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00wyk

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What's funny is, I am a big dude (6'3/295) but I strongly prefer small cars and trucks. My daily drivers are a Ford Ranger and Mazda 626, both are 1998 models with four banger and manual transmission. I like smaller tractors too, dad's new MF2706E feels gigantic compared to my 65 year old TO-35. I would prefer to live in a much smaller house, but the wifey makes the mortgage payment so she gets to choose!

That's probably another thing to it as well. Americans are used to bigger and better. I mean, I had a 2500 sq ft house when I was living in Austin - and I was single. WTF was I thinking? I had 3 empty rooms. It was ridiculous. Here's my truck in front of it. I mean - what an A-Hole I was.

14233143.hodiesel.jpg
 

00wyk

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On some of these electrics I have seen, I wonder if the management espressly told the designers to make them look as pathetic and clumsy as possible to retain petrol car sales for as long as possible.
The lithiums do OK for now, but we're starting to see the future:
There are graphene and solid state graphene batteries now being tested, and testing well. So shortly there will be better options over all. Lighter, more power, more efficient. Eventually electrics will be the norm in about everything. The bad thing is it will make buying used cars a bit more complicated. But, hey, who here hasn't bought a used car with a lemon of a transmission or engine?
 

stihl_head1982

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That's probably another thing to it as well. Americans are used to bigger and better. I mean, I had a 2500 sq ft house when I was living in Austin - and I was single. WTF was I thinking? I had 3 empty rooms. It was ridiculous. Here's my truck in front of it. I mean - what an A-Hole I was.

14233143.hodiesel.jpg



I'm not put off by any of this. We buy what we can afford because we can. If tiny house living is for some -- fine with me. I personally don't live in a huge house. The beauty of being in America is we get to choose. It may not be that way elsewhere, but I don't have to live there, nor do I desire to. Very thankful for the freedom which our country affords. And by the way, I like the Dodge truck :D
 

00wyk

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I'm not put off by any of this. We buy what we can afford because we can. If tiny house living is for some -- fine with me. I personally don't live in a huge house. The beauty of being in America is we get to choose. It may not be that way elsewhere, but I don't have to live there, nor do I desire to. Very thankful for the freedom which our country affords. And by the way, I like the Dodge truck :D

In fairness, I used that truck to haul medical equipment like CT scanners and gantries, etc. And it did get decent mileage doing it. But I was part of the problem, and not the solution. I worked for a few companies that had profit margins that were sky high, which is how I was making 180K/yr as an engineer - back in the late 90's! So that would be well over 250K/yr now. I thought I was making the world a better place, working in oncology and helping people with cancer, but I was wrong. The industry didn't care about curing - it only cares about treatment and profits. After watching so many people die so horribly, and after I was so deeply disillusioned after spending so much time in the industry, I left. That was my choice.
 

stihl_head1982

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In fairness, I used that truck to haul medical equipment like CT scanners and gantries, etc. And it did get decent mileage doing it. But I was part of the problem, and not the solution. I worked for a few companies that had profit margins that were sky high, which is how I was making 180K/yr as an engineer - back in the late 90's! So that would be well over 250K/yr now. I thought I was making the world a better place, working in oncology and helping people with cancer, but I was wrong. The industry didn't care about curing - it only cares about treatment and profits. After watching so many people die so horribly, and after I was so deeply disillusioned after spending so much time in the industry, I left. That was my choice.

Those are alarming factors about the industry. I am saddened by these greatly. Thank you for sharing them.
 

chipper1

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In fairness, I used that truck to haul medical equipment like CT scanners and gantries, etc. And it did get decent mileage doing it. But I was part of the problem, and not the solution. I worked for a few companies that had profit margins that were sky high, which is how I was making 180K/yr as an engineer - back in the late 90's! So that would be well over 250K/yr now. I thought I was making the world a better place, working in oncology and helping people with cancer, but I was wrong. The industry didn't care about curing - it only cares about treatment and profits. After watching so many people die so horribly, and after I was so deeply disillusioned after spending so much time in the industry, I left. That was my choice.
I thought engineers drove trains, not dodges.
 

00wyk

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Those are alarming factors about the industry. I am saddened by these greatly. Thank you for sharing them.

It's not all bad news. Some are definitely in it to try to make people better. I actually was ahead of the curve - most Oncologists and people working in oncology last an average of 7-9 years before changing their fields or moving in to something more adjacent. I lasted a lot longer. The system is brutal in the states.
The issue is the medical field is for profit in the states. It wasn't always that way, but since LBJ took office, things started to change and go mroe private. Everyone knows Kaiser Permanente, right? But did you know Kaiser used to have WWII ship yards that made insane amounts of money? If not for him, we wouldn't have had liberty ships in the numbers we did(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_J._Kaiser). You could argue he is the pinnacle of the American dream.
He did so well, he created a health care system for his employees and their entire families. And this basically brought on the entire employer and private health care system we see stateside. It wasn't intentional - no one had great health care in 1942, after all. But it opened the door to privatize it, shuttering state hospitals along the way.
Zoom to today - it's become an industry. No where else in the world is it described as such. In fact, most other health systems now rely on the US to do all the R&D and put up the investments so their systems can reap the benefits later at greatly reduced costs. Here's an example:

Under our system here in Ireland, which I will be the first to tell you is not great, to get a CT scan done can take weeks or months if it is elective and not an emergency - for a charge of €50. But, without any insurance, you can go to a semi state run/privatised clinic like we used to have stateside and pay to have it done, likely within days. I did this for my MIL - it cost me €450. You won't be getting a ct scan in any hospital or clinic for that much stateside. You can also get medical insurance. It is available from the state or privately. It usually costs 40-60/mo, and they can not turn you down for having a condition. But, they don't need to, if you have a condition the state run hospitals usually are already treating you at a reduced cost. If you had private insurance, that scan would be free in a private clinic at 40-60/mo.
Yes, everyone in the health system makes less money in Europe than they do stateside. This is why you see a lot of foreign nationals in our US health system, afterall. They get affordable education in Europe, then some relocate to the states to make more cash. Having said that, Bayer, Pfizer, GSK, Siemens and Philips do a killing stateside(almost literally - https://biopharmguy.com/links/country-belgium-all-location.php - and thats not including manufacturers) . YOu'll see a lot of Belgian companies doing this. They aren't Belgian, they are just taking advantage of the corporate tax system there. Which is under attack by the EU as we speak, of course.
Yes, the income taxes are much more in Europe. Well, it depends. Most systems are heavily graduated. So, like for myself, I pay no income taxes since I make so little. Up to about €19-32K in most systems, your income tax is almost negligible(but your tax burden is still up there for road taxes, cars, etc unless you modify your behavour like we did - purchasing small cars, diesels, etc). After that, it spikes quite a bit, up to 59% for over 150K or so like in some Scandivian countries. AJ could tell you what it is like in the UK. It used to be really bad there - it was the reason the Beatles wrote the song 'tax man'. 19-1 over something like 100k at the time. WTF? You want to make your wealthy move to Belize? That's how you do it.
Well, I also paid very little income taxes when I was stateside. To avoid incriminating myself, let's say it was shockingly low. If I made as much here in Ireland, the tax load would have been 5X higher. But that company declared bankruptcy and reformed later. As you do in the states.
As an interesting anecdote, I recall my business partner once telling me a clinic in San Antonio needed some equipment delivered, 90 miles, that week - in something like 3 days time. It wasn't heavy stuff, but it was tecnical stuff that you had to know what you were doing to uninstall it and pack it. I didn't want to do it, so I told them it would be $1,900 and the check had to be there upon arrival. They paid.
 
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00wyk

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I forgot to mention in that last post that altough they paid, it really is us that pay. But I think in the days ahead, we're gonna see just how differently all the worlds health care systems handle things...
:( God help us all(just a saying, I'm not very religious - not yet...).
 
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00wyk

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Back to lighter faire:

Car reviewers always cryin' ' bout manufacturers not being adventrous with their designs. People just want a freakin car that works and doesn't strand them, really. Now on to why the Qashqai, AKA Nissan Cash Cow, is so popular:

Some annoying dude:


One review by a stunning cinnamon gal. Or is she Maori? Possibly part Asian? A friend of mine back in Texas once told me a long time ago 'We're all gonna eventually be tan, regardless of where we live'. Now I know what he meant:


And, just to be safe, here's our own Sinead McCann with the latest version:

 

00wyk

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So it reads in MPG/MPH?
I'd guess you can change the digital part easily, but I'd think the outer ring would be kmPH.

It's a Northern Ireland car originally...think about it...
And, of course, with a press of a button it will give me KM/L, and Kilometers/Liter fuel consumption on the go.

Which also means that average is closer to 36MPG US as the US Gal is 83.3% of the British gallon. Still, insane mileage for a mid sized car in mostly city driving. I'll have to do a fwy run some time and seee how she does. Which gives me a great segue - why do they call 750ml bottles of liquor 'fifths' stateside? Because it is one fifth of a US gallon. Most Europeans are confused by it.
 

chipper1

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It's a Northern Ireland car originally...think about it...
And, of course, with a press of a button it will give me KM/L, and Kilometers/Liter fuel consumption on the go.

Which also means that average is closer to 36MPG US as the US Gal is 83.3% of the British gallon. Still, insane mileage for a mid sized car in mostly city driving. I'll have to do a fwy run some time and seee how she does. Which gives me a great segue - why do they call 750ml bottles of liquor 'fifths' stateside? Because it is one fifth of a US gallon. Most Europeans are confused by it.
You'll need to educate me...
 
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