't go that far in places that have jobs.
10% contribution with a decent employer match, 3% annual raises, and 30 years of work will easily get you there. This is calculated based upon a 5% return rate.
A 30 year old making that today could probably dump 10% into one of those pre-packaged 2054 target date funds and walk away with a few million to retire on. What a few million will ACTUALLY be worth in 30 years is another story entirely.
Disclaimer: I don’t know shit about finance, all I did was punch numbers into a calculator.
You wound me. I've carried the same (high) wage since January 2020 across three employers now. Of the nine companies I've worked for since 2004, only three had a 401k match. No match at $CURRENT_EMPLOYER. I did not receive a raise with my positive performance review around my one-year anniversary. I did receive a $70 Gerber multitool for all the Autumn '23 overtime and whip cracking I did to launch this company's first new product in 7 years. But the co-founder CTO tries to keep me on the hook by dropping hints that maybe, just maybe, if I keep being by far the most successful middle manager they've ever hired... I might eventually be bumped to the next salary tier without getting a change in title or any official nod to increased responsibilities. Lucky me!
You would be surprised at the number of highly paid people who do not make prudent financial decisions or have no plan for their future. People love to spend on the present and ignore the future. They also assume that if they are in a good position, the good position will go on forever.
All of those stunning statistics we read about how little Americans have saved start with ignoring the future. Even if you lived in a wealthy neighborhood full of nice houses, you would be stunned at the poor balance sheets of your neighbors. Appearances are very deceiving.
My buddy makes 190k and he's struggling. He's struggling cause he's stupid with money. Outside of a few cities, 200k is still a lot of money. I guess I can see it being tight if it's 200k household income with 3 kids in daycare that costs 50k
Out here 40 miles from the city 200k goes a long way, even with 3 kids.
It's 16k a month. I can live on 16k a month.
! $150,000.00 ! .
My tiny little mind is close to exploding .
-Nate
$150 is the $100 of the late 90s/early 00s.
Yes, well ;
I doubt I'll ever see $70,000.00 much less $150,000.00 .
Who knows ? I still buy the odd lottery ticket, someone's got to win, right ? .
I'd rather be contended than rich anyway .
-Nate
they aren't mutually exclusive!
Hopefully I'll get a chance to find out .
Sadly most of the rich folks I know are definitely not happy nor contented .
-Nate
$150k is the new $50k. hell, in 2015 i was paying $1000 for rent, downtown in a nice small city in the northeast, with a $288 a month WRX lease, making $48k a year. now its $2200 a month, $500 a month, etc.
_THIS_ I why I was so adamant about buying a piece of property, didn't matter if it was nice or whatnot, just a place I could afford to live in and not get priced out of in the future .
-Nate
yes, but in my area at least, that takes hundreds of thousands of dollars to get set up. we were fortunate to do so, but not many are sadly.
"Dad, $50k doesn't get you to first base in the Big Apple!" -- Charlie Sheen, in Wall Street
Now that's $250k, which doesn't get you to first base in the Big Apple. I don't see how you could have two children and an apartment to house them on $250k.
Hell, in Columbus, Ohio it will cost you $2500 a month to live somewhere that doesn't strongly resemble Jo-Motherfuckin'-hannesburg.
I read a good poast elsewhere talking about how two decades ago, you talked about portions of cities being expensive (IE, beverly hills is expensive, UES is expensive, on the water in Greenwich is expensive), then about a decade ago it moved to major cities (new york city is expensive, LA is expensive, miami is expensive) and now we are at whole states and tier 2 cities (new york state is expensive, florida is expensive, charlotte is expensive, portland is expensive). where we go from here is anyone's guess.
anecdotally, i had a buddy at a tier 3 bank on the sales & trading side who was taking down approx. $400-500k for 5-6 years. his girlfriend (now wife) got used to the lifestyle, quit her job, they moved to a nicer apt in UES, she had a second kid.... and then poof, the bank merged with another, he had to try out for his position, and oh, the salary is now $275k. no more luxury vacations, no more prada bags, wife is back to part time work (and probably evaluating her options)...
Pre vs post covid is such a deal changer. My mortgage is 1200 a month including property taxes. It was 1800 before I refinanced from 15 to 30 at 2.5%. Now, my house is small but it's perfectly livable (my wife disagrees)
"$40k a year today won’t by the American dream, so why take a shit job for it?"
i think the more that number goes up the more people will check out of the system because if working multiple jobs and burning yourself out only just barely gets you by in life then whats the point so just do your own thing however you can i suppose
It makes crime more attractive. Certainly no one has noticed an uptick in "quality of life" crime.
I should get back in line... The economy is great! Crime is at an all time low!
The safest and most secure EVERYTANG in HERSTORY!
“And Commie-la is gonna pay all my BEE-lls!” Paraphrasing what a woman of color stated about Bereft Insane Osama to a network news camera.
Some of that demographic is starting to get wise to that lie! 👍
RE: #2. One of my friends was just over and complained about this very thing. Through a combination of cowardice and laziness, he’s pigeonholed himself into a “career” as an auto parts counter guy. In 2021, he hopped jobs and got an additional $6 per hour. He and his wife probably make close to $100k together and they’re struggling more than they were 4-5 years ago. In a way, I can understand why people in this type of situation would want to check out.
"Through a combination of cowardice and laziness, he’s pigeonholed himself into a “career” as an auto parts counter guy"
i am terrified of this and want to avoid that outcome because of how final it seems
Counterpoint: My dad. Started in auto parts, sold building materials and commercial truck tires, then back to auto parts. Most of this was B2B sales. Over the years, he’s bounced around different jobs and built his knowledge base to include tools and equipment, HD truck parts, etc. The guy can sell you a $50 set of brake pads and turn around to sell the next guy a $40k ADAS alignment rack.
My friend, on the other hand, lacks those skills. More importantly, he’s too afraid to upset the apple cart and gain experience elsewhere. I have a hard time feeling bad for our friends who complain about their jobs but don’t take action. A few of these guys have never had a job where they didn’t have a friend give them a reference. It’s pathetic. They’d rather get zero raise per year and hate their lives vs. face rejection in the job market. I guess it may be different when you’re living paycheck to paycheck, I honestly don’t know.
I had this discussion with my best friend the other day. He’s a dentist and his wife a pharmacist. We both agreed that we had a hard time feeling bad for auto parts guy and some of our other friends when they complain like this. All of us went to the same school and were of similar means.
A few went to college and did well for themselves. Others got decent jobs and dropped out. The majority had dead-end jobs, some better than others.
My friend and I saw the writing on the wall and we both went back to school in our mid-20s. I finally finished undergrad and got my Master’s. He and his wife became doctors. Yeah I had a good time partying, but also had to I put my life on hold for four years where I should’ve been getting married and having children. It really grinds my gears to hear them incessantly complain and/or imply that I have it easy.
that last paragraph hit hard for me as ive come to the same conclusion unfortunately a few years later as im planning to start university next september but i try to tell myself that its better late than never
if you only have one life you should probably live it
Its never too late. Best wishes with uni. Hopefully you don’t have to borrow too much to get thru it.
thank you kindly
canadian university is cheap with the full 4 years costing about 55k if i dont get any assistance from the govt whatsoever and what loans i can get are pretty much interest free
If I may ask, what are you going for? At the very least, it sounds like you’re approaching this with the right attitude. I went in treating it like a job and walked away happy. There was definitely fun to be had, but my goal was to walk away with a career so my classes came first.
At the time, I was roommates when my other best friend. He went into it expecting something between Animal House and Van Wilder, wish a side of finding a wife. Despite forcing it at every opportunity, he accomplished none of that. If anything, I got closer to that goal than he did. He had such a miserable time that we ended up not talking to each other over it.
im going to see if i can get into mechanical engineering
i had a buddy that did it right out of highschool and it was basically 14hr days for 4 years straight so thats what im going to attempt to emulate because i really havent got the time to waste
i got unbeliveably lucky with a few people close to me stating that if i had a degree they could get me in somewhere in the us so id like to capitalize on that opportunity while it still exists
You’re too young to be telling yourself that you are late in this endeavor. You’re building a skill set, of which university and what you learn there will be more skills in your set. Then when you’re done with university, you will gain more skills with different jobs. At some point you will have a skill set that few others will have, which is the goal. Hopefully happiness and increased earning power will follow.
thanks man i appreciate it
One of my greatest regrets, in a life full of them, is having gone to college.
I’m late to the party, but that’s a good thing. Most will have moved on to the next post. I don’t want to draw attention to myself; I want to address this directly to you. I graduated with a diploma (not a degree) because my school didn’t offer one in my field, and entered the workforce. Eventually it did offer a degree and I studied part-time ‘til I got it. I graduated at 34 years old. I never regretted the effort for one second. I was already established, but my subsequent career was completely different because of that piece of paper (which I proudly framed). Because, when it comes right down to it, about 20% of Americans have degrees. You will be competing with them for jobs, obviously, but also for assignments, promotions etc. and this document will be your edge, everything else being equal. So, allow me to add my encouraging voice to the rest. By all means, get your degree, no matter what. It will be worth it. It was for me.
As an addendum, my brother did not get a degree; he got a diploma. He spent his career as a technologist, reporting to engineers. He did the engineering work, but could not sign the documents; the engineers had to. No value judgement is implied; this career path worked for him. It would not have, for me. And that’s probably more than you want to read.
i do read every response and doubly so when its direct explicitly at me
i very much appreciate your words of encouragement and experiences so thank you for that
You have to be born to do sales. The reason the good salesmen are good is because selling is as easy as breathing to them.
Still, $100K per year for two people, net, isn’t bad, especially if you just watch things a bit. (As a single person, I do just fine on around $60K. I can still afford a nice, top-of-the-line car every six to seven years, my condo is paid for, and I’ve got a decent stash in the bank.) Obviously, any dependents are going to add up..quickly!
And if you don’t have any sort of financial discipline, especially in this inflation, you’re going to be hurting, big-time! For instance, I have a strict rule of three years between cell phones! No ifs, ands, or buts! And a computer, usually a laptop: 7 years! Loving my iPhone 15 Pro that I obtained in March, no need to go to the 16 Pro..there’s not enough compelling features to be worth the cost of upgrading! And except for ONE period when I purchased a computer, all credit cards are paid! In full! Every month!
[Edit:] I should have said that this is in the Toledo, OH area, where the cost of living is very low, and the highest price of a Big Mac is probably around $6! Your mileage may vary in other places.
UBI may be the best - not “good,” but best - solution to this problem.
You have argued for essentially the same thing.
Radley Balko’s “Rise of the Warrior Cop” was a pretty good read, I learned a bit, didn’t walk away as a fanboi of Balko but he’s capable of decent journalship/scholarism.
*was* capable of decent journalism
Everybody's an idiot sometimes. God knows I've written some idiotic stuff. Probably doing it RIGHT NOW.
sounds like sundays post is going to be a banger
And this is where I'd put a banging Sunday thread... IF I HAD ONE!
the sound youre hearing is my foot tapping on the floor in very mild annoyance
I read that one and it did a great job of getting into the psyche of why police violence occurs. I wrote a summary paper based on a a few of the studies and it turned out really well in describing why cops act the way they do.
My guess is that some of those people were bullied in school, and want to make up for it!
Not nice for the poor schmuck who just got pulled over for 83 in a 65 who’s got no idea of those previous events as he’s getting physically yanked from his vehicle over the simple misdemeanor violation!.
For some yes. Most of it is an ineffective justice system that creates an attitude of street justice.