Those tax payers benefit from the reduction in traffic and air pollution but that would be difficult for some people to believe.
If that attitude had been prevalent while this country was being built, we’d never have gotten as far as we did. Until people realize that members of a society owe input to that society instead of only themselves, we will continue to decline.
Every time public transit comes up I hear those arguments. They fail to take into account that money is a limited resource, and if you have enough to buy 3 Ferraris, someone else is not going to have enough to buy one Cavalier.
Want everyone to be able to afford a car so you don’t have to pay for their bus route? Raise the minimum wage, tax the hell out of excessive income, and then pump that money into education so that it doesn’t cost over 20 grand to go to a state college and people can afford to get a degree and get a higher-paying job which will let them afford a car.
Otherwise, the only reasonable translation to that statement is “I like it when poor people have no path out of poverty.”
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No, money is unlimited, it is not a zero sum game. A rich guy owning 3 Ferraris does not deprive anyone from a Cavalier. The Cavalier is still there for sale, the opportunity is in the creativity and work ethic of the individual to earn enough to buy that piece of GM junk as well as services already in place to help them succeed.
Disagree with this as well. A college degree isn’t necessarily the key to a better paying job depending on the choice of study. Many successful and very wealthy people do not have college degrees.
They do have a path. I have dozens of personal examples of that. I believe in public assistance to help them out of poverty but as your sister-in-law example points out, poor decisions derail that path again and again. And I have dozens of personal examples of that, too.
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A higher degree does not necessarily lead to a.higher paying job, but it hopefully leads to a more satisfying job. Some years back, a.representative from a.large pharmaceutical company was trying to get me to work for them. The salary he was talking was two and a half times.what I was earning as a college faculty member. I really liked teaching, so I didn’t pursue the opportunity. Twice I was asked to.apply for.a position as a university administrator and I turned down the opportunity. I didn’t want to shuffle papers all day. There were and.still.are people that think I was crazy to turn down a.job where I would have a bigger paycheck.
In my opinion, an education or.some.training should help a.person find a satisfying job. It bothered me.when I retired and people.said to me “Now you can do things you like to.do”. Well, I liked what I did. A.couple of weeks.agp, I met up with a former colleague who is.10 years older than I am. I told him about a.problem I had.been working on and did he have any insights… We.got together.at his house. He had.books and.papers spread out all over his kitchen table.relating to the problem. We are both working on the.problem. This is.what education should do for a person.
I lived comfortably but not extravagently. I didn’t drive a Mercedes Benz–I drove a Ford Maverick. The Maverick.took me anyplace a Mercedes would take.me. Yes, I had to put a quart of.oil.in the Maverick every 1200 miles,.and.take along some Preparation-H for myself if I took a.road trip in the Maverick, but I could.buy a lot of.oil and Preparation-H for the cost of a Mercedes.
That reminds me of my late father, who was an english teacher. He was at his last job for over 30 years, and he really loved to teach. I can’t conclusively state this as a fact, but I believe many parents specifically requested that their kids be taught by my dad, versus his colleagues.
Anyways, over the years, he often was asked to be an administrator. He always told the higher-ups that he loved teaching, and had no plans to change careers.
The sad thing is that many of the “lesser” teachers . . . those who could not keep the kids under control, those who the kids just found boring, those who showed no enthusiasm for teaching, etc. . . . turned out to be very good administrators. Different skill set, it would seem.
A good deal of the faculty drove rather sporty and/or expensive cars, but my dad was happy to drive Toyotas, Tercels, Corollas, vans, etc. He really liked the van, even though it was woefully underpowered and had skinny tires.
One of his colleagues, who I suppose was a family friend, was constantly bragging about the fantastic deals he got on used cars. He always claimed to pick up these cars for pennies on the dollar, so to speak. But we got kind of tired of seeing him pat himself on the back all time. It doesn’t exactly make for lively and interesting conversation. Sure, a person should be proud of his achievements, but don’t keep rubbing it in every single time you invite somebody over for dinner. mIght be easier for all to talk about the latest movies, sports, or the latest book you’re reading, just to name a few examples.
“Hey, do you want to come to my house for dinner? I’ll spend all evening bragging about myself, and you’ll mostly listen, occasionally speaking up to agree with me.”
Sounds like fun . . . ?!
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I read that la times and I find it appalling. I had a roommate who was pursuing a PhD. He bought a 10 year old Corolla in which he learned to drive for 3000. The only creature comfort items it had were ac and power steering. It wasn’t cheap for what it was, bit it did its job well. He sold that thing to someone else in the lab once he finished with his study.
The single mom in the article needs a basic car, not a shiny looking Ford fusion from one of those places. It was a vicious cycle, but a breakable one. After world war 2, the Japanese weren’t driving around in acuras. They were riding Honda motorcycles. People have to learn to live within their means and save some for rainy days
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The LA Times article was written in 2011, the women that defaulted on the loan was driving a car newer that the one that I am driving today. She had $3000 to spend on a used car but people don’t want dirty used cars so they choose something that they can’t afford.
The story states the efforts taken to collect from the dead beat buyers, it must be quite challenging to deal with those shifty customers.
In the early ninety’s the dealer I was working at got into the “second chance financing” business, “if you have been turned down for a car loan we can help”. There is no shortage of people looking to spend money that they don’t have and willing to pay up to 28% interest.
When I was in college my main car for 2 years was a 1966 Fleetwood. Bought it for $50. It ran great, but was a rust bucket. The doors flapped in the wind. Interior was pristine. 6mpg was hard to swallow, but lot cheaper to fill the gas tank then new car payments.
The world has changed, and not for the better, since you first sought employment. A degree, either from a 4-year college or from a tech college, is pretty much required just to get a decent job today. It’s no longer that a post-secondary degree will get you a higher salary, it’s that the lack of a post-secondary degree shuts you out of most jobs that aren’t retail or bottom-tier service industry related.
In re: the article @Nevada_545 and @chunkyazian I obviously agree that it takes two sides to execute this particular travesty of economy. Yes, you need someone who’s dumb about money and who gets themselves in financial trouble a lot, but you also need someone who’s willing to prey on those people.
If you look at schoolyard bullies, often the kid who is being bullied can’t seem to help himself from interacting with the bully, which sparks another episode of bullying. But that doesn’t mean we shrug and say “whelp, the kid got what was coming to him, we’d better let the bully get away with it.” Instead, we throw the bully in detention and tell his victim to stop being an idiot.
I don’t see why that concept should change simply because the bullies now run used car lots. Preying on the weak-minded is wrong, even if the weak-minded keep coming back for more victimization. Society should not put up with such things.
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A great many people often find themselves overwhelmed by what seems like common everyday problems to me. I can’t imagine calling a plumber to repair a sink faucet or drain or replace a commode. A few weeks ago I removed a leaking gas water heater and replaced it with an electric model and installation required installing a circuit breaker and fishing 10ga Romex through a wall. It amazes me that most people are unable to do that. And of course I have dealt with many people who were clueless about their cars and came to me for a remedy to some problem that often was embarrassingly simple to diagnose and repair. Most people must call a professional for any plumbing or electrical or structural problem on their home or any problem on their car and many such people are phobic in their fear of car problems so they look to all that seemingly indicates safety and that means dealers instead of individuals and that means cars with all the status they can afford. Low end used car lots buy cars at auction and sell them at a significant profit because they can detail them and hide all the defects and they can finance them.
Where I live if a homeowner does that without a license and permits the fines will be more that having it done. Also disposing of the old tank is a chore and also cost money.
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Everywhere I’ve lived it is OK for a homeowner to DO that but with a permit and inspection. I know some areas are different.
I just left the Toyotanation forum . There is a US service person that has a credit score under 700 . He and his wife just bought a new vehicle @ 4.74 percent for 74 months . Now this person could be transferred any day and his wife will have to look for another job somewhere. He was also complaining about how much the insurance was and the vehicle needs premium fuel . This is a disaster ready to happen .
@Rod_Knox. For jobs around the house, I use Wes’s rule. I was in elementary and middle school with a fellow named Wes. Many years later, Wes joined the faculty at the university where I was teaching. We team taught a couple of courses and he lived in a house just around the corner from where I live. I was replacing the water pump on my car and turning the air blue. Wes came around the corner and said “Why are you doing that? You obviously don’t like doing it. Do what I do. I look at a job and if it is going to take more than 20 minutes, I call someone”. I use Wes’s rule a lot. I can afford to hire someone, it gives them work and frees my time to do what I want do. I’ve done my share of wiring, plumbing, car repairs, and so on when I didn’t have much money. I didn’t really enjoy it then and at 76 I am not going to start doing it now.
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I think the idea is that people who are young and can’t really afford to hire people to do everything seem incapable of doing it themselves. Not some old crusty guy whose survived all those trials and tribulations and now finds himself in a position to hire out everything. I got where I am PRIMARILY from doing most things myself. That’s how we were brought up. Someone else can do it, so can you. Now I’m getting old and crusty and can afford to hire things out but still do them for myself because I can’t stand paying someone and can still do it myself 
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I did the job myself because replacing a gas heater with an electric would require costly repeated trips by plumbers and electricians and the job could easily have resulted in being without hot water for over a week. As for the old one, I drug it to the street on a dolly in the afternoon and some scrap hauler picked it up before lunch the next day.
And while there are building codes and restrictions repairs are less closely monitored and doing the work myself didn’t require a permit but if I had paid someone to do it 2 different permits would have been required and would have likely caused the work to take many additional days.
I many states - only a licensed electrician is allowed to do that…Or if you do it yourself - it then must be inspected by a licensed electrician.
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My patents rule was if dad could not fix it with his red screwdriver call a pro. Dad tried and failed a few things, like a car battery. He must have had the terminals reversed and trying to pound on the terminal drove the post through the bottom of the battery.
You need to pass a test with the city to do electrical work in our city.
I do a lot of jobs, but know my limits. Toilet had a broken flange where the bolt that holds down the toilet goes, I cobbled something together.
After a year of occasional sewer smell I gave up and called a plumber. It ended up the old cast iron stack in the wall behind the toilet was paper thin and had a hole in it. Had stack from a couple feet off the basement floor to the roof replaced, plumber suggestion. Toilet fitting now new also.
Replacing the stack out of my league, Current car starter, thermostat, not wheel bearings or rusted out power steering lines.
@MikeInNH
My brother is a licensed plumber. He has run into situations involving electric water heaters where he was sure the wiring didn’t meet code. In these cases, he tells the customer that they have to call a licensed electrician to make the electrical hookup.
One case he told me about the 240 volt water heater had one hot lead fed through a breaker on one side of the panel with other electrical items on.the same breaker and the other hot lead went to the other side of the panel. The danger is that one breaker could trip and there would still be an energized wire at the water heater.
Another time he installed a replacement water heater at a shopping mall. The heater was on a three phase circuit. My brother shut the power off, replacrd the heater and turned the circuit back on. However, the water heater didn’t come on. He called the manager who said he would send an electrician. When my brother stopped in to see the manager the next day to see whether he had done something wrong in the hookup, the manager laughed and said, "Your hookup was correct. What you didn’t know was there is a timer that only allows the heater to come on at night. The timer was out of sight between the panel and the water heater.
There is a reason for state and local laws for requiring licensed plumbers and electricians.