gwilliams6

One reason that buying and fixing up a used RX8 is still a great alternative to buying a new sports car:
https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...0Non%20Openers

Loki

iTrader: (1)

Yerp. My father in law keeps talking to me about the 1971 Mustang Mach 1 he bought after high school with money from rando farm jobs.
My generation is slightly fucked, but at least we could afford some nice things. The 2000+ generation is fully fucked.

BigCajun

iTrader: (1)

A good article.
It's not just younger workers being affected, some of us older blue collar workers are also being hit harder with additional health care expenses as we get older.
More frequent trips to health care providers, more expensive coverage, treatments and meds, with wages not keeping pace are eating a hole in 'expendable' income that has in the past gone to our 'toys'.

The Economic Policy Institute did a study last year citing CEO income since 1978 has risen 940% while workers wages rose 12%.

Globalism and the outsourcing of American jobs has become more problematic as the Labor Unions have been slowly dismantled.

The rich are getting richer on the backs of the middle class worker.

https://real-economics.blogspot.com/...r-day.html?m=1

kevink0000

*yawn*


"Income Inequality" is a Marxist construct and statement. Shame on R/T for introducing such language into an automotive article. That article is full of all kinds of gobbledegook, like the gender pay gap stuff. I suspect the author is young.

kevink0000

Yep, he is. Silly fellow.

Loki

iTrader: (1)

I suspect you have no idea what Marxism is beyond a label.
Nothing wrong with discussing socioeconomic trends, everything wrong with dismissing them because they sound like a thing you don't like, then dismissing the author because he doesn't fit your idea of an expert.
Are you suggesting there isn't a problem with income to debt ratios? The article is pretty well argumented, is that the gobbledegook you saw?

Source: was taught actual Marxism in school.

kevink0000

Class struggle. "Income Inequality" is just another name for it. Marx all the way, baby. Socioeconomic trends, OK. (Modern) Marxist slogans, not so much.

I know a little. Its pretty transparent to me, and I like I said find the article misplaced in an auto magazine, even though the general topic is valid.

I don't want to get this thread closed though. I just wanted to present a different view of this article for those who might read it afterward.

Federighi

iTrader: (7)

Both BC and Kevin mention good points and the comments below the article are certainly interesting. Equality is fictitious. I believe the merit of your character and what you do is most important. Yes there can be equal opportunity in equal circumstances but we know all people are different. Some tall and stupid, others short and smart.

I think those who are more than willing to sacrifice their self determinism for X (monetary desires) are largely to blame. The love of money and self has subverted our humanity and ultimately led to the death of natural exchange. Having debt(s) is incredibly negative and should be avoided at all cost. The borrower is the slave of the lender. Just my opinion

Federighi

iTrader: (7)

Food for thought...



make sure to watch the experiment

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart...ans-180954423/

Meat Head

The 2nd link I very much enjoyed. Spent a lot of time in the hallway throughout school years for not being Shaun the Sheep. Amazing how curiosity is stifled by “education “. Still see it with all 4 of my kids as they went/go through school.

Federighi

iTrader: (7)

Yes I think 'Academy of Ideas' makes quality videos too and the channel below offers good insight as well imo.

Education is that which remains, if one has forgotten everything he learned in school. A person that only does what's better or worse is the easiest type to control.

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

they should change their name to Wipe&Flush (W&F), that rag died a long time ago
.

MattMPS

Cars are expensive nowadays, no real news. Here in EU are SUPERexpensive. and super taxed.

BigCajun

iTrader: (1)

strokercharged95gt

Great article. I hear the sports car market is booming in Venezuela....

gwilliams6

The article talks about how our other normal expenses like home prices and all have skyrocketed over the years for the average person ,and now takes a much larger portion of our incomes, and that is robing us of the ability to afford a sports car these days, unlike the past . Cheers

TeamRX8

iTrader: (25)

Yet what the article fails to acknowledge is the life style that people live today is far above what it was then too. What people consider to be a “poor” person today is pretty laughable. All the while people from all over the world want to flock to this land of woe and misery. No, the real issue is that people here today are spoiled beyond all reason, having their head screwed on backwards, and a skewed perspective not based on reality. You know, the kind of reality where a sports car really doesn’t make any practical sense in their life.

After all, what is a sports car? It’s not a necessity, it’s a luxury. Right up there with your 60” tv and all the other non-essential stuff everyone is trying to cram into their life. Because without all that crap in you’re life then you’d only have the essentials; shelter, food, clothes, comfort from the elements. That’s what people today call being “poor”. It only demonstrates how screwed up their perspective is and how utterly spoiled they all are. What it really is; greed and lust of worldly possessions, crass consumerism at it’s worst, coveting possessions to the point those things, and ultimately the money to obtain them, are the idols they worship.

It’s the downfall of every society that ever came and was. It will be the downfall of our’s too. That’s all the article represents to someone with a clear view that can see afar off; the corruption of generations.
.

Federighi

iTrader: (7)

Team- well done, serious mic drop.

BC- I've come across those stats as well. Interesting and unfortunate to say the very least. I wish generosity was trendy and cool, if only.

Gwlliams- No sure if you're familiar but Nixon's Economic Policy took the US off the 'gold standard' in '71 in an effort to reduce inflation. I think this is a partial source of our problem(s) and worth a deeper look. Also check out Keynesian economy theory as I believe it's relevant to the topic.

Below is an except from Nixon's address. There's buzzing present in the audio, sorry.

Bladecutter

Apparently everyone missed this article that was at the end of the article above that mentions how people with low paying jobs and unsteady futures don't want to buy expensive sports cars:

https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-cul...p-sports-cars/

If you can't afford a brand new $65k Corvette, maybe you should consider something a bit less expensive until you can.
If you need to buy a shiny new toy that goes fast at age 25, do what I did, and buy a new motorcycle.
Hell, by the time I was 35, when I finally bought my first brand new sports car (2011 RX-8) I had already bought 7 brand new motorcycles in my life.

Heck, I just bought another brand new motorcycle just a few weeks ago.
2020 Ducati SuperSport. $13k. Doesn't break the bank.
I did it by selling some company stock.

****.
I guess that makes me the bad guy in this story, doesn't it?

You know what though?
24 year old me who worked 2 jobs and only netted $19k in 1998 thinks I've done okay, and he approves of my life choices.

BigCajun

iTrader: (1)

Hey BC, is it just me or you haven't been around much?

I'm not sure but I think I made about the same in '98, but I was 38 and just moved here.

I struggled for years. I bought my last new vehicle in 1984, base Isuzu Pup, $6600, tax, title, & license.

Bladecutter

I pop by a few times a week, and look through a few sections, but I don't post as much as I did nearly 10 years ago when I first bought the car.
Mostly here in the General Auto section, now a days.

Federighi

iTrader: (7)

Well worth the watch. I wrote down a few excerpts and bunched them together. MLK's truth starts around 3:30.

All sorts of people who have a certain amount of training cook not because they like cooking, but because it's a job which through you can make money. This is a fallacy, this delusion between work and play: that anybody who regards being a cook in a restaurant as something which is simply a job --which you have to do in order to make money, and therefore can go out and have fun in something else besides cooking has been absolutely deluded. He has been persuaded to spend a very substantial part of his life doing something which he hates doing in order that he may earn the wherewithal to do what is really fun later on. This --insofar as our education is oriented towards training people for jobs --this is the colossal fallacy in it. The only jobs worth working at are those which you thoroughly enjoy. It is possible to enjoy thoroughly being, say, a cook in a restaurant if you are allowed to take delight in, and to reverence the fish, the flour, the vegetables, the fruit which are provided for you to work with. But as things stand, what happens is exactly the reverse.

Federighi

iTrader: (7)

In ethics, intrinsic value is a property of anything that is valuable on its own. Intrinsic value is in contrast to instrumental value, which is a property of anything that derives its value from a relation to another intrinsically valuable thing.

In finance, intrinsic value of an asset usually refers to a value calculated on simplified assumptions. For example the intrinsic value of an option is based on the current market value of the underlying instrument, ignoring the possibility of future fluctuations and the time value of money.

In economics, moral hazard occurs when an entity has an incentive to increase its exposure to risk because it does not bear the full costs of that risk. For example, when a corporation is insured, it may take on higher risk knowing that its insurance will pay the associated costs.

Federighi

iTrader: (7)

'The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.'

'If you get with reality, all sorts of illusions will disappear.'
-Alan Watts

Being 'present' has been a very difficult thing for me to accomplish in life. I've always found myself deep in thought concerned with hypothetical futures(s) and whatnot. For me, philosophy has proven to be a great intellectual tool to help me decipher and approach what I would consider the 'meaning(s) of life' to be.

I hope this message find you well

Federighi

iTrader: (7)

I also recently happened to come across this channel. Wow this young man has connected a lot of dots.