@bing It’s no coincidence that even with the world’s highest factory wages, Germany until recently (when China took over by sheer numbers) was also the world’s LARGEST EXPORTER. The reason is a superb education and training system that produces very skilled workers. Almost everything you buy that’s made in Germany is made by workers earning more money than comparable US workers.
The US educational and craft training system needs a complete overhaul, less romantic literature course and more applied usable skills. That’s about the only thing I agree with Sanders on. However, he just wants free education for colleges (regardless of course taken or offered), which would result in even more aimless youths clogging up classrooms.
Focused education and training is the only way out. Protectionism and watered down education will eventually result in a large English speaking Greece!.
Foreign students attending US universities and colleges are taking useful and practical courses so they can get better jobs.
In other words, we cannot reverse globalization. Bu we can capitalize on it.
The US educational and craft training system needs a complete overhaul, less romantic literature course and more applied usable skills.
Unfortunately the US education system doesn’t want to pay for qualified teachers to teach those classes. Part of the problem is to blame on some of the school districts unions where the pay scale is set by number of years and not the type of teacher. Some school districts across the nation have changed that…but too little and almost too late.
The same ole yaw again. My wife was a teacher and lots of teacher friends but its like going to a DFL convention getting together with them. Minneapolis is given something like $12,000 per kid and teachers make upwards to $80,000. South Dakota pays teachers among the lowest but their quality is still very good. I don’t know what they make in NH but money is not the issue in Minnesota. We used to have one of the best vocational technical programs around but tried to turn them into two year liberal arts programs instead of carpentry, welding, tool and die, plumbing, and so on. The good ole department of education is filled with people that wouldn’t know what a crescent wrench is but get watery eyes talking about diversity. So now they start to say maybe not everyone should go to college. Duh, really?? Its become an indoctrination program not much different than those in other lands in the 30’s.
MikeInNH: “You want to stop illegal immigrants…then stop the companies that hire them. That’s the only way it’s really going to work.” I was able to figure that out all on my own decades ago! Duh!
Minneapolis is given something like $12,000 per kid and teachers make upwards to $80,000. South Dakota pays teachers among the lowest but their quality is still very good. I don't know what they make in NH but money is not the issue in Minnesota.
Minnesota has a lower cost of living then NH. Starting salary for a teacher in NH is around $25k. Starting salary for someone with a degree in Computer Science or Math in the public sector is about $60k. And that’s why less then half the teachers who teach middle school and high school math in our school district don’t have degrees in Math. They have a teaching degree in some other discipline like History or English…and it’s the main reason I sent my kids to private high-schools. Most people don’t have that option.
@circuitsmith, true - last I was in here, docnick and Kevin had brought it marginally back on topic so I left it alone. Now that you mention it, could you please bring it back to cars? Thanks.
The US educational and craft training system needs a complete overhaul, less romantic literature course and more applied usable skills
I was listening to a radio talk show today about legalizing pot, and this fellow calls up, says he’s worried if it pot is made legal, poor folk who sell pot for a living won’t be able to make any income. And they will turn to property theft instead. So everyone will be more likely to have their cars broken into and stereo’s stolen, etc. The weird thing was, what he claimed, it sort of made sense.
So I got to thinking, in the area he was calling from , Oakland Calif, there’s a lot of unused warehouses there, some on what used to be old military bases owned by the gov’t. So I got to thinking, the gov’t should set those up as places to repair cars. You know, lifts, tools, diagnostic equipment, etc. Then allow these folks who used to be in the drug business, instead of being forced to steal stereos, to use a bay for their own to repair people’s cars, for a % of their revenue. Seems like a good use of what is currently unused and wasted space.
Well what amazes me now is how much power and responsiveness comes from smaller engines ,the 5 litre Ford pickup engine develops something like 385 lbs ft torque ,Imagine what a 7 litre would spit out now ,I have a chance to ride in a large GM pickup from time to time and cannot believe how much power a pushrod 6 litre has ,there may be no substitute for cid ,but the sure have been doing a nice job of making the smaller engines tolerable .
Now my brother had an 8100 GM ,(he traded on a skid steer loader ) shame on you GM for dumbing the big blocks down like that ,I know they wanted to concentrate on the LS engines ,but kill the bigblocks in such a disgraceful manner ? It was too big for the power it had and used a lot of gas,you could raise the hood and look at the poor thing and immediately realize ,I can change a few things and get a lot more out of this beast .Now its replacement the 6.2 LS seems to be a tiger .
It seems the the mighty 8100 ha been relegated to water pump and gen set duty ,but never fear there is a burgeoning after market for these sleepers.The Big Block shall rise again!
Well what amazes me now is how much power and responsiveness comes from smaller engines ,the 5 litre Ford pickup engine develops something like 385 lbs ft torque
I concur…Engines have become much more efficient…pumping out more HP in smaller displacement or the same displacement from 2-3 decades ago…at the same time getting better gas mileage.
Whats the benchmark these days? 130hp/liter in NA form… The Golden Age of Horsepower is RIGHT NOW…I dont care what anyone says.
Big Blocks will always find a home somewhere…they are cool in may ways, even just look at…they have a “presence” for sure… Alas…when you can get more power in a smaller lighter package…the race is already over as for what to choose.
Not many people realize this but we, today, routinely have engines under our hoods that are performing at a level only seen in NASCAR a few decades ago. Good Times Indeedy…
Can’t beat a big block* for providing big HP, at moderate RPM, for hours at a time. You might match peak HP with an engine half the size…but you wouldn’t want to run that engine flat-out for extended periods.
*(Except maybe a diesel.)
Engines are clearly much more efficient today, but, with respect, I cannot agree with the contention that the EPA and CAFE requirements should get the credit. The huge gains were made when computer technology was mated with fuel injection, a technology known long before the feds got involved to produce more power and more complete burn, and in modern design and manufacturing technologies that allow dynamic analysis in design and precision in manufacturing that were undreamt of 40 years ago.
There were arguably more advancements in automotive technology in the first 50 years of the industry than there have been in the last 50 years, and the EPA and CAFE didn’t exist in the first 50 years. It could even be argued that resources devoted to meeting fed requirements might have been more effectively used in powertrain development.
Huge advancements have certainly been made since 1970. But huge advancements were made before 1970 too, arguably even more. I have a hard time giving credit for technology advancements to the feds.
@Mountainbike Cars were legislated to become cleaner running and more fuel efficient. Without those regulations & rules we might still have carburetors, cars with frames, draft tubes, and slow turning big V8s.
I don’t give the Feds or the California Air Resources Board any credit for having any original thoughts on the subject, of course.
I seriously doubt that Doc. If the philosophy toward technological advancement in the industry were as you describe it, we would have still had Model T’s and flatheads in 1970. There was every bit as much technological progress before the Clean Air act was passed in 1970 as there has been since. I have every confidence that automotive technology would have continued to improve at the same rate even without the feds.
Fuel injection was known to be superior decades before the Clean Air Act. And we still had carburetors until microchips came along. Since the EPA had nothing whatsoever to do with the development of microchips or of fuel injection, and it was the marriage of the two technologies that got us where we are, it makes no logical sense in my mind to credit the feds.
I suspect we’re going to once again reach an impasse on this issue. I think it’s fair to say we disagree.
