You mean like Whole Lotta Love and almost all of II that is terribly distorted and clipped as hell? Listen at around 3:00 for about 20 seconds for a perfect example
Most larger companies have some type of a multi-step "employee improvement program". It is to put established consistent set of steps in place to document and attempt to improve the performance of someone to help them later if an unlawful termination/discrimination case comes up.
If you just fire someone because they sucked and were late, the argument is Jill and Jim were also late a few times and they sucked too but they were not fired.
I thought people just jumped off some bridge in Seattle?
Who cares about the moderation of a post, just read and/or skim the comments as you have time or desire. True trolls and junk are usually modded down accurately and there may be some +5 and some -1 you feel different about but overall, the moderation here is better than any other place I've ever seen.
We have cages in two different Verizon/Teramark datacenters. In both, roughly half the physical space is Verizon's own internal network operations, the rest is leased out by sq ft and electrical load needs to others. I assumed they built these centers, realized they don't need all of the space for themselves and decided to rent out the rest, maybe that was not the case, who knows.
There is a reason for a salesman and the tactics. To get more money from people. The amount of people they "piss off" is far less then the amount of people that have no idea what they are doing, or honestly do not care about anything other than the monthly payment. The dealers like those people and there are a lot more of them. The people that get pissed off are those that understand the system, know they are getting ripped, don;t fall for the excitement and head games and the dealers will usually not deal with that because for every smart person on the lot looking, there are 10 dumb ones. Most places, if you state you will not need financing, you have no trade in, and just want a bottom line price, will just blow you off. They know there is little to no chance you'll budge so why bother with you? You walking away does not hurt them one bit. Someone right behind you in line will pay a lot more.
The reason I use credit cards instead of debit cards.
1) I do not want charges going directly from the checking account. Although debit cards do contain fraud protection, the money is gone and taken automatically and then I have to start the process of getting it back. Worst case, my checking account gets drained and then checks bounce, my automated payments do not go through, they start pulling funds from my savings account to cover the default etc..
2) Additional features of using a credit card. Rental car insurance coverage (above and beyond your normal auto insurance which typically only pays for the damage to the actual vehicle, not the loss of use the rental car company will charge you for), purchase protection for items lost or stolen in the first 90-120 days, extended warranties, points or dollars back (which can add up to great benefits or cash), accidental death insurance and there are others
Both of those benefits can be had from any number of credit cards that do not have any annual fee or fees at all and if you pay them in full every month by the due date, you pay nothing additional over using a debit card. Make sure you pay them every month. I have automatic billing setup with my bank or the credit card company to pay the full amount due and I've never been late with a single payment in 10+ years.
Every other interest rate fluctuates with the market. Not credit cards. Frankly it's obvious this is a market failure and it's time for some regulation.
Where did you get that information? Many cards I've seen fluctuate and are not fixed rate. They are based on a fixed value of say 7% + the prime rate published in the wall street journal every first Monday of the month or something similar to that. Some cards are just pegged at some really high value like 20%+ or the max allowed. No need to fluctuate when they are already that high.
There was a good(ish) documentary a few years called Maxed out on Debt... if you ignore the annoying drama stuff in the middle, there's some good frank interviews that explain a lot of it. They _want_ people who arn't completely broke but can't afford the credit so they'll keep making minimum payments forever. They want to load you down with more credit than you can afford so you get on that treadmill.
Companies want the most profit, nothing new here. It doesn't matter what they want though. You are under no obligation to only make the minimum payment. You have a choice. You are also responsible to only buy what you are capable of paying for. You are 100% in control of what you can afford to pay each month and what you decide to buy on the CC, not the CC company. Your monthly statement shows a chart that lays out exactly what to expect if you only make the minimum payment.
Would YOU lend money to a random person without be given any history or their ability to pay it? What if you are trying to protect that savings at any cost including not paying for your debt?
When the restrictions for credit worthiness were reduced about 10-12 years ago for people to buy houses, we saw the end result.
Calculating risk uses science and statistics. It is not perfect but the companies handing out money believe it is better than any other method they have.
Advice for you? Get a no annual fee credit card with what ever limit you can get and start to use it and pay it off in full every month by the due date. You will get the convenience of having a credit card with it's perks and pay nothing extra out of pocket because you are paying it off every month.
People are flat out WRONG to think not paying it off every month and maintaining a balance will help their credit score. Your "report" shows balance, payment history and high balance, not a figure for the remaining after payment.
$1250 fill out an app with my credit union and transfer a loan? I literally spent maybe 30 minutes total and did it all online.. For the mortgage vs the equity loan? I spent an hour in the bank and 30 minute round trip getting to and from signing dotted lines to save about $4000 over a 6 year period. Not much thought involved in either.
People have different thresholds of time vs payback.
Hypothetical situation I could have paid cash for my last new car. Instead I opted for the extra $1K cash back by financing through the manufacturer at roughly 5%, then did a refi the next month to my credit union which gave me $250 cash for a 1.75% loan. Then instead of giving up the 30K in cash to pay that, I paid down my home equity loan which was at 3.8%. The home equity loan is technically my "mortgage" because it was cheaper and easier to go that route instead of refi my house with a traditional mortgage loan a few years earlier.
There are many reasons to finance a car. It is typically one of the lowest interest rate loans you can ever get.
In theory, I could have bought a $1K beater car and just put 30K on my home equity loan. I'm with you there. I already have several $1K beaters though. I wanted something newer.
I am a white knuckle flyer but I felt much more relaxed on those military planes as a passenger than I ever did on a commercial plane. Even while facing backwards in some configurations, the large temperature changes and looking at a bunch of random cargo strapped down and no pretty walls and ceiling, just pipes, wires, and the frame of the aircraft and the only windows are on the exit doors. They are much larger inside.
I thought it would be weird but my family and I took a long "space available" to go on vacation on a large US military plane and we sat facing backwards. I didn't notice anything different other than the obvious lean the other way on takeoff. Not many windows either.
Hitachi does it. Printers, power tools, nail guns and nails, aircraft engines, car engine management systems, storage systems, dump trucks, excavators, involved in nuclear power, medical equipment, elevators, air conditioners, washing machines, batteries and many other totally unrelated things.
Imagine if they had a single 1800 number, tech support, and a bundling program.
By a dump truck and an escalator and get a reduced price on a 1PB SAN! Total convergence and bundling that Verizon or ATT could never even dream of!
What I hear a lot in various small businesses is Sirius. Seems like a good deal if music/dancing/night club is not the primary purpose of your business.
I see sodastreams in just about every store and nice huge displays in premium spots in most stores but yet, I know not one person that has one or claims to use it often.
Big picture. A business that keeps all it's data in one data center is at risk. That one data center being in a known hurricane zone makes it worse but using SSD is not the tipping point here that suddenly makes it a risky.
Different situation. Lemon laws are about a breach of the manufacturer's warranty. Individual people are not selling brand new cars but even a used car bought from a private individual still under the factory warranty has lemon law protection. Your case is against the car maker providing you the warranty, not the seller or the dealer. Aside from that, to get to the point to prove it was a lemon, you have to go through an arbitration process.
What world do you live in? People are suing companies for service/quality/loss ALL the time. There is nothing about dealing with a company that automatically gives you recourse. You have to take them to court just like no different than suing a person.
Emissions standards is a federal standard and it is still a federal offense to modify any emission equipment on your car. The problem like you stated comes from the enforcement. Checking emissions was delegated to the individual states and within general guidelines, they check cars. A lot of states have various exceptions like Some less dense populated counties do not check any cars at all Some cars not driven more than a certain mileage per year After the car hits a certain age, usually 20-25+ years Vehicles used primarily for farm use but still used on public roads if being driven for work related to the farming (like going to town to get feed or supplies)
Just because your area does not check your car on a routine basis does not mean you can rip all of the emissions crap off but many people do. Who enforces the federal emissions laws and standards on your car at that point? No one really.
I understand your dilemma though. I live in an area that does have periodic checks but I do get stuck behind some Harleys and old motorcycles that have no emissions equipment and an occasional car that I know that took off their catalytic convertors because I can smell them immediately.
I have Comcast internet without Comcast cable. I can not watch ESPN3. It must come out of the cable TV subscribers bill, not the internet side, or I am paying for it AND can't watch it.
Spend a few hours and browse some of the paid ads and ads that look like real articles about cures and balms from 1850~1915 or so newspapers in a Google newspaper search. I now understand why regulation or at least a standard is now in place that labels some things as "This is an advertisement" and why there are labels on things that state "not medically proven" and such.
One random example here at the bottom of page 1 column 4.
If you look and read random papers you will many more scattered throughout with some wild claims. Ointments that promise to fix just about anything. Aspirin is even in some of those ads promising to fix all kinds of things, it is still around but had many more claims for fixing ailments back then. Left without regulation, people WILL make wild claims to make a buck, that is why we have many of these consumer protection regulations now.
I've slowed down and drive much less aggressive as I've aged. Not because I feel more responsible now or that I was carefree when I was younger. I just don't have the awareness I used to have when I was younger and I am not as comfortable pushing things. It takes me much longer to verify no one is next to me before changing lanes, I used to just whip my head around, scan my mirror and then go, it takes me longer to refocus when I look in my rear view mirror or down at the speedo and back forward again, my vision is not as good as it used. I could take a 300 mile trip at night and remember almost every car I passed or passed me. Scope out areas where police might be like openings in the median or after bridges and down hills. I knew exactly what was around me, approaching, and pulling away at every moment. I was constantly scanning everywhere. I don't do most of that anymore, I just kind of... drive. I don't even use my detectors anymore. Although I still love to take trips and get in the car and go, I am just not "into" driving like I used to be. I'm probably not as "safe" as I used to be but at least I am going relatively slower than I used to.
Slashdot Mirror
You mean like Whole Lotta Love and almost all of II that is terribly distorted and clipped as hell? Listen at around 3:00 for about 20 seconds for a perfect example
Most larger companies have some type of a multi-step "employee improvement program". It is to put established consistent set of steps in place to document and attempt to improve the performance of someone to help them later if an unlawful termination/discrimination case comes up.
If you just fire someone because they sucked and were late, the argument is Jill and Jim were also late a few times and they sucked too but they were not fired.
I thought people just jumped off some bridge in Seattle?
Who cares about the moderation of a post, just read and/or skim the comments as you have time or desire. True trolls and junk are usually modded down accurately and there may be some +5 and some -1 you feel different about but overall, the moderation here is better than any other place I've ever seen.
We have cages in two different Verizon/Teramark datacenters. In both, roughly half the physical space is Verizon's own internal network operations, the rest is leased out by sq ft and electrical load needs to others. I assumed they built these centers, realized they don't need all of the space for themselves and decided to rent out the rest, maybe that was not the case, who knows.
There is a reason for a salesman and the tactics. To get more money from people. The amount of people they "piss off" is far less then the amount of people that have no idea what they are doing, or honestly do not care about anything other than the monthly payment. The dealers like those people and there are a lot more of them. The people that get pissed off are those that understand the system, know they are getting ripped, don;t fall for the excitement and head games and the dealers will usually not deal with that because for every smart person on the lot looking, there are 10 dumb ones. Most places, if you state you will not need financing, you have no trade in, and just want a bottom line price, will just blow you off. They know there is little to no chance you'll budge so why bother with you? You walking away does not hurt them one bit. Someone right behind you in line will pay a lot more.
The reason I use credit cards instead of debit cards.
1) I do not want charges going directly from the checking account. Although debit cards do contain fraud protection, the money is gone and taken automatically and then I have to start the process of getting it back. Worst case, my checking account gets drained and then checks bounce, my automated payments do not go through, they start pulling funds from my savings account to cover the default etc..
2) Additional features of using a credit card. Rental car insurance coverage (above and beyond your normal auto insurance which typically only pays for the damage to the actual vehicle, not the loss of use the rental car company will charge you for), purchase protection for items lost or stolen in the first 90-120 days, extended warranties, points or dollars back (which can add up to great benefits or cash), accidental death insurance and there are others
Both of those benefits can be had from any number of credit cards that do not have any annual fee or fees at all and if you pay them in full every month by the due date, you pay nothing additional over using a debit card. Make sure you pay them every month. I have automatic billing setup with my bank or the credit card company to pay the full amount due and I've never been late with a single payment in 10+ years.
Every other interest rate fluctuates with the market. Not credit cards. Frankly it's obvious this is a market failure and it's time for some regulation.
Where did you get that information? Many cards I've seen fluctuate and are not fixed rate. They are based on a fixed value of say 7% + the prime rate published in the wall street journal every first Monday of the month or something similar to that. Some cards are just pegged at some really high value like 20%+ or the max allowed. No need to fluctuate when they are already that high.
There was a good(ish) documentary a few years called Maxed out on Debt... if you ignore the annoying drama stuff in the middle, there's some good frank interviews that explain a lot of it. They _want_ people who arn't completely broke but can't afford the credit so they'll keep making minimum payments forever. They want to load you down with more credit than you can afford so you get on that treadmill.
Companies want the most profit, nothing new here.
It doesn't matter what they want though. You are under no obligation to only make the minimum payment. You have a choice. You are also responsible to only buy what you are capable of paying for. You are 100% in control of what you can afford to pay each month and what you decide to buy on the CC, not the CC company. Your monthly statement shows a chart that lays out exactly what to expect if you only make the minimum payment.
Would YOU lend money to a random person without be given any history or their ability to pay it? What if you are trying to protect that savings at any cost including not paying for your debt?
When the restrictions for credit worthiness were reduced about 10-12 years ago for people to buy houses, we saw the end result.
Calculating risk uses science and statistics. It is not perfect but the companies handing out money believe it is better than any other method they have.
Advice for you? Get a no annual fee credit card with what ever limit you can get and start to use it and pay it off in full every month by the due date. You will get the convenience of having a credit card with it's perks and pay nothing extra out of pocket because you are paying it off every month.
People are flat out WRONG to think not paying it off every month and maintaining a balance will help their credit score. Your "report" shows balance, payment history and high balance, not a figure for the remaining after payment.
$1250 fill out an app with my credit union and transfer a loan? I literally spent maybe 30 minutes total and did it all online.. For the mortgage vs the equity loan? I spent an hour in the bank and 30 minute round trip getting to and from signing dotted lines to save about $4000 over a 6 year period. Not much thought involved in either.
People have different thresholds of time vs payback.
Hypothetical situation
I could have paid cash for my last new car. Instead I opted for the extra $1K cash back by financing through the manufacturer at roughly 5%, then did a refi the next month to my credit union which gave me $250 cash for a 1.75% loan. Then instead of giving up the 30K in cash to pay that, I paid down my home equity loan which was at 3.8%. The home equity loan is technically my "mortgage" because it was cheaper and easier to go that route instead of refi my house with a traditional mortgage loan a few years earlier.
There are many reasons to finance a car. It is typically one of the lowest interest rate loans you can ever get.
In theory, I could have bought a $1K beater car and just put 30K on my home equity loan. I'm with you there. I already have several $1K beaters though. I wanted something newer.
Adding a can of tuna is easier and cheaper. Much better in my opinion.
23% of all statistics are made up.
I am a white knuckle flyer but I felt much more relaxed on those military planes as a passenger than I ever did on a commercial plane. Even while facing backwards in some configurations, the large temperature changes and looking at a bunch of random cargo strapped down and no pretty walls and ceiling, just pipes, wires, and the frame of the aircraft and the only windows are on the exit doors. They are much larger inside.
I thought it would be weird but my family and I took a long "space available" to go on vacation on a large US military plane and we sat facing backwards. I didn't notice anything different other than the obvious lean the other way on takeoff. Not many windows either.
Hitachi does it.
Printers, power tools, nail guns and nails, aircraft engines, car engine management systems, storage systems, dump trucks, excavators, involved in nuclear power, medical equipment, elevators, air conditioners, washing machines, batteries and many other totally unrelated things.
Imagine if they had a single 1800 number, tech support, and a bundling program.
By a dump truck and an escalator and get a reduced price on a 1PB SAN! Total convergence and bundling that Verizon or ATT could never even dream of!
What I hear a lot in various small businesses is Sirius. Seems like a good deal if music/dancing/night club is not the primary purpose of your business.
http://www.siriusxm.com/sirius...
I see sodastreams in just about every store and nice huge displays in premium spots in most stores but yet, I know not one person that has one or claims to use it often.
Big picture. A business that keeps all it's data in one data center is at risk. That one data center being in a known hurricane zone makes it worse but using SSD is not the tipping point here that suddenly makes it a risky.
Different situation.
Lemon laws are about a breach of the manufacturer's warranty. Individual people are not selling brand new cars but even a used car bought from a private individual still under the factory warranty has lemon law protection. Your case is against the car maker providing you the warranty, not the seller or the dealer. Aside from that, to get to the point to prove it was a lemon, you have to go through an arbitration process.
What world do you live in? People are suing companies for service/quality/loss ALL the time. There is nothing about dealing with a company that automatically gives you recourse. You have to take them to court just like no different than suing a person.
Emissions standards is a federal standard and it is still a federal offense to modify any emission equipment on your car. The problem like you stated comes from the enforcement. Checking emissions was delegated to the individual states and within general guidelines, they check cars. A lot of states have various exceptions like
Some less dense populated counties do not check any cars at all
Some cars not driven more than a certain mileage per year
After the car hits a certain age, usually 20-25+ years
Vehicles used primarily for farm use but still used on public roads if being driven for work related to the farming (like going to town to get feed or supplies)
Just because your area does not check your car on a routine basis does not mean you can rip all of the emissions crap off but many people do. Who enforces the federal emissions laws and standards on your car at that point? No one really.
I understand your dilemma though. I live in an area that does have periodic checks but I do get stuck behind some Harleys and old motorcycles that have no emissions equipment and an occasional car that I know that took off their catalytic convertors because I can smell them immediately.
I have Comcast internet without Comcast cable. I can not watch ESPN3. It must come out of the cable TV subscribers bill, not the internet side, or I am paying for it AND can't watch it.
Spend a few hours and browse some of the paid ads and ads that look like real articles about cures and balms from 1850~1915 or so newspapers in a Google newspaper search. I now understand why regulation or at least a standard is now in place that labels some things as "This is an advertisement" and why there are labels on things that state "not medically proven" and such.
One random example here at the bottom of page 1 column 4.
http://news.google.com/newspap...
If you look and read random papers you will many more scattered throughout with some wild claims.
Ointments that promise to fix just about anything. Aspirin is even in some of those ads promising to fix all kinds of things, it is still around but had many more claims for fixing ailments back then. Left without regulation, people WILL make wild claims to make a buck, that is why we have many of these consumer protection regulations now.
I've slowed down and drive much less aggressive as I've aged. Not because I feel more responsible now or that I was carefree when I was younger. I just don't have the awareness I used to have when I was younger and I am not as comfortable pushing things. It takes me much longer to verify no one is next to me before changing lanes, I used to just whip my head around, scan my mirror and then go, it takes me longer to refocus when I look in my rear view mirror or down at the speedo and back forward again, my vision is not as good as it used. I could take a 300 mile trip at night and remember almost every car I passed or passed me. Scope out areas where police might be like openings in the median or after bridges and down hills. I knew exactly what was around me, approaching, and pulling away at every moment. I was constantly scanning everywhere. I don't do most of that anymore, I just kind of... drive. I don't even use my detectors anymore. Although I still love to take trips and get in the car and go, I am just not "into" driving like I used to be. I'm probably not as "safe" as I used to be but at least I am going relatively slower than I used to.