Screwball

The GM's of the world have as advanced technology in their test labs and proving grounds as anyone in the world. With their help this team could/will compete. Been going on forever really. They called them "house cars."

It's good for racing.

Another view, this one from the Indy Star which has been the go to paper for the Indy since forever, so they probably have a bias to the Indy teams.

Michael Andretti's answered every F1 challenge. It's time to green light Andretti Global. - Indy Star (couple of days old)

11 hours ago, Deleterious said:

I think if the Andretti's' wanted to buy a current team they would be approved in a heartbeat.  But starting a new team means another team to split revenue with, and current teams are not happy with that.

So it sounds like, if approved, they would run another teams engine until Cadillac was ready.  People are speculating Renault or possibly Honda if they come back.  It also sounds like they intend to be a full works team.

I would prefer it was with Chevy.  They are already in IndyCar and their Corvette racing teams have a lot of success.  Cadillac is building a Hypercar for Lemans, so maybe they are serious about racing.  I read Andretti would also have access to GM's tech centers in Michigan and Charlotte.  

Interesting, thanks.

44 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Still interested in your honest answer to what we need.

There is no solution. We Я fucked.

39 minutes ago, Edman85 said:

I kinda wanna run for President just to see how much money is in it and why so many people are doing it these days.

LOL!  Really? You should dig a little deeper, and isn't only Presidents.

4 hours ago, chasfh said:

lol ok

I know, that's what I thought when I first hear that line.

11 minutes ago, chasfh said:

Why not just tell us?

Vote blue no matter who

6 minutes ago, chasfh said:

That would mean we don't want Justin Amash to be Speaker of the House, then, because he will stop telling that truth you liked so much in your earlier post.

We don't want anyone to be Speaker of the House because they will definitely not tell any truth.

We don't want there to be any Congress at all, because it is where truth goes to die.

We don't want a government because it only corrupts everyone who touches it and precludes the telling of any truth.

We should strive to remove all governance of any sort from the lives of all people because it's the only way we have a chance to get close to the truth that governance by practical definition precludes, although people are still involved, so that's no guarantee, either.

Does that pretty much cover it?

Amash isn't in congress the last I looked.  Wonder why?

The rest is just bullshit talking points.

I think you can figure out what we need if you think hard enough.  It really isn't difficult.

1 hour ago, Tiger337 said:

Some are worse than others, but none of them care.  I believe that the system is such that someone who does care can not succeed as a politician.  

If the few who have good intentions when they get there, it is taken from them not long after.  You go along to get along, or you are out.  The money will not flow, and that's all that matters.

We don't have elections, we have auctions.

26 minutes ago, chasfh said:

We are all learning that bomb-throwers are more likely to succeed in Congress than truth-tellers.

There are no truth tellers in congress.  Only people who get filthy rich by taking bribes while feeding their constituents bullshit like they are "fighting for them."  Fuck off with that shit.  Whores, the whole lot of them - bomb-throwers or not.  And that goes from the White House to the local courthouse.

7 hours ago, VegasTiger said:

I don't normally dig the nihilism but sometimes it's just appropriate.

Keep guzzling the cool-aide, you ain't drunk enough yet.

10 hours ago, Deleterious said:

I miss him.

 

Some really good stuff in those interviews.  I think Justin would be a good Speaker, but that's why it will never happen.  These people don't care about us, all they care about is power and money.  They are corrupt to the core.

After I watched the video I decided to check their ages.  That's a 49 year old Walters and a 31 year old Dolly.  Makes it even more impressive.

If they can't get a Speaker, no monetary things can happen, so they don't get paid. If this goes on long enough, maybe they all get pissed off and go home. We can pick names out of a phone book to replace them and be better off.

Win

OK, I've had a few beers and a doobie (thanks Michigan) so I'm only half kidding.

On 12/31/2022 at 1:51 AM, Deleterious said:

 

Or maybe not; there is only one class act here, and it ain't her.

5 hours ago, Deleterious said:

With F1 wanting to expand in America, how do you say no to Cadillac?  Small possibility something like this also makes Ford want to jump in.  I suppose Chevy as well.  

Headquarters will be at the new facility the Andretti's are building in Indianapolis.  

I don't follow F! that close, but I do the racing here (in all forms), but I can't believe this is nothing but good news, in various ways.

***

Racing related: next week is what is known as the Chili Bowl.  Tulsa, OK, a 440,000+ sq/ft building, half of it is a dirt track (dirt trucked in), and the other half is pits. Close to 400 entries. They race everyday from 9/10 am until late at night. Well known NASCAR guys, sprint car guys, plus the nations best in the midgets all run the week.  My two oldest puppies are going along with our other bud (our race team when they are close). Dad's too old for that shit, dammit, but I also have a cat.

Andretti, General Motors team in F1 pursuit - Speed Sport News

The combines are working overtime.

2 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

I also wonder how many are just working black. People can be doing light fabrication and design with 3d printers, remote web and programming tasks for cash payment and with home improvement work through the roof (also due to remote work) you probably have a LOT of builder/home reno guys that might also be working black. IIRC we saw some of this in the construction business after the last crash when guys laid off as construction employees had to start freelancing.

Oh, please. That's about as stupid as some dipshit who told people to learn to code.

I don't agree with some of that article, and I could care less what Mike Rowe has to say, even if he does have a TV show filming him shoveling shit. But:
 

Quote

 

Reduced labor force participation has already taken its toll on lower-paying industries — the leisure and hospitality sector has seen the highest quit rate since July 2021, and retail isn’t far behind, reports the Chamber of Commerce.

And durable goods manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade and education and health services are contending with a shortage of skilled workers.

This puts more pressure on the remaining employees, who may be dealing with longer hours, tougher responsibilities and burnout. (Fuckin' A - lucky us - added by me)

“Running your workers like this — asking them to do 20%, 30% more because you’re short staffed — it’s very much a short-term strategy. You’re going to keep losing people,” Paige Ouimet, a professor at the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, told The Washington Post.

 

It's all about the bottom line. Living the great life in the hamster wheel Я us.

The draft ended in 1973 if I remember right.  I was a year too young but would have been toast as my number was 8.  Some of my buddies weren't so lucky.  The war was a huge thing to us people as we were all worried about going, not to mention all the stuff that was going on here.  Like the 1970 Kent State thing.  And of course we had the anti-war songs as well.  Wild times, and not so good.

I knew people at Kent State, even to this day, on both sides, students and the guard.  I also had a bunch of buddies who ended up in Nam.  Some didn't come home, and many didn't come home the same.  Some are not right to this day, including one of my best buddies who still has flashbacks.  Then of course there were others; like the guy in the bowling alley I worked who went nuts.  Hid in the back of the bathroom in the last toilet stall thinking he was in Nam foxhole and going to kill anyone who came near him.  What do you do with someone like that?

And it was all for what?

2 hours ago, Deleterious said:

Most of these kids do not have anyone to show them the financial ropes.  I was lucky and both my grandpa and father were into investing and I learned a lot from both of them.  Not just markets, but saving, not using credit cards, keeping a good credit score, etc.  

Most of you seem financially literate.  If you know a young person I would encourage you to take a few minutes and talk to them a bit about finances.  Tell them how having bad credit costs you a lot of money in the long run.  Don't use payday loans, don't buy cars from "We finance anyone" lots, don't finance phones or even buy a new phone ever 18 months.  Get that six month emergency fund.  If your employer matches 401k contributions, its free money risk free.  If they don't have a 401k then tell them about IRA's.  

We started to offer a 401K in the last year.  I found a 401K calculator online and entered some very conservative numbers.  Starting at age 30 with $0 and retiring at 65, making $45,000 a year contributing 10% with 3% match and 6% return on average you will have over $900,000 when you retire.  I put it into Excel and printed off 400 copies and passed them out to each employee.  They were blown away at the amount of money they would have.  When I go into work now I get more questions about finances than I do actual work.

These kids are not dumb and they are definitely not lazy.  Not everyone had a grandpa and/or dad to teach them these things.  They want to learn and are willing to learn.  Their elders (us) have just failed them miserably.  

I must respond to this - good stuff and well said.

I'm not good with words - they are not my bag - numbers are. But I'm going to give it a shot...

What Del said above is spot on, and much of what I think is missing today and have for quite some time.

Let me put it this way; I'm old (66) so I grew up in an entirely different era - my parents grew up through the Great Depression so they knew the economical pain - and they were frugal.  Very frugal - and I was brought up the same way. I was taught - like so many my age - if you don't have the money to buy something - don't buy it.  You did what you had to do in order to accumulate enough money to buy what you wanted (bike, car, house, etc.).  It doesn't work that way anymore, and I get that, for better or worse...

This is about our kids - or you might say - our youth (no matter how these survey's break them down).  Our youth truly are our worlds raw materials when it comes to our (their) future.  I've always believed that, and taught my kids with that belief (among other things) in mind. 

To take it further, in my experience, as a retired engineer by trade, now teaching our youth in a college and high school setting - I am the one who is getting the education.  I admit, I am a fish out of water, not trained nor have experience in teaching young people.  I did do a lot of training to fellow co-workers in the shit show known as Corporate America - the cesspool of bullshit that it is. So the only thing I have going for me is I know the material - which is a good start IMO. I've already watched the alternative where we have teachers who know jack shit about how the "real world" works - but teach school and author books.

I came to the conclusion after teaching school for fun money after retirement - our educational system is a complete mess - ran by the same clueless greedy pricks who run our corporations.  Huge and stupid money spent on (in the trade school setting along with the college) administration bullshit while the kids still slave away with 10 year old computer equipment, robots, CNC machines, and welding equipment . IT staffs at a bare minimum, clueless as well (they hate me), and the administration should get an Oscar for Marketing Bullshit. They treat it like an invitation to Harvard - watch for your acceptance letter - then let them play games on their phone all year. The high school kids figuring out what they want to do next year say hey, let's go here so we can fuck off all day.  Truly Sister Mary Elephant - I could write a book on the daily mayhem.

College will get there - I can already see it. Bad. I don't know how much longer I can last. I am not a babysitter, and will not be, even if it makes me some beer money.  It's about the teaching.

Our companies cannot hire good people (or enough of them) - I know because I was part of it. It's not getting any better. I don't like what I see but it is what it is.  What do we do? At some point the entire shithouse is going to blow up. We don't have enough people to do what needs to be done so all of us eat. We now have HR departments so inept, they couldn't hire an ant to play in sand.  But there is nobody to hire even if they knew what they were looking for, so there's that...

Let's start with the kids - it is their future after all.  Del's right - they are not lazy (some really are though - that can be fixed) and and they want someone to teach them.  I can't stress that enough. So many of these kids are begging for attention, guidance, and love. The system (along with their parents - it all starts at home) is failing them - and they know it - but they don't know how to fix it. I don't either, but maybe I can help them.

I love my classes and my kids, no matter how old they are. I really do this because I think I might be able to make a difference, and we sure as hell need that. Invest in our young.

I had a kid last semester who came into class the first day when it was 95 degrees outside with a hoodie so you could only see his eyes, nose, and mouth. OK, let's see where this goes - you never know.  A few weeks later he wore a hoodie with a baseball thing on the front. I asked him if he was a baseball fan. Yep. The rest is history.  We eventually had a baseball in class so I could show him a curveball that would make him a 20 game winner.  He did, I did, and the class got a big kick out of it. We even made a drawing of a flattened baseball cover. Turns out he was from the Bahamas. As the semester went on his hoodie ended up on the back of his head, he was asking questions, and having a ball.  Really came out of his shell. Great kid, and we became buds.

This is why I took great interest in this survey. People need to get into people. Fuck all this other bullshit.

23 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

Maybe I missed it being discussed here, but without seeing the data, housing costs seem to be a huge factor as well. Even in the 10 or so years I have lived in my area, here I live, the cost of the average home increased from around $150,000 in 2011 to around $390,000 in 2022. Rents are even more out of control, with 1 bedroom units frequently being in the high thousands, low 2s per month.

We are a bit of an outlier because DFW has experienced rapid growth for a while, but costs have risen everywhere. As it pertains to younger people, its a double hit because (a) home ownership has historically been a huge factor in growing wealth and it is increasingly a lot harder to get into and (b) renting, which isn't an investment in anything except a roof for a month, increasingly costs more than a monthly mortgage payment these days.

We were very luck to have been able to buy during the last decade, but know quite a few people who cannot or have gotten into homes at a higher debt/income than we have. That has a massive impact in the long run one would think and is a part of the income insecurity as well that impacts both millennials and Gen-Z, given how home equity provides a number of paths (ie. Home equity loans, HELOCs, etc.) to those who own homes (which generally skews toward older generations) that don't exist for those who don't (skews younger)

Totally agree on the costs of a home.  Once people couldn't buy homes, they jacked the shit out of rent so you can't afford to rent either.  And how many can/do save enough to come up with a down payment on a house?  At least one that helps them afford it.  When you have no savings, that loan isn't happening.  The age of NINJA is over (thank goodness).

If you follow the markets this topic (due to interest rates) is usually a hot and widely discussed topic - so I am not unaware of the problems.

But I'm still bewildered to have watched people go out and buy an overpriced house with interest rates at all time lows and think they got some kind of a deal .  People that bought a house in the last 2-3 years (maybe longer) are now underwater (adding on edit; unless they put enough down) with the current interest rates.  Maybe that won't matter if they want to live there for years, but they are going to get hosed if they sell now, if they can sell at all.

28 minutes ago, gehringer_2 said:

that is the consensus at here as well. A lot of students unprepared to even show up when they have to be somewhere in person.

My attendance records this last semester were as bad as I've had. I tell them the very first day "if you want to pass this class, you have to do this" which includes showing up for class.  I flunked about 1/5 of the students, and all were because they didn't show up, which got them behind, and they couldn't catch up (even with tutoring). 

Why would you sign up for a class, 2 times a week for 2 hours, then show up for half of them - then wonder why you fail.  Because you deserve to, and how about that $XXXX you just pissed away?

And taking notes isn't against the law either - especially in my class - but they show up with a phone. No paper, no pencil, no nothing.  Amazing!  And they are not very good at following directions either.

Many of these kids not only flunked my class, they are going to flunk life.

18 minutes ago, mtutiger said:

I think this is part of the case. But I really do think that the structural issues faced during the Great Recession is also a factor as well.

There's a tendency to try to boil everything down to just one factor, and I'm not sure it all comes down to spending habits imo. Again, just speaking from experience as someone from the cohort who does have a savings and feels they have made educated decisions on finances, long term income prospects were undoubtedly hindered by when I entered the workforce.

Sure, we can talk about spending to live within your own means, but even if one does, if their income over the long run started at a low base, that will still impact how much one can save or put away versus starting at a higher base. Just think that has to be discussed with the portion of millennials that entered the workforce during the Great Recession and in its aftermath. Versus today when higher bases and even signing bonuses are the norm.

I'm not trying to boil it down to one thing - as I don't think it is a one thing problem - nor exclusive to age groups.  I know plenty of people my age (late 60s) who are also terrible at money/budgets/spending/etc.

I also understand it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet.  I have argued that for years - and it's not getting any easier.

But these are the cards we are dealt - so we must play the had we have.  Or eventually you starve.