Quoted from Spyderturbo007:I was pissed when every beer I drank suddenly dropped from a 12oz bottle to one that was 11.2oz. Now I'm finding that the packing is so poor, you're lucky to get the damn thing in the house before the handles rip off.
Still haven't seen 11.2 oz beers in Seattle.
IMG_20190525_061747 (resized).jpgQuoted from cottonm4:OK. Before I talk about bleach again I would like to talk about antifreeze for your car.
It used to be when you bought a gallon of antifreeze you were buying a straight gallon of antifreeze.
100% undiluted antifreeze will not do what it is supposed to do. It has to be diluted with water. For the professional auto mechanic this was not a problem.
But for Joe Suburb, buying a gallon of antifreeze met locating another container to make up the proper ratio of water-to-antifreeze mix. When Joe finished his job he now had to find space to store the unmixed antifreeze and any mix he might have left over.
Now, when you go to the parts store you buy a premix of water and antifreeze. Called 50-50 it is ready to pour. No muss. No fuss. Of course, Joe is going to pay a bit more for the convenience but avoiding the hassle-factor makes it a good trade off.
Now, back to bleach. A real long time ago in one of my college business classes we had a guest speaker. He was the CEO of Purex Bleach Corp.
After he prattled on for awhile I asked him how did he differentiate his product from the other brands. And I finish my question with, “after all, bleach is bleach”.
He acknowledged that beach was bleach and that he hoped I would like him enough to buy his product instead of the competition’s bleach.
He went on to say that they had tried different things to stand out from the competition. They tried selling a concentrated bleach with 12% of the active chemical instead of the normal 6%.
He said the market did not appreciate the 12% product because consumers did not read the label, thereby using more bleach than necessary. But the worst outcome is the customers were burning holes in their clothes.
So there you have it. With bleach and antifreeze we pay more and pay for moving water because we don’t want to be bothered with taking the time to mix something from it’s concentrated form.
If you're giving me the this option:
- spend an extra $3 to ensure correct antifreeze mix ratio, top off with confidence
- save $3, accidentally make mistake in mix ratio, do $3000 in damage to my engine
I will pick the first option every time. The small cost for eliminating a high cost risk is value added.
Value add isn't always measured in quantity of product, it's ensuring correct outcome through correct use of the product.
It's no different than the tired iteration of the story about a client complaining over the high cost of paying an engineer for placing a single X on a drawing. If the engineer is the only one who knows where to place the X, he's added value equivalent to his cost.
Quoted from OLDPINGUY:Just a cut and paste....Before 2008, 62% of Americans owned stock.
Like income and wealth, stock ownership is heavily concentrated in the uppermost echelons of the economy. The bottom 60 percent of households combined own just 1.8 percent of American stock. The top 1 percent, by contrast, owns over 40 percent of the country's stock, up from 34 percent in 2001.Dec 18, 2017
This is misleading. Fewer individuals directly own stock than in the past but employee retirement plans and insurance companies (pensions & annuities) own about 50% of total stock market valuation. Hardly anyone is calling up their personal broker anymore to buy individual company shares.
Even if your retirement plan, self directed or not owns stocks, bonds, etfs, the share amount by dollar still belongs to the individual..
I believe that was the intent.
Quoted from OLDPINGUY:if a married couple makes less than $50k, there are govt programs
Nope, try again or name specific examples. I couldn't even get any assistance at all when I was working at Chick-Fil-A married, making less than 9.00/hour with one kid.
Earned Income Credit on taxes. That's about it.
Quoted from FlashDaddy:Still haven't seen 11.2 oz beers in Seattle.[quoted image]
Guinness was the first company I noticed using the smaller bottles . All of the Aldi brand beers I have seen have been in the 11.2 oz . I have not seen any of the smaller craft breweries ,that I typically buy beer from ,using the smaller bottles .
And now back to bleach .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bleach_(Nirvana_album)
pasted_image (resized).jpegQuoted from Frax:Nope, try again or name specific examples. I couldn't even get any assistance at all when I was working at Chick-Fil-A married, making less than 9.00/hour with one kid.
Earned Income Credit on taxes. That's about it.
Sure. This to a degree has some state factors that might exist.
Example for todays taxes
Earn 56k to and lets includes one child.
After standard deduction, of 24k with a goal of AGI to be 31,500, ACA super high end plan is free.
One is just above poverty level, and fits different tables of available benefits. A few thousand dollars can negate this on the high end, and a few hundred on the low end moves to medicaid, food stamps...
Quoted from trilogybeer:Guinness was the first company I noticed using the smaller bottles . All of the Aldi brand beers I have seen have been in the 11.2 oz . I have not seen any of the smaller craft breweries ,that I typically buy beer from ,using the smaller bottles .
Hoegaarden, Chimay (I think), Leffe, Chouffe (I think) use 11.2 ounce bottles. All Belgian, all delicious.
Quoted from investingdad:Hoegaarden, Chimay (I think), Leffe, Chouffe (I think) use 11.2 ounce bottles. All Belgian, all delicious.
Strongbow Ciders are 11.2 ounces bottles. Of course, it's my wife's favorite. Heineken owns Strongbow. They also own Lagunitas. I hope I never see an 11.2 ounce Lagunitas.
Quoted from Frax:Went several months without contract a few years ago. I'm personally willing to vote against this garbage and vote yes for a strike, and my work center has voted for authorizing strikes before.
*edit* Just so there's some laughable comparison points here because I don't want someone to go "Wow, a 3% raise is pretty good!" Sure...if you make 100k/year.. but I make less hourly than I can make DONATING PLASMA. Sure, I can't be bled dry for 40 hours a week, but if I could, I'd make more money doing that in take home pay. And that will still be the case after 4 years of stacking 3% raises. And you wouldn't believe the absurd breadth of things I need to know and understand to do my job effectively. It's changed massively in the 10 years I've been here, that's why our current pay is a joke. Even I would've said 5 years ago that my job was too easy for what I got paid, but not anymore. The amount of specialized skills that can't be trained for and information needed to know and retain has easily increased tenfold if not more since then, and pay has not kept up at all.
Wah wah, quit whining quit unions, get paid what you are worth
Quoted from kbliznick:It's gotten to the point where they are cannibalizing profitable established companies in order to keep the game going (ToysRUs).
Thank you Mitt Romney and your "legitimate business". May you rot and burn in hell.
Quoted from investingdad:It's no different than the tired iteration of the story about a client complaining over the high cost of paying an engineer for placing a single X on a drawing. If the engineer is the only one who knows where to place the X, he's added value equivalent to his cost.
B1A1L1L1Y (resized).pngQuoted from Marvin:Wah wah, quit whining quit unions, get paid what you are worth
Not sure if trolling, just a moron, or you actually have some kind of legit point to make that requires explanation.
*edited a few times. Trying to not be a total a-hole and leave some room for discussion if there's an actual point other than calling me a whiner, as much as I doubt it.*
Quoted from Frax:Not sure if trolling, just a moron, or you actually have some kind of legit point to make that requires explanation.
*edited a few times. Trying to not be a total a-hole and leave some room for discussion if there's an actual point other than calling me a whiner, as much as I doubt it.*
You went several months without a contact because you weren't happy with your pay, if you don't like your pay get another job. Get paid based on your worth, not some unions contact that dictates pay levels regardless of actual merit, plus you'd save giving the "leaders" big fat checks. Unions had a place before govt work reforms and regulations. Now they are just archaic syndicates that cause costs to skyrocket for no benefit.
Quoted from Marvin:You went several months without a contact because you weren't happy with your pay, if you don't like your pay get another job. Get paid based on your worth, not some unions contact that dictates pay levels regardless of actual merit, plus you'd save giving the "leaders" big fat checks. Unions had a place before govt work reforms and regulations. Now they are just archaic syndicates that cause costs to skyrocket for no benefit.
Well, that’s one opinion
As long as 1st world countries can have 3rd world workers, the 1st world workers are fucked. I'm not sure any other country allows this other than the good old US of A. I personally think if your workforce is 3rd world, then your prices should be 3rd world. Hell, for that matter, your executives should be 3rd world. The executives always get paid though.
Quoted from Marvin:You went several months without a contact because you weren't happy with your pay, if you don't like your pay get another job. Get paid based on your worth, not some unions contact that dictates pay levels regardless of actual merit, plus you'd save giving the "leaders" big fat checks. Unions had a place before govt work reforms and regulations. Now they are just archaic syndicates that cause costs to skyrocket for no benefit.
In my position, working 'without a contract' means you're still working under the prior contract's rules and payscales....until the Union actually approves a strike, which has literally never happened in my bargaining group in the 10 years I've been here. Nobody was out of work, or at threat of being laid off by simple virtue of there not being a new agreement between the union and the company.
There are good reasons I've chosen to remain at this job, none of which, frankly, are any of your business. I will not validate my choices through some random anon. I've made the best choice I can for my situation and my family. My wife is working as well to help out, which I appreciate infinitely. Just because I can't escape my present situation in a fairy-tale like manner that you present (The one where I just throw out my resume and within a reasonable timeframe, have a higher paying job with better or identical benefits) doesn't mean that I cede my right to be unhappy with the people that are SUPPOSED to be on my side, yet never actually are. I can actually get out of my union, and pending the results of this contract, I may just do that, and then they can have their ever-shrinking group of people that barely do their job.....but I'll be damned if I'm just going to hand my life over to a CEO that makes *366 TIMES WHAT THE AVERAGE EMPLOYEE IN HIS COMPANY DOES* and say "Hey, I'm gonna leave the union and keep working for you, do you think you could find it in your heart to not f--k me over this year even though you've been doing that for the last 10 years WITH the union's help, kind sir?" 
I'll at least agree with you that unions are corrupted institutions at this point, and it would take a massive change and far less risk-averse leadership than anyone is likely to see anytime soon, to make them what they should be. And by 'should be' I mean functional bargaining units that fight for the WHOLE GROUP, not a shill for workers that barely or flat out DON'T DO THEIR JOBS.
Quoted from Wildbill327:1.5x3.5...unless you have a older home. If you read all the labels of your groceries you probably wouldn’t want to buy them.
They were 2x4 inches before they hit the planer to smooth them out. If you actually want 2x4, you must buy rough cut lumber
Quoted from Frax:There are good reasons I've chosen to remain at this job, none of which, frankly, are any of your business. I will not validate my choices through some random anon.
Did I miss the part where I asked for your reasons? Frankly I could not care less why you chose to deal with union crap. It's your choice, but if you chose to be in it and support it's B's, then I don't feel bad when you get screwed by it. People who want unions are generally the people who run the unions, and bad workers who will get protected by them. They screw the actual good workers.
Quoted from Marvin:You went several months without a contact because you weren't happy with your pay, if you don't like your pay get another job. Get paid based on your worth, not some unions contact that dictates pay levels regardless of actual merit, plus you'd save giving the "leaders" big fat checks. Unions had a place before govt work reforms and regulations. Now they are just archaic syndicates that cause costs to skyrocket for no benefit.
No self respecting CEO, COO, or CFO will work without legal representation and contracts which include mega-golden parachutes no matter how much they ran the company into to the ground.
But you expect the lower level employees to work without any kind of representation and with at-will agreements.
You should reconsider.
Quoted from pincoin:They were 2x4 inches before they hit the planer to smooth them out. If you actually want 2x4, you must buy rough cut lumber
Down the street from me a few years ago some old 4-plexes were being taken down. I salvaged some 2x4s for a project. The are god honest 2”x4” and that is how you used to buy them. And this is after the planer smoothed them out.
When I get home I post you some nice comparison pics so you can see what you could buy to what you now are stuck with buying.
Quoted from cottonm4:No self respecting CEO, COO, or CFO will work without legal representation and contracts which include mega-golden parachutes no matter how much they ran the company into to the ground.
But you expect the lower level employees to work without any kind of representation and with at-will agreements.
You should reconsider.
Get legal representation and a contact, go for it, great idea. you know what those CEOs don't have with those contracts, unions. They know better.
I'll share one ridiculous union story.
When I was a 24 year old engineer I was working at a small company that had a union for the shop workers. Anyway, I had recently completed my MBA and because I didn't go to commencement, I had the physical diploma mailed to me.
However, because I lived in an apartment, I didn't want it left outside. So I had it sent to my work address.
So I get a call from the recieving department on the day it showed up that I had a package. Great. I walked down to get it and carried it back to my cubicle.
A few days later my manager stops by with some questions. Apparently the people in the shop saw me carrying a package (my diploma) and filed a grievance.
Newbie that I was, I just started laughing at the ridiculousness of the whole thing. I explained to my manager what it was and he said, no problem and understood.
The idea that somebody filed a grievance against me for carrying my Masters diploma from Recieving to my cubicle, to me, pretty much said it all. Yes, I know they didn't know what it was, but...yeah.
Quoted from Marvin:you know what those CEOs don't have with those contracts, unions. They know better.
Or...they don't need them because they're the ones making the rules. Duh. I wish I had just left my original post, seems I was correct....but not going to worry about that anymore. Byeeeeee!
Quoted from Marvin:Did I miss the part where I asked for your reasons? Frankly I could not care less why you chose
Quoted from Marvin:Wah wah, quit whining quit unions, get paid what you are worth
You must be in charge of the excretory opening at the end of the alimentary canal company. Keep up the good work!
Quoted from Frax:Or...they don't need them because they're the ones making the rules. Duh. I wish I had just left my original post, seems I was correct....but not going to worry about that anymore. Byeeeeee!
They make the rules since they worked their way to that position. They didn't have a union preventing them from getting there.
Quoted from Marvin:They make the rules since they worked their way to that position. They didn't have a union preventing them from getting there.
Oh, you mean like Bernie Ebbers or Worldcom and his cooking of the books? Bernie founded the company and worked his way all the way up.
Or how about all the honest and forthright leaders of Enron like Ken Lay and Jeff Skilling?
All of these guys were making some great rules that screwed over employees and shareholders.
Surely you have not forgotten Bernie Madoff and how his ponzi scheme...excuse me....hedge fund wiped out a lot of peoples’ retirement accounts.
Sorry, those guys broke the rules, they didn’t make them.
You cant conflate criminals with management.
There are plenty of union members breaking the rules too, just at a smaller scale.
So political discussion is ok here if it means shitting all over working people and the ONLY thing left in the world keeping greedy corporate dipshits in any way accountable?
Got it.
30,000 stop and shop workers in New England disagree with your ludicrous accounts, Marvin. Last month they stopped a foreign corporation that makes billions in profits a year from screwing them and their families, and its awesome. Just because you have zero power in your own working life and zero allies is no excuse for such toxic jealousy.
Quoted from mcluvin:Ultimately people are gonna be people, and a lot of people suck. That includes Union reps and CEOs.
There is an old saying that when union leaders crawl into bed with management it is the rank and file workers who get screwed.
Quoted from jimjim66:The worst is toilet paper and paper towels. The way they market it now you need to figure out the fractions on the labels. 8 = 10 rolls, etc....
You no longer see what a regular paper towel is supposed to look like.
Target takes it a step further and makes you factor Red Card discount and a gift card rebate. It seriously gets f'n complicated.
Quoted from mcluvin:Target takes it a step further and makes you factor Red Card discount and a gift card rebate. It seriously gets f'n complicated.
Don't forget their Cartwheel app.
Here’s one that pisses me off.
Before the gas stations would be self serve or full serve. You’d pay a couple cents more to have an employee pump the gas for you or you could pump it yourself and save a bit.
Now they have pay at the pump, there’s no human interaction I pump the gas and pay for the transaction without the need for an employee, but is the gas cheaper if you pay at the pump? Nope. We went from self service to no service
Quoted from Luckydogg420:Here’s one that pisses me off.
Before the gas stations would be self serve or full serve. You’d pay a couple cents more to have an employee pump the gas for you or you could pump it yourself and save a bit.
Now they have pay at the pump, there’s no human interaction I pump the gas and pay for the transaction without the need for an employee, but is the gas cheaper if you pay at the pump? Nope. We went from self service to no service
Correcting for inflation, the price of gas has been nearly flat since the 70s.
Quoted from investingdad:Correcting for inflation, the price of gas has been nearly flat since the 70s.
You are correct. But the other guy has a point. You used to be able to pull up to the pumps and say, "Filler up!" or, if you were pinching pennies, you would most likely say, "A dollar's worth of regular" 
There never was a "please" included.
But now, YOU have to enter your zip code It's cold. Raining. The wind is blowing and YOU have to get out of your car and do it 
===================
I was operating a self-service station in 1977-1978. The industry was in the middle of transitioning from full service to self service. The old ladies were having a hard time making that transition ("There's some thing wrong with your pump. I got gas all over me". **I"m sorry, madam. Send me the cleaning bill for your clothes.).
1977-1978 was also when unleaded was being phased in and regular was being phased out. Regular was 4 cents cheaper per gallon and these kids would come in with funnels so they could put regular into a car designed for unleaded only. I sure do miss that leaded 93 octane gas.
Quoted from Luckydogg420:Here’s one that pisses me off.
Before the gas stations would be self serve or full serve. You’d pay a couple cents more to have an employee pump the gas for you or you could pump it yourself and save a bit.
Now they have pay at the pump, there’s no human interaction I pump the gas and pay for the transaction without the need for an employee, but is the gas cheaper if you pay at the pump? Nope. We went from self service to no service
Yeah, my life has a gigantic void in it now that my interaction with gas station attendants has mostly faded away.
What will they take from us next?!?!?!
I am not sure what it looks like at your local Home Depot but here they are phasing out cashiers. I’d like to support local brick and mortar stores but if i am now scanning all my purchases, at that point I’d much rather just sit at home and order my stuff online. Whats next? Am i going to be stocking shelves?
Quoted from pinstyle:I am not sure what it looks like at your local Home Depot but here they are phasing out cashiers. I’d like to support local brick and mortar stores but if i am now scanning all my purchases, at that point I’d much rather just sit at home and order my stuff online. Whats next? Am i going to be stocking shelves?
Robots will be doing the restocking....They currently are pulling stock filling orders at Amazon.
You also wont have to scan your items, costs are dropping on grabbing all items in your cart, or like Amazon Go stores.
With Amazon Drone delivery, eventually more people will receive same day delivery.
(Meanwhile the site is still bug-ridden in searches, Ive had more than enough issues as a Vendor, and even family that goes to Bezos
Ranch as a "upper" employee, are burnt on Profit over people, so I boycott them, personally)
Is anybody going to fly on a 737 Max after, or if, they are declared airworthy again?
I stumbled onto this YT video by 60 Minutes Australia. It tells a lot more than I have been reading around here. What sucks about the 2nd 737 Max crash is that Boeing knew there was a problem and soft pedaled it.
And then it took a communist country (China) to ground its fleet of 737 Max's before Boeing took any action.
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