So I am not the only one who holds this belief. My wife always gets mad at me when the clerks at the store forget to disable the anti theft tags and I set off the alarm and just keep walking. I can only imagine her rage if I were to wear an anti TSA shirt to the airport.
I am in a similar position except I like to abuse the credit cards and pay them off every month. When you run all of your household expenses through the card you can build up some really nice rewards in a year. I never carry a balance from month to month and have plenty in savings to cover an extended string of bad times so why not run stuff through the credit cards. Also if you are paying for a tow truck every 2 years you must be driving some shitty vehicles that you paid $15k for. I have only had to get a tow once and that was when a $350 beater ('88 Ford Bronco II with just over 250,000 miles on it) I was driving gave out last year. My daily driver that I bought used cost $10k and that was almost 6 years ago and since then I have put almost another 145,000 miles on it and it has never left me stranded even though it has 245,000 miles on it.
I have done it. Actually I put it on my credit card (go go cash back) and then paid it off the next month using my debit card. You do need to let you financial institutions know in advance that you will be doing this as they usually have lower daily limits.
True but if you have needs outside of the norm building a machine with windows is still a cost effective method, especially if you have a need out of the norm. For example I am going to be building a new machine here in the near future to replace the outdated Athalon64 x2 box I am running at home. It is getting really slow and a bit flaky after many years of use and my needs have grown beyond what it is capable of. As I don't need a massively faster processor like the new i7 something like a new middle of the road i5 would do and I could get a prebuilt system. The problem is that I need a box with a lot of ram for a desktop (24GB should do but 32 would be ideal) and very few prebuilt systems offer that much or even the ability to add that much without jumping up to some high end gaming rig that starts at $3200. So what suites my needs is a modest processor, modest graphics, a couple of 500GB spinning disk HDDs, and a ton of ram. Since my wife will be using it windows is needed other wise I would just run in Linux all the time. This allows me to get what both my wife and I want and need at a price only marginally more (within a few tens of dollars) than prebuilt machine that has everything other than needed memory. As an added bonus it appears that I will be getting better quality parts all around when compared to what comes with prebuilt machines.
Let us not forget about the first company to ever break the $1 trillion mark. That was the Chinese oil company PetroChina which did it on November 06, 2007 (I think that is the correct date it doesn't specify in the article so I used the date line). The value has since pulled back quite a bit to reasonable levels and most of the shares were still held by the government but it was the first company to hit the trillion dollar mark.
I am one of those people would would keep working if they won the lottery but then I really like my job, but then I sure as hell wouldn't be full time any more. I would probably work 2 or 3 days a week if possible, or I might up and decide to change careers and go work for a local company the restores and repairs old British cars. Also I might decide to take a run a being a professional cartographer creating map books, or professional hunting guide, or one of my many hobbies that wouldn't pay all that well but would be enjoyable if I didn't have to worry about money. For me a job provides focus and that would be a good thing otherwise I probably wouldn't finish anything.
Go look out your window. Check out the gas prices. Check around the block. Check out 10 different stations from different gas companies. What do you notice. How's that competition working for you? You guys keep spouting this stuff, and its like your talking in your sleep.
325D.01 DEFINITIONS
Subd. 5. Cost.
The term "cost", as applied to the wholesale or retail vendor, means:
(1) the actual current delivered invoice or replacement cost, whichever is lower, without deducting customary cash discounts, plus any excise or sales taxes imposed on such commodity, goods, wares or merchandise subsequent to the purchase thereof and prior to the resale thereof, plus the cost of doing business at that location by the vendor;
(2) where a manufacturer publishes a list price and discounts, in determining such "cost" the manufacturer's published list price then currently in effect, less the published trade discount but without deducting the customary cash discount, plus any excise or sales taxes imposed on such commodity, goods, wares or merchandise subsequent to the purchase thereof and prior to the resale thereof, plus the cost of doing business by the vendor shall be prima facie evidence of "cost";
(3) for purposes of gasoline offered for sale by way of posted price or indicating meter by a retailer, at a retail location where gasoline is dispensed into passenger automobiles and trucks by the consumer, "cost" means the average terminal price on the day, at the terminal from which the most recent supply of gasoline delivered to the retail location was acquired, plus all applicable state and federal excise taxes and fees, plus the lesser of six percent or eight cents.
My experience is that I get a reply to maybe 25% of the letters I write to my various elected representatives. That includes both the ones to the state and national government. By far the best ones were my reps to the state house and state senate where they were very likely to get back to me. My US congressman has gotten back to me a few times but it was with a form letter, and I have only gotten one response from any of my US senators which was a rather patronizing response from Norm Colman basically stating that I didn't understand the issue.
Unfortunately I didn't but that is because no one in the primary really knew anything about technology. Most of them knew how to use facebook, twitter, and e-mail but don't really understand how things work behind the scenes. My solution was to vote for the candidate I know (he is currently my representative to the State House) and have talked with multiple times as he is running for the US senate seat. With elected representatives you can't just sent the the RFC and expect them to be able to understand it but instead you must actually explain it to them in simple terms as most of them have the same technological knowledge as your grandmother.
Depends on the school. I don't know if there are any that try to teach religion as fact (never had one of those) but was exposed facts about various religions in some of my humanities and history classes. I am sure that there are also "world religion" classes that are basically a survey of various major religions from around the world at various times. I don't think any has an issue with teaching the facts about a religion in any of the courses I mentioned. It wouldn't surprise me if there were classes in some schools that did teach religion as fact given what I have seen from some of my college class mates.
It also works well as a history or humanities course. Understanding the religion of a people does help understand that times and events which they lived through, as well as being highly influential on their art, architecture, and literature. I got exposed in my high school humanities courses as well as my college intro to world history class.
Sounds like your humanities class was similar to the set that I took. Mine was 3 courses but focused on European humanities with a course on the ancient, medieval, and modern. The religions that were covered briefly were the some northern European neolithic beliefs, Mesopotamian gods and beliefs, Greek and Roman gods and beliefs, Jewish beliefs, christian beliefs, Islamic beliefs, northern European pagan beliefs, Norse beliefs. There was a fair amount of history, as well as tons of art, architecture, and literature. It does put things in perspective and on the whole was an awesome set of courses that really were college level instead of being they typical high school course. The one thing I missed doing was going on the Europe trip with that teacher (students who were in his European history course or Humanities courses were allowed to go) over the summer as my family couldn't afford it and I was trying to save my money for college. He would take you to see all the various sights but would be able to explain all the details and facts about what you were looking at. There are very few people with the depth and breadth of knowledge that he has that I have met.
I know you were going for funny but it is sadly informative. This is way more common than it should be but is driven by higher ups who think they know better.
The main key there is slow steady savings it worked in the past and seems to be working fairly well now for me. My father's parents were a prime example of this. Both grew up during the depression on farms and put themselves through school. My grandfather got a degree in mathematics while my grandmother got one in chemistry. After graduating my grandmother got a job working for DOW chemical and during WWII worked at a munitions plant. My grandfather meanwhile went and joined the Marines as an officer and went off to fight in the Pacific. After the war is when they met and got married. My grandmother continued to work as a chemist while my grandfather went into teaching and eventually made it to being a district superintendent and then worked for the Minnesota department of education. My grandmother was the one who made the bulk of the income but they didn't buy lots of fancy stuff and saved. By the time they both retired they were multimillionaires and had a good enjoyable retirement doing things they wanted to like traveling to all sorts of exotic places. Now with my grandfather passed on my grandmother has decided to sell the house and and move to a retirement community condo as she can't really manage the upkeep on the house and doesn't need a 3 bedroom 3 bath 1800 sq. ft. house. She is still very active but is slowing down but that is expected when you are 90.
I know some of my relatives are in desperate need of their share of the inheritance but then they they are spenders and have to have every toy, gadget, thing to keep up with everyone else. My father is getting better as he nears retirement but it is going to be tough for him, my mother and step father are basically screwed and they just did a cash out refi on their house and got a brand new 30 year mortgage even though they only had about 8 years left to pay on it. They took out as much as they could so now their mortgage is for 80% of their home's value again and they have staved off the day of reckoning for a few years but it will come. Even my sister doesn't get it and spends money like it is going out of style, always has to have the newest shiniest thing and get new vehicles when there is still money to be paid on the previous ones' loans. On the other hand my wife and I save well over 25% of our income, just refinanced our house to a 15 year mortgage (cutting 8 years of payments off yet costing only $12 more a month) and drive paid for good condition used vehicles until they don't run anymore (my wife has a 12 year old car and I have a 15 year old car). Every year except '08 our net worth increased, and even in 08 on only went down about 2%. Now that things aren't in a massive downward spiral all the buying we did in '08 has paid off in spades and we now have doubled our investment assets. When we first met with our financial planner we were asked when do you want to retire and I jokingly said 50. He came back to us after running the numbers and such and said we could do it at age 50 but it might be tight but if we waited until 55 then it would basically be a sure thing. My wife and I plan on working longer than that (who really knows now since we are in our early 30s) but are sticking to saving like we are going to retire at 55. The other nice thing is we will have our house paid off before our oldest starts college and that will free up money to help pay for that.
That puts it out of my price range I spent about $400 on my printer, but then you went and jumped up to a more pro level printer like my father in law did. Does your color laser do roll feed as that was the main benefit of my father-in-law's printer when he got it 7 years ago?
It's not like eliminating all military spending would magically produce a $500+ billion surplus each year. Yes it would get us much closer to a balanced budget for a few years but there are also major structural issues with Social Security (you can find this in section II Overview pages 2-5) now projected to take in less in taxes that it distributes (in 2022 the trust fund will start to decrease as the interest no longer makes up difference) indefinitely. In 2033 it will be unable to meet the all current obligations. There are also similar issues with Medicare and Medicaid but those are going to be happening sooner.
Now back to real world were things have consequences and we are basically screwed. From what I have read in the past on this subject we are fully capable of digging our selves out of this hole as 13 years ago we were running a budget surplus at the federal level and actually retiring what debt could be. The problem is that everyone wants to keep their government benefit, tax break, subsidy, etc and we have politicians that know that cutting someone's benefit or raising someone's taxes is political suicide so it is just easier to put off the hard decisions until later. That way it is some other congress critter's problem when the shit really hits the fan. In the '90s with Clinton in the White House and Republicans in charge in the house and the senate it was easy with the economy booming the necessary changes were being made and people didn't feel it. Now in a bad economy these changes would be devastating and people might have to break out the pitch forks and torches which no elected official wants.
As wonderful as that sounds (I would actually love it) it can't happen as we have this thing called the first amendment which protects all speech, especially political speech. Toss in the recent citizens united ruling, there must have been a better way to decide that than what we got that would have allowed the individual to release their stupid move but not open the flood gates, that basically stated that money is speech and we are screwed. The best option we have now would be mandated equal free access for all candidates as part of maintaining your FCC licence and anything beyond that the party, candidate would have to pay for.
Don't give away those secrets. About a year and ha half a go I finally convinced my wife that we didn't need an inkjet printer as all the photo printing we did was done at Target, or at her father's house for really large stuff (he has one of the pro level ink jets for the art he does) so why not get a color laser for the few things in color we needed to print in color and all the black and white stuff. Her jaw dropped at the initial price (about 4x the cost of a good inkjet), but then we are still on the starter toner cartridges that don't dry out. Early next year we will break even.
Slashdot Mirror
So I am not the only one who holds this belief. My wife always gets mad at me when the clerks at the store forget to disable the anti theft tags and I set off the alarm and just keep walking. I can only imagine her rage if I were to wear an anti TSA shirt to the airport.
I am in a similar position except I like to abuse the credit cards and pay them off every month. When you run all of your household expenses through the card you can build up some really nice rewards in a year. I never carry a balance from month to month and have plenty in savings to cover an extended string of bad times so why not run stuff through the credit cards. Also if you are paying for a tow truck every 2 years you must be driving some shitty vehicles that you paid $15k for. I have only had to get a tow once and that was when a $350 beater ('88 Ford Bronco II with just over 250,000 miles on it) I was driving gave out last year. My daily driver that I bought used cost $10k and that was almost 6 years ago and since then I have put almost another 145,000 miles on it and it has never left me stranded even though it has 245,000 miles on it.
I have done it. Actually I put it on my credit card (go go cash back) and then paid it off the next month using my debit card. You do need to let you financial institutions know in advance that you will be doing this as they usually have lower daily limits.
True but if you have needs outside of the norm building a machine with windows is still a cost effective method, especially if you have a need out of the norm. For example I am going to be building a new machine here in the near future to replace the outdated Athalon64 x2 box I am running at home. It is getting really slow and a bit flaky after many years of use and my needs have grown beyond what it is capable of. As I don't need a massively faster processor like the new i7 something like a new middle of the road i5 would do and I could get a prebuilt system. The problem is that I need a box with a lot of ram for a desktop (24GB should do but 32 would be ideal) and very few prebuilt systems offer that much or even the ability to add that much without jumping up to some high end gaming rig that starts at $3200. So what suites my needs is a modest processor, modest graphics, a couple of 500GB spinning disk HDDs, and a ton of ram. Since my wife will be using it windows is needed other wise I would just run in Linux all the time. This allows me to get what both my wife and I want and need at a price only marginally more (within a few tens of dollars) than prebuilt machine that has everything other than needed memory. As an added bonus it appears that I will be getting better quality parts all around when compared to what comes with prebuilt machines.
Let us not forget about the first company to ever break the $1 trillion mark. That was the Chinese oil company PetroChina which did it on November 06, 2007 (I think that is the correct date it doesn't specify in the article so I used the date line). The value has since pulled back quite a bit to reasonable levels and most of the shares were still held by the government but it was the first company to hit the trillion dollar mark.
"You could be a corpse in the corner and I would still do my job."
Sounds like you know my former manager.
I am one of those people would would keep working if they won the lottery but then I really like my job, but then I sure as hell wouldn't be full time any more. I would probably work 2 or 3 days a week if possible, or I might up and decide to change careers and go work for a local company the restores and repairs old British cars. Also I might decide to take a run a being a professional cartographer creating map books, or professional hunting guide, or one of my many hobbies that wouldn't pay all that well but would be enjoyable if I didn't have to worry about money. For me a job provides focus and that would be a good thing otherwise I probably wouldn't finish anything.
Go look out your window. Check out the gas prices. Check around the block. Check out 10 different stations from different gas companies. What do you notice. How's that competition working for you? You guys keep spouting this stuff, and its like your talking in your sleep.
I did but in my state we have a law that mandates the minimum price for which gasoline can be sold:
325D.01 DEFINITIONS
Subd. 5. Cost. The term "cost", as applied to the wholesale or retail vendor, means:
(1) the actual current delivered invoice or replacement cost, whichever is lower, without deducting customary cash discounts, plus any excise or sales taxes imposed on such commodity, goods, wares or merchandise subsequent to the purchase thereof and prior to the resale thereof, plus the cost of doing business at that location by the vendor;
(2) where a manufacturer publishes a list price and discounts, in determining such "cost" the manufacturer's published list price then currently in effect, less the published trade discount but without deducting the customary cash discount, plus any excise or sales taxes imposed on such commodity, goods, wares or merchandise subsequent to the purchase thereof and prior to the resale thereof, plus the cost of doing business by the vendor shall be prima facie evidence of "cost";
(3) for purposes of gasoline offered for sale by way of posted price or indicating meter by a retailer, at a retail location where gasoline is dispensed into passenger automobiles and trucks by the consumer, "cost" means the average terminal price on the day, at the terminal from which the most recent supply of gasoline delivered to the retail location was acquired, plus all applicable state and federal excise taxes and fees, plus the lesser of six percent or eight cents.
My experience is that I get a reply to maybe 25% of the letters I write to my various elected representatives. That includes both the ones to the state and national government. By far the best ones were my reps to the state house and state senate where they were very likely to get back to me. My US congressman has gotten back to me a few times but it was with a form letter, and I have only gotten one response from any of my US senators which was a rather patronizing response from Norm Colman basically stating that I didn't understand the issue.
Unfortunately I didn't but that is because no one in the primary really knew anything about technology. Most of them knew how to use facebook, twitter, and e-mail but don't really understand how things work behind the scenes. My solution was to vote for the candidate I know (he is currently my representative to the State House) and have talked with multiple times as he is running for the US senate seat. With elected representatives you can't just sent the the RFC and expect them to be able to understand it but instead you must actually explain it to them in simple terms as most of them have the same technological knowledge as your grandmother.
Depends on the school. I don't know if there are any that try to teach religion as fact (never had one of those) but was exposed facts about various religions in some of my humanities and history classes. I am sure that there are also "world religion" classes that are basically a survey of various major religions from around the world at various times. I don't think any has an issue with teaching the facts about a religion in any of the courses I mentioned. It wouldn't surprise me if there were classes in some schools that did teach religion as fact given what I have seen from some of my college class mates.
It also works well as a history or humanities course. Understanding the religion of a people does help understand that times and events which they lived through, as well as being highly influential on their art, architecture, and literature. I got exposed in my high school humanities courses as well as my college intro to world history class.
Sounds like your humanities class was similar to the set that I took. Mine was 3 courses but focused on European humanities with a course on the ancient, medieval, and modern. The religions that were covered briefly were the some northern European neolithic beliefs, Mesopotamian gods and beliefs, Greek and Roman gods and beliefs, Jewish beliefs, christian beliefs, Islamic beliefs, northern European pagan beliefs, Norse beliefs. There was a fair amount of history, as well as tons of art, architecture, and literature. It does put things in perspective and on the whole was an awesome set of courses that really were college level instead of being they typical high school course. The one thing I missed doing was going on the Europe trip with that teacher (students who were in his European history course or Humanities courses were allowed to go) over the summer as my family couldn't afford it and I was trying to save my money for college. He would take you to see all the various sights but would be able to explain all the details and facts about what you were looking at. There are very few people with the depth and breadth of knowledge that he has that I have met.
Sounds to me like Kentucky is trying to enshrine that right in law for all of its citizens.
I know you were going for funny but it is sadly informative. This is way more common than it should be but is driven by higher ups who think they know better.
I think we now know Yoda's /. user name name though.
Why can't I even have an opportunity to take pictures like that.
The main key there is slow steady savings it worked in the past and seems to be working fairly well now for me. My father's parents were a prime example of this. Both grew up during the depression on farms and put themselves through school. My grandfather got a degree in mathematics while my grandmother got one in chemistry. After graduating my grandmother got a job working for DOW chemical and during WWII worked at a munitions plant. My grandfather meanwhile went and joined the Marines as an officer and went off to fight in the Pacific. After the war is when they met and got married. My grandmother continued to work as a chemist while my grandfather went into teaching and eventually made it to being a district superintendent and then worked for the Minnesota department of education. My grandmother was the one who made the bulk of the income but they didn't buy lots of fancy stuff and saved. By the time they both retired they were multimillionaires and had a good enjoyable retirement doing things they wanted to like traveling to all sorts of exotic places. Now with my grandfather passed on my grandmother has decided to sell the house and and move to a retirement community condo as she can't really manage the upkeep on the house and doesn't need a 3 bedroom 3 bath 1800 sq. ft. house. She is still very active but is slowing down but that is expected when you are 90.
I know some of my relatives are in desperate need of their share of the inheritance but then they they are spenders and have to have every toy, gadget, thing to keep up with everyone else. My father is getting better as he nears retirement but it is going to be tough for him, my mother and step father are basically screwed and they just did a cash out refi on their house and got a brand new 30 year mortgage even though they only had about 8 years left to pay on it. They took out as much as they could so now their mortgage is for 80% of their home's value again and they have staved off the day of reckoning for a few years but it will come. Even my sister doesn't get it and spends money like it is going out of style, always has to have the newest shiniest thing and get new vehicles when there is still money to be paid on the previous ones' loans. On the other hand my wife and I save well over 25% of our income, just refinanced our house to a 15 year mortgage (cutting 8 years of payments off yet costing only $12 more a month) and drive paid for good condition used vehicles until they don't run anymore (my wife has a 12 year old car and I have a 15 year old car). Every year except '08 our net worth increased, and even in 08 on only went down about 2%. Now that things aren't in a massive downward spiral all the buying we did in '08 has paid off in spades and we now have doubled our investment assets. When we first met with our financial planner we were asked when do you want to retire and I jokingly said 50. He came back to us after running the numbers and such and said we could do it at age 50 but it might be tight but if we waited until 55 then it would basically be a sure thing. My wife and I plan on working longer than that (who really knows now since we are in our early 30s) but are sticking to saving like we are going to retire at 55. The other nice thing is we will have our house paid off before our oldest starts college and that will free up money to help pay for that.
That puts it out of my price range I spent about $400 on my printer, but then you went and jumped up to a more pro level printer like my father in law did. Does your color laser do roll feed as that was the main benefit of my father-in-law's printer when he got it 7 years ago?
Let us ignore the fact that if we got rid of the military tomorrow the next day we would probably be overrun by some other country the following day. Also if we ignore all the other things external to military spending (jobs that are needed to support the military, the money military members spend, etc) your numbers still won't produce a balanced budget. There also is the interest on the debt that is still accumulating that will further increase the debt but we can even ignore that and your numbers don't work. For reference see the following:
There is the obligitory XKCD Money chart
The NY Times "Obama’s 2012 Budget Proposal: How $3.7 Trillion is Spent"
The NY Times "Obama’s 2011 Budget Proposal: How It’s Spent"
The NY Times "Four Ways to Slice Obama’s 2013 Budget Proposal" best when viewed by department as it is pretty worthless otherwise
The U.S. National Debt Clock showing the 6 largest budget items.
It's not like eliminating all military spending would magically produce a $500+ billion surplus each year. Yes it would get us much closer to a balanced budget for a few years but there are also major structural issues with Social Security (you can find this in section II Overview pages 2-5) now projected to take in less in taxes that it distributes (in 2022 the trust fund will start to decrease as the interest no longer makes up difference) indefinitely. In 2033 it will be unable to meet the all current obligations. There are also similar issues with Medicare and Medicaid but those are going to be happening sooner.
Now back to real world were things have consequences and we are basically screwed. From what I have read in the past on this subject we are fully capable of digging our selves out of this hole as 13 years ago we were running a budget surplus at the federal level and actually retiring what debt could be. The problem is that everyone wants to keep their government benefit, tax break, subsidy, etc and we have politicians that know that cutting someone's benefit or raising someone's taxes is political suicide so it is just easier to put off the hard decisions until later. That way it is some other congress critter's problem when the shit really hits the fan. In the '90s with Clinton in the White House and Republicans in charge in the house and the senate it was easy with the economy booming the necessary changes were being made and people didn't feel it. Now in a bad economy these changes would be devastating and people might have to break out the pitch forks and torches which no elected official wants.
As wonderful as that sounds (I would actually love it) it can't happen as we have this thing called the first amendment which protects all speech, especially political speech. Toss in the recent citizens united ruling, there must have been a better way to decide that than what we got that would have allowed the individual to release their stupid move but not open the flood gates, that basically stated that money is speech and we are screwed. The best option we have now would be mandated equal free access for all candidates as part of maintaining your FCC licence and anything beyond that the party, candidate would have to pay for.
Don't give away those secrets. About a year and ha half a go I finally convinced my wife that we didn't need an inkjet printer as all the photo printing we did was done at Target, or at her father's house for really large stuff (he has one of the pro level ink jets for the art he does) so why not get a color laser for the few things in color we needed to print in color and all the black and white stuff. Her jaw dropped at the initial price (about 4x the cost of a good inkjet), but then we are still on the starter toner cartridges that don't dry out. Early next year we will break even.
It is China, my guess would be to the nearest Foxconn factory where they will be worked until they can't any more and the problem solves its self.
I thought import ban went back further but was not sure. I knew about the date for the domestic ones and it works as a general valid rule of thumb.