Warning About Dealers And Their Pricing

[5030]

No I am not.
Like I said before, I mean no disrespect to the people of CA, or any state. I just find the people in charge to be overly oppressive. Sure, I realize they were elected, but you are forgetting people running campaigns for positions say many things to get elected, then turn around and do something totally different.
Nobody deserves that.

The day you start respecting anyone other than yourself and your inflated ego is the day all deceased folks roll over in the graves.

 

[Hay Dude]

That's right. Policies based on selfishness have a history of moving societies backwards rather than forward.

I see what you mean and respect what you are saying, but what was the alternative during the periods of “selfishness”? At the time it was being done, it was probably not thought of as selfish, but as making your property conform to the expected standards of the day?

Maybe the definition of “selfish“ has evolved?

For example, most of us look at smoking as being very selfish today and people of yesteryear smoked at alarming percentages. They killed themselves (at great cost to society in insurance, forest fires, etc.) and harmed people around them. Decades of education and millions of people dying from smoking related illnesses later has the effect of reducing smoking. Now smoking is viewed as more selfish than back 50 years ago.

Has owning and maintaining a lawn become like smoking? Is having that beautiful lawn at the cost of adding harsh chemicals to the soil and pollution to the air from mowing become like smoking? Have education on the harmful effects of lawn chemicals and lawn mower air pollution begun to bring a change in what the societal norm for a “lawn” will be? Or is it the demise of the lawn altogether?

Is having someone telling us we cant have a sprawling beautiful lawn taking away ones freedom of using their land the way they want, or is taking that freedom away a method of creating a better society?

 

[2manyrocks]

If you like having other people tell you how to keep your yard, buy a house where there's a mandatory homeowner's association.

Until the rotary power gas lawnmower was invented in the 1950s, a lot of yards were small because of the difficulty of keeping the gas cut with a push reel mower.

 

[TractorNoob39]

I'd say the majority of people do not understand the financial effects of compound interest. They are focused on whether they can make the monthly payment. They do not understand how all of this affects them financially over a period of even 4-5 years.

IMO, this is a failure of the education system. Financial decision making has a lot to do with a person's lifetime well being, and yet students are not being provided with an understanding of basic finance skills. This isn't helped by textbooks that focus on mathematic calculations instead of teaching concepts and practical application which could be due to people in academics being lacking in real world experience, ie, specifically the kind of things being posted here that really go on in real life.

Around the 2008 time frame, people who were accustomed to making good money sometimes found themselves having to file bankruptcy, particularly those who got caught up in making money flipping real estate and suddenly the bottom dropped out on them.

Then's there's another group who get thrown a curve like illness, high medical bills, unexpected loss of job.

Then there are a few elderly who just don't have enough retirement income or assets to make it.

But there is also a group of repeat filers who know how to use chapter 13 to get themselves a lower car loan. They predictably file a new case about each time they get another car.

Hard to teach kids about compounding interest when bank accounts that they likely have access to draw in little to no return for years and some banks charge them more than the interest made just to keep the account open

 

[Lineman North Florida]

Hard to teach kids about compounding interest when bank accounts that they likely have access to draw in little to no return for years and some banks charge them more than the interest made just to keep the account open

Maybe have them check with a local credit union, around here most credit unions do not charge a fee to have a checking account. I still have my credit union account that I opened at a young age and although I have another account with a major chain bank that doesn't charge a fee as long as you keep at least 10k between your checking and savings I will always support my credit union for how good they treated me for all those years.

 

[Jstpssng]

Is having someone telling us we cant have a sprawling beautiful lawn taking away ones freedom of using their land the way they want, or is taking that freedom away a method of creating a better society?

To me it’s a question of “Is what somebody is doing spilling over onto somebody else’s land?” If not then you should be free to do as you please. If you are polluting somebody else’s well, poisoning their garden and trees, or your dog is going out and chasing them while they are walking down the road, then your freedom is infringing on theirs.

It isn’t always that black and white though. Somebody mentioned cigarettes... personally I hate the things. Yet I don’t agree with laws telling a store or bar owner that he can’t allow smokers in his private establishment. It’s my choice whether I want to go there. If he prefers to cater to smokers, that should be his choice.

 

[rScotty]

Has owning and maintaining a lawn become like smoking? Is having that beautiful lawn at the cost of adding harsh chemicals to the soil and pollution to the air from mowing become like smoking? Have education on the harmful effects of lawn chemicals and lawn mower air pollution begun to bring a change in what the societal norm for a “lawn” will be? Or is it the demise of the lawn altogether?

Is having someone telling us we cant have a sprawling beautiful lawn taking away ones freedom of using their land the way they want, or is taking that freedom away a method of creating a better society?

I think that using a lawn as an example is a good way to look at things. We all like our lawns and want to have nice ones...but you raise the question, "Does that make a beautiful lawn a selfish thing?"

I'm not going to judge for anyone else whether they should be selfish or not. I don't condemn one way or the other. I'm not even taking the common view that being selfish is wrong or immoral. So if we look at selfishness dispassionately, it becomes easier to define your own views. For me is is simply:

If an action primarily benefits yourself then it is selfish.
If it primarily benefits everyone else then than is not.

So thought of that way then yes, a private lawn is somwhat selfish. Not always, and not terribly.... but more selfish than a public park would be

The morality of selfishness seems to depend on the degree. A little bit of selfishness helps us be comfortable enough to survive and raise a family; overdoing it becomes destructive.

rScotty

 

[2manyrocks]

Hard to teach kids about compounding interest when bank accounts that they likely have access to draw in little to no return for years and some banks charge them more than the interest made just to keep the account open

Very true. Banks have essentially had access to free money for some years now, and I'm sure they love it.

The thing that seemed to work the best with students was to talk with them about the amount of interest they would be paying if they let their credit cards go crazy. So I'd show them a monthly budget spreadsheet, a yearly spreadsheet, and a spreadsheet at 5 years based on having credit cards and car loans with high interest rates. This was pretty effective at getting their attention because they could then see how much of their money was going down the drain.

 

[TractorNoob39]

Maybe have them check with a local credit union, around here most credit unions do not charge a fee to have a checking account. I still have my credit union account that I opened at a young age and although I have another account with a major chain bank that doesn't charge a fee as long as you keep at least 10k between your checking and savings I will always support my credit union for how good they treated me for all those years.

Yes. I use a credit union as well. I was really just pointing out that the compounding interest on savings or bonds has not followed the rule of 7s for many years now. I works if looking at the stock market but most younger people I know don't know much about that either. I usually teach people about interest using the amortization schedule on a 30 year mortgage to show them how rates influence the payments and how to cancel out interest payments on the front end of the loan. Once they understand that I figure they should be able to apply that elsewhere.

 

[Hay Dude]

The day you start respecting anyone other than yourself and your inflated ego is the day all deceased folks roll over in the graves.

Lions are not concerned with the opinions of sheep