sjmarcy

I know a psych major graduate…who waits tables. And a compsci guy that just graduated…who delivers pizza while job searching.

Some folks are reconsidering whether to even go to college at all. Just compare the costs and loans needed to the expected income after graduation.

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

I was thinking about this the other day. In this country, there's such a large number of unemployed and uneducated people. How the hell do they stay alive? I know and have met a decent amount of people just like that, and in short, they stay alive and get nice and fat by living off other people. I don't mean the welfare population, I am talking about the hordes of people who mooch off their family, significant others, friends etc etc. I've met many people who never even buy their own food, and have mommy cook them dinner every night even though they are in their 20's. Most of these parasitic individuals are not supported by wealthy individuals, but by people who have a mediocre income; 20k-50k. So. This means that with that type of income, one can easily support another individual. Or two. Maybe three. I think that the "host organism" can do this for an indefinite period of time because first of all, food is cheap. Secondly, unless you live in a closet, even just a one bedroom apartment can house quite a lot of people. Food and shelter. Those are the basic essentials for survival, and with those things provided for, I suppose it's easy for the "parasite organism" to be complacent since they aren't physically suffering.

My point is that in this country, one person, with a low-average income, can support many. And those "many" just don't even need to bother with supporting themselves. EVERYTHING'S OK.

Right. To date, I have funded my turbo miata endeavor by selling three of my kidneys.

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

I never said "faeflora can't find a job"

And I have no qualms with people who mooch off of and live off of someone else who feels sorry for them. I have issues with people who live off of others that give money in the form of taxes.

In the first circumstance, the gift of money is a choice.
In the second circumstance, the gift of money is compulsory.

IMO, The ideal economy would have low-skilled and unskilled workers living in multi-family residences at a rate of 35-65% IOT make ends meet.

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

Your dad has a pretty cool story! What does he do with himself now?

All of my father's family went to Harvard. My great uncle also taught @ H after getting his PhD in math there. I would love to go to H like your dad (and my dad) and get an MBA too, but that would take 6 years and I already work with a ton of MBAs (we all sell our kidneys for $, tons of them) so there would not necessarily be a financial/career benefit for me.

sjmarcy

Last month the US Economy gained 36,000 jobs. Yet the official unemployment rate dropped from 9.8 to 9.0%. Huh? This is because they take out the gave up or underemployed people. Obama considers an acceptable unemployment rate to be around 8%. He's almost there. I expect more games to be played with the economic measurements before the next election cycle.

The two income family where one person stops looking for work (for now) is not a concern? But that is not good. The pizza delivering compsci guy and the table waiting psych major are not considered to be unemployed either. They are a success, to be touted, exalted, and rejoiced in the employment statistics!?! I bet they did not expect that. At some points in US college history, students had multiple competing job offers a year or two before they graduated. This is not very common today.

Doppelgänger

iTrader: (12)

Off topic- FF aren't you using a Hydra? Did you have to run any extra wires for the GM COPS compared to the OEs?

fmowry

iTrader: (8)

Mine runs. It's just not registered and I need to swap out the welded F-body oil pan for the V8R custom pan.

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

Yes. You have two OEM coils, and each has three wires: hot, ground, signal. Hot goes to some fuse somewhere, ground goes to the bussed ground on the intake I think, and signal for each OEM coil goes to the factory harness and then to a pin on the Hydra. To get the 4 pin GM coils running with the Hydra you need to:

- Get 3+ pins from Jeremy: two for the new signals you are running, and one for a bussed signal ground.
- Run wires from those three pins to your engine bay
-reuse the hot and ground from your OEM coils and run them to your GM coils.
- I individually bussed together hot, ground, and signal ground for all 4 GM coils
- Wire each coil according to the hydra pinout for correct cylinder firing order.

Going to register in time for dyno day?

NA6C-Guy

iTrader: (1)

Hey ******, I'm a drop out and I'm not going to be working for $4.50. I plan to at least be at $50k/year within the following year or two. In a lot of cases, HS diploma is only a foot in the door, experience and hard work leads to better jobs.

Besides, isn't minimum wage $7.25? Ballin!!!

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

Reading comprehension fail.

NA6C-Guy

iTrader: (1)

I get what you were saying, just pointing out, no diploma doesn't mean minimum wage.

Speaking of minimum wage, it really needs to go up to keep up with inflation and cost of living. Isn't the point of minimum wage to allow a person to be able to get by. I don't think it's possible for anyone to "get by" on $7.25 an hour, and still be able to afford even the cheapest apartment, bills and food without help from family and friends, or a second job, leaving no time for potential improvement like education.

fooger03

iTrader: (2)

Single family housing isn't a right, it's a privilege. It is entirely possible for 2 single teenagers to afford a small apartment, the utilities to make that apartment liveable, enough food to keep them very healthy, and transportation to get them to and from work, on minimum or near-minimum wage.

Four of them together can afford the mortgage payment on a house with a small tract of land in most areas of the US - and *grow a savings account* in the process.

If the same minimum-wage earner can find a way to live free of housing payments (like myself, with family) the ability to save increases dramatically.

There are lots of 14-18 year olds in the US that have neither a diploma nor work experience because they are still in high school and are looking for their first job. Since they are legally dependant on their parents, what is the point of giving them a minimum wage? When I got my first job, I was earning "minimum wage", and I thought I was living like a king...

An increase in minimum wage will only serve to raise unemployment rate, as the profitability of the next new-hire is already lower than the cost to hire them. Ideally, the federal minimum wage needs to be abolished, and states need to be allowed to set the minimum wage. As it is, states hold primary responsibility for paying for unemployment insurance, and since unemployment insurance only became necessary because of the creation of "federal minimum wage" (which set a price fix on the labor market), it can be derived that the states are paying for the federal government's folley. If 50 states all have the ability to set their own minimum wage, then we have healthy competition; and if you gave me a list of all of the new "minimum wages" by state/territory, I could point to you on that list EXACTLY which states will see an almost immediate jump in economy, and which states will soon be lowering their own unemployment rates because of the success of the "winners".

Finally, by abolishing the minimum wage, everyone suspects that purchasing power immediately falls unrecoverably. In reality, lower paying jobs put fewer dollars in the pockets of employees, BUT, lower paying jobs reduce a company's required bottom line, and over time, prices for basic necessities fall, which reduces the drop in purchasing power. The ability to pay less for employees also increases the number of employees which are hired. This reduces unemployment. Lower unemployment means that companies must offer more to attract employees, as unemployment rate drops, wages go up, and you really do have a self-sustaining economy.

In the past, as long as the "expected minimum wage offering" of an employer to a prospective employee is at or above "federal minimum wage", the labor market has done just fine. Now the "expected minimum wage offering" of employers has fallen below "federal minimum wage", and thus hiring has stopped. Layoffs will continue so long as the employment "bob" earns his company less than what his company pays him.

In the end, it's not the fact that McDonalds will pay new employees $5.50 instead of $7.50, but rather the fact that "ABC Cabinetry" will move in next to McDonalds and hire 20 employees at $5.50/hour because now it's cheaper to pay workers a higher rate than foreigners to do the work domestically instead of paying for shipping across the pacific ocean for the same cabinets. "123 Garage door" will now start a business across the street because they have figured out how to make their business plan work because they know they can afford 5 part-time employees at $6/hr.

Since there are no more workers willing to work for $5.50/hour (ABC Bought them all up), McDonalds now has to pay $5.75, and takes ABC's best 3 employees with offers of higher wages. 123's Garage door business is getting ready to open its doors, but needs 5 employees, where does it get them? Suddenly McDonalds is now selling an average of 33 more meals/week, and soon they'll be making enough to hire another employee part-time, or increase hours of current part-time employees.

Who will manage these new employees?

Hey, does anyone have a number of approximately how much a business has to budget to payroll in order to hire a new worker at $10/hr?

Prospero

Cool that the car is running! Anything make you feeel that this made a huge difference in the way the car runs?

Faeflora

iTrader: (2)

The motor seems to run much smoothly now, at all times including at idle. I am also seeing fewer spikes on the knock sensor readout. This all could just be mental but it really does seem smoother to me.

At my current gap of .02 my AFRs are the same as before. I will go up to .05 tomorrow and see if it leans out at all.

Doppelgänger

iTrader: (12)

.02" gap? ****, on my OE coils I've been able to run .035"-.037" on 3033 NGKs.

sjmarcy

Speaking of the low world rank US students display in Math & Science:

Russia beat us. :-(

But 1/3 of Russians think the Sun revolves around the Earth! Seriously.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp...7d6d271075.621

So then...what do the Americans believe?