Britbike forum Forums General discussion The Rod and Tappet havent had a good rant for a while

It might be corruption in some or many cases ... but the main reason that (unlike the French) we do not and never have had a standardized nuclear power plant design is because "Everyone Wanted His Say", whether it meant more money for them or not. Every one of them is a custom-built one-off, as if we are starting from scratch.

The reason is that the utility operators want everything just like THEY have always done it, which is different from everyone else. When we DID try to implement standardized French designs for American power utilities, the operator wouldn't have it. If something was red, it had to be blue - if it was a pushbutton, it had to be a lever - if it was 250 volts it had to be 249 volts, or they wouldn't sign off on it.

So we never got to amortize the work that had already been done, the NRC had to approve new design changes, and the costs skyrocketed. Maybe someone was making some money on the side, but most of it was "I'm In Charge Here, and It's Going To Be Done MY Way!" even if that "way" was demonstrably inferior. Nobody was in charge to tell them "Here's the new power plant - the rest of the world uses it, get used to it."

It's human nature. We even see it in the infamous "Oil Threads" on our bike forums. Nobody's got any good reason to use something besides the manufacturers' suggestions - they just want to be different, to be part of an Inner Clique that knows the Secret Sauce, and not look like they're being anybody's "boy", especially not to the guy who wrote the manual!

Lannis

And we'll enrich our worst enemies while we do it. The American consumer will throw his buddies under the bus to save a nickel, even if the nickel is saved by using a slave labor camp to do it. No need in blaming a "corporation" or whatever - We Have Met The Enemy, and He Is Us!

Lannis

Very nice, Bryan.
I have had more than one less-than-satisfactory experience with The Royal Mail -and- mail services in other countries (Italy stands out as being particularly horrible).

I think I forgot to mention a recent "happy ending" with USPS: While I waited for my lens to arrive via USPS Priority Mail from Minnesota, I ordered a pair of gloves from Vermont. I got them in a matter of just a few days- well inside the time window of what would generally be "reasonable expectations" for delivery.

There is ONE MAJOR DIFFERENCE - Lowe's and Home Depot are NOT government agencies, and NOT funded at taxpayer expense (or we'd be paying down our national debt, wouldn't we?).

the private sector is also funded at taxpayer expense too, in many areas.

my wife works as a manager at a local mcdonalds. the very wealthy owners don't pay their full-time-40 hour workers enough to live on here in appalachia, and so a percentage of the grill area, front counter, cashiers, and window people are on food stamps. some employees work two 40-hour per week jobs instead

the franchise owners have discovered that they can use your taxpayer dollars to offset their payroll, and so they don't have to pay their full-time employees enough to live on. its a very successful business plan. lots of fast food corporations have adopted it.

I don't think it's ever been true that a minimum wage was "enough to live on", nor was it meant to be.

When I were a lad in the good old days of 50 years ago, I worked many a summer at the then-prevailing minimum wage of $1.60/hour ($1.00/hour for agricultural work). Even back then with gasoline at $.30 a gallon and Ford F100 pickup trucks at $2000 each brand new, no one was going to live and raise a family on $1.60 an hour.

The minimum wage was never meant for that, and still isn't today. It was then and is now a step on the path to earning a living wage, and tens of millions (like me) have used it for exactly that.

Lannis

1.60 adjusted for inflation: $10.73
https://www.in2013dollars.com/us/inflation/1970?amount=1.60#:~:text=Value%20of%20%241.60%20from%201970,cumulative%20price%20increase%20of%20570.69%25.

McDonalds cashier position in Appalachia: 8.00/hr
https://www.indeed.com/q-McDonalds-l-Appalachia,-VA-jobs.html

Since it's not about a living wage, maybe minimum wage should be $0.00?
It's trending that way in effective purchasing power.
I guess you should be happy just to get the experience.

professional opera singers are often not paid at all, unless they are big ticket names.

the explanation is that being associated with a well-know troupe should be enough compensation for you because you could use your reputation to get a good position elsewhere.

Let's brainstorm this!
The Singing Grill Person!

Ridi, Pagliaccio,
sul tuo amore infranto!
Ridi del duol, che t'avvelena il cor!

Nobody's family could "live on" $3200 a year in 1970, nor on $21,000 a year now, nor on $16,000 a year in Appalachia. Again, that's not what it's about. Everyone can't flip burgers or shovel shyte forever; you get experience and move on. That's what everyone on this list did.

Make it $0? Or make it $40.00 an hour so that everyone makes $80,000 a year? Or, shoot, why not $100 an hour, make everyone wealthy!

The government has always been notoriously bad when it comes to wage and price controls. Exploring how "high" it can go is like exploring "the limits of traction" on a racetrack. There's only one way to find out where it really is, and the result is always the same. Those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it.

Lannis

Thank you Lannis...I will definitely steal this analogy! And the point that most are not getting here is that we should not have to depend on burger flipping jobs or Walmart/Cheepo Depot/Lowes jobs to support ourselves. Sadly I think the entrepreneurial sprit is as far gone as the shop local ethic in this country.

Maybe it'll come back, I don't know. I know a LOT of young people, including my own sons, that are making the best of all the great opportunities that we still have.

The guy that has been building some of my furniture (BUY LOCAL!) builds furniture and sells it in order to buy old houses that he fixes up, and either flips (if the market is right) or turns over to a rental company for a negotiated rental fee.

He's 28, has clear ownership of property all over the county, and builds beautiful tables and chairs. Works his living arse off and enjoys every minute of it.

He and I talk often, and he already knows that people will be looking at the things he has and say "Well of COURSE that lucky guy is rich .... ". He can handle it.

Lannis

I remember when there was a mad race to snag a fast food job.
If you didnt get one, you looked for lesser positions in bigger restaurants; busboy, dishwasher.
You might even have to work at the tomato sheds.

ah, snagging spending money in high school days come the start of the summer!

was never a career path, but learned some valuable lessons
there is a reason they are called starting positions, not career paths
everyone cant be a McDonalds manager

There's always opportunities, but you have to find them and often spend every waking moment working at it and take financial risks...
Of course it's not for everyone.....But no matter what, you have to push if you want decent pay...

My first job was when I was 15 - had to get a work permit. Part-time after-school janitor at the high school I was at.

When school was out, me and another guy grabbed brooms, mop-buckets, window squeegees, rolls of paper towels and loo paper, and got to work. We'd compete to see who could get the blackboards cleaned fastest (I made a wooden frame that held 3 sponges, he had to FLY to keep up!). We mopped the locker rooms, and I learned (I had two jobs later cleaning public loos) that I'd rather clean 3 men's rooms than 1 women's room. They're nasty - they don't want to sit on the seat so they stand up over it and spray everywhere, and use half a roll of toilet paper each time and leave it all over the stall.

At any rate, not only did no one else want the job (at a big $1.60/hr 16 hours per week), but I got some "Nyah nyah Lannis has to clean the girls' room, Lannis has to clean up people's poo ....". I really didn't care. Thirty weeks of that and I had the money to buy a 1970 Yamaha CS3 200cc twin motorcycle, and I was sitting on top of my world, and haven't come down yet, come to think of it.

Not making a living, but damn sure learning how to work, and learning that there really aren't any dirty jobs, just lazy people ... 600 students at the school, and the job went begging.

Lannis

Lannis I am yet to see you have a "GOOD RANT" period , let alone a recient one

My last two years of college were partially paid for by cleaning the college gym and all the loos therein.

Lannis has it correct when he describes the womens' toilets. but male athletes' johns aren't fun to clean, either.

Ain't none of them any fun!

Lucky for me that the three toilet-cleaning jobs, following by the sewage-plant maintenance job, all came first.

It fits under the "Eat a live toad first thing in the morning and nothing worse can happen to you all day!" All my jobs since then seemed pretty good!! You either get a job from the guy offering it, appreciate it, and enjoy it, or go find one that you can do yourself.

Lannis

$1.60/ hour! Luxury! My first job was $1.25/hr. Poor man's country club getting golf clubs for members then cleaning the club house. Yes Lannis is right, the women's locker room was the worst! and they complained more than entitled to. Even had one of my mom's friends say in our house that no one that worked at the CC was worth darned! My father kept me from cold cocking her but my mom promptly inserted a dagger insult and told her to leave. Wow, so proud of mom & dad. Best part of job for a 16 year old was cleaning up the ball room after parties, I got a pretty good stash of liquor that was left on the tables

You want better? You want change? Then say so, not here, not on the other inter web forums. Get involved, tell you representatives you hate what they are doing and will replace them. If we all act like sheep, then we can all be herded to slaughter without much effort.

where i live the minimum wage is 8.70 an hour. the local macdonalds hires teenagers and older career people to work for that, about 50/50. managers make 9.25. some of the people i know have been working full time at mcdonalds for 15 years. they use the money to keep the bank from foreclosing on their house, to feed and clothe their children, and to put food on the table. no paid sick leave, one week pay in lieu of vacation, no other benefits.

they typically have no health insurance, and a broken car is a financial crisis. if they have kids, usually they're worse off because they can't afford child care so one spouse or the other stays home.

back when the coal mines and steel mills were open you could do well here. but those industries are gone and havent been replaced. my county has been losing people at every census since 1940, except for the last one. it went up because of the amish moving in. but they maintain a more self-sufficient culture

People ought to read the book "Who Moved My Cheese?". You can't just sit in an area of closed rusting factories and mines and bewail your fate and wish for the good times to come back.

You have to go where the work is. I can't imagine working at McDonalds flipping burgers for 15 years. Night school, community college, something, learn to weld, learn to drive a truck, you can't just sit in one place wishing there was something to do and surviving on unemployment checks, EBT, and minimum wage. Well, you can, but before they were available, people went where the work was. "California here I come, right back where I started from" although California probably isn't the Promised Land any more.

Six hundred jobs open in my region right now, every kind and every level ... Oh well. Matthew 26:11, nothing's changed in 2000 years .... I was one once.

Lannis

I agree.

WHAT?



Lannis

Yup, you have to go where the work is. I am an economic refugee and proud of it. Others stayed behind to wait for things to come back. 50 years later they are still waiting. Of all the businesses on Main St. owned by locals along with two local banks, I think there is one diner and a liquor store still operating today. I left over 40 years ago and rarely visit.

Just an update per Rich's tank that I mailed to him. It doesn't appear to have left the distribution center yet. If it did, it would show that it had departed that location. I had this happen to me back in July when I purchased a gas tank from a guy in Montana. It got to the Springfield, MA distribution center and stayed there for 11 days before departing that facility. Very frustrating, especially when it concerns these classic motorcycle parts that can't be replaced with new items.



Dec 25 2:37 pm
Arrived at USPS Regional Origin Facility
JERSEY CITY NJ NETWORK DISTRIBUTION CENTER