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Musk: American workers are lazy. Chinese workers are awesome.


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9 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

First, after all these years, I thought you were a lawyer.   Luck is the incorrect word. 
 

Awesome. Sounds like we’re very similar in that regard. 
 

I don’t celebrate people falling down the ladder.  But at the end of the day, I put my family’s well being above all else.  As long as we are disproportionally taxing people, it very fucking much a zero sum game. My sites have been chock full of manual labor workers every fucking day of the week for the last 15 years. Some are not stupid, some very much can barely tie their shoes, some are fucking lazy.  I’ll defer to you on computer shit, I’d bet dollars to donuts I have a better feel on the daily goings ons of the US, hell, and Mexican, Bahamian, Malaysian, Thai, Australian, Brazilian, and a host of other laborers than you. 

Went to Qatar on a month long oil and gas project back in 2018 and that was the eye opener.  While my company paid me 200 bucks of per diem a day and had me in the business suite of a the Radisson Blu and a driver.  You had the manual labor from Egypt and the Phillipines that were viewed as worse than roaches and probably getting paid a dollar a day

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2 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

First, after all these years, I thought you were a lawyer.   Luck is the incorrect word. 

Married to a lawyer and got a front row seat to law school lol. I like to learn, and she would often explain things in layman's terms to me with how things actually work in the law and court system. She is a very patient woman who knows her shit and isn't afraid to set me straight lol

5 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

As long as we are disproportionally taxing people, it very fucking much a zero sum game.

"Disproportionately taxing people" is a really incorrect way to describe marginal tax rates.

10 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

My sites have been chock full of manual labor workers every fucking day of the week for the last 15 years. Some are not stupid, some very much can barely tie their shoes, some are fucking lazy.  I’ll defer to you on computer shit, I’d bet dollars to donuts I have a better feel on the daily goings ons of the US, hell, and Mexican, Bahamian, Malaysian, Thai, Australian, Brazilian, and a host of other laborers than you. 

No doubt you've got a better handle on manual labor markets and the people doing the work than I do - I sit at a desk and figure out ways to optimize operations and increase resource utilization while reducing cost. But every time I've visited a customer site and sat down with the people actually DOING the work, I've never once thought that they couldn't do my job. I just have a different set of skills and training than they do, and have pumped myself full of so much false bravado that the imposter syndrome is in the rear view mirror.

To bring it full circle and back on topic, my point is: I believe that people will do better and work harder if presented with real opportunity for growth. If you're a laborer right now, you don't have many options and we (as a society) aren't doing much to cultivate more options - because doing so is socialism, or something.

Or it's argued against along the lines of crab mentality: "I didn't have that benefit, so why should they??"

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9 minutes ago, Captainant said:

"Disproportionately taxing people" is a really incorrect way to describe marginal tax rates.

I don’t agree. We have issues that could be optimized across the entire board. 
 

10 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I sit at a desk and figure out ways to optimize operations and increase resource utilization while reducing cost.

Are you the better educated me?

11 minutes ago, Captainant said:

I've never once thought that they couldn't do my job. I just have a different set of skills and training than they do,

You are either not giving yourself enough credit, or not at your peak potential.  

13 minutes ago, Captainant said:

If you're a laborer right now, you don't have many options and we (as a society) aren't doing much to cultivate more options - because doing so is socialism, or something.

This sentence made me think we aren’t even on the the right discussion at the moment. More than one of our superintendents made more than my CEO last year.  Laboring is a better job than what we need to be discussing. About 15% of mine, today (literally today), rolled up in newer 250’s.   50% of the operators here today are in >60k trucks.  I don’t know where the locals live, but the Houston guys I brought are all from Conroe/Spring area.   Discussion needs to be on some other menial type job that falls less than 6 figures like these guys.  These jobs just suck, not *necessarily low paid. 
 

*My Thai labor was something like $4/day. Apparently they were ballers when they went home :(  

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21 minutes ago, FartingMonk said:

Went to Qatar on a month long oil and gas project back in 2018 and that was the eye opener.  While my company paid me 200 bucks of per diem a day and had me in the business suite of a the Radisson Blu and a driver.  You had the manual labor from Egypt and the Phillipines that were viewed as worse than roaches and probably getting paid a dollar a day

Yep. Had same experience in Singapore. They were building a hotel right behind my house. They were using Indians (I think, or Pakistanis) as their labor. Those guys would live in tents or scattered on the ground onsite, and literally bathe in puddles in the courtyard part of the hotel.  Crazy experience. 0 regard for safety. These dudes would hop on the fast line and ride it across site, in their sandals. 

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1 hour ago, Captainant said:

But every time I've visited a customer site and sat down with the people actually DOING the work, I've never once thought that they couldn't do my job. I just have a different set of skills and training than they do, and have pumped myself full of so much false bravado that the imposter syndrome is in the rear view mirror.

 

This is interesting. I have noticed that this type of thinking is pretty common amongst Millenials/Gen Z in the industry. You mentioned that you graduated in the teens, how long have you been in the industry?

 

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2 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

Good. A lot of people don’t.  Now you understand not being able to live in Austin, vs having a dirt floor and stolen electricity. 
 

Your anecdote is someone knowingly passing HIV to people?  I’m not sure that person needs medication as much as a bullet between the eyes.  Fuck that person, and I have no sympathy for anything that happens to them. In fact, I hope nothing but bad things happen to someone who knowingly passes around HIV.

I bet they could make it in Houston or SA.  I’d love to live in one of the best cities in America, that tops every category and list, where my property value grows at a 50%+ clip year over year.  We have dozens (hundreds?) of people on this board who will be millionaires simply due to buying a house there 25 years ago.  You, being a resident of Austin (iirc) have more to do with the current state of affairs there than I do.  Sounds like maybe some local govt not making shady real estate deals with their buddies in regards to homeless housing would go along way to fixing the EMS issue.  I can’t vote in Austin. Can you? 

JFC, it's not the 90s anymore. If a person with HIV has access to their medication, which is literally one pill a day, they can have a completely normal sex life and they will not pass HIV on to any person they have sex with. Everyone deserves to have sex life. It's essential to us. And there are people who, through very little fault of their own, have to rely on sex work to survive.  Tragically, sex work is a great way to contract HIV. What are they supposed to do then? They're already treated as lepers by people who share your politics, which is, unfortunately, an outsized portion of this state. So they have to keep fucking for money, and now that includes needing the money to pay for medications that both prevent the growth of HIV within themselves and prevents them from passing the virus on to someone else.

What an ignorant and disgusting assumption to make. The straights continue to not be okay.

I vote in every fucking election that I can.

Edited by trauma babe
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28 minutes ago, F250 said:

This is interesting. I have noticed that this type of thinking is pretty common amongst Millenials/Gen Z in the industry. You mentioned that you graduated in the teens, how long have you been in the industry?

I'm a millennial ass millennial, and have been working in IT/enterprise architecture and ops for about 8 years now. I started out stacking, racking, provisioning, and administering physical servers in racks and now I do enterprise scale cloud architecture and some machine learning on the side. 

I've been able to own the deepening of my knowledge and expertise and scale it up because of my upbringing and super tech-nerd dad teaching me how to reason through a problem and troubleshoot. It's not some magical "it" thing that enabled my success, just good parenting and getting comfortable with making mistakes and learning from that.

It's just much easier to tolerate making mistakes and taking risks when you've got an emergency fund and financial stability. It opens up so many more doors for me just by virtue of being able to be picky about what shots I take on stuff

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17 minutes ago, trauma babe said:

What an ignorant and disgusting statement to make. The straights continue to not be okay.

 

That’s fucking rich.  It’s just one pill a day, after all. That apparently is so prohibitively expensive some can’t afford it without committing heinous acts. 

If there ever was a post to show you are not living in reality, justifying knowingly passing HIV to others because “its not the 90’s anymore lolol” and “it’s just a pill a day!!1!” has to be the pinnacle. A truly disgusting, vile, and frankly evil take on a place littered with bad takes.  Congratulations. 

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5 hours ago, Sawbonz said:

I didn’t watch any video I lived it. I also watched friends and family live it and more didn’t make it out than did. There is zero margin for error when you grow up that way. Even if you make all the right choices. Realize you are the exception and be thankful you were blessed with a mother who didn’t abandon you and your brother despite her hardships, or become an addict, or find a guy that liked to get drunk and use y’all for punching bags, or get cancer and die when you were a kid. All of those things were realities for kids I grew up with. 

Where would you be if your mom had had a serious illness or injury while working and going to night school? With what I do for a living I see lives and families destroyed because the breadwinner gets hurt, misses too much work, loses their job and therefore insurance (if they could afford it in the first place), and can’t get a needed surgery so they can get back to work. Even if I did the surgery for free the hospital will want thousands of dollars up front, might as well be a million

It is rare to have the combination of talent, intelligence, drive, and lucky breaks you and I had to get from where we started to where we are. I would like fewer of us to have to rely so much on the luck part. Will some people game the system and take advantage? of course that’s human nature and always will be. But I would rather those inefficiencies than the loopholes in the system that further enrich those at the top. 

  It amazes me that some of the people in this thread are so far out of touch with hardship that they can't fathom the needle-threading it takes to make it out of poverty. Usually it requires someone jumping on the grenade. Its the real life version of the "save yourself" self sacrifice scene played out in movies. My mom literally sacrificed every bit of herself to get me out. Her happiness. Her time. Her health. She died at 64.

  If you don't have that plus everything going according to schedule you are likely to fall by the wayside.

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13 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

That’s fucking rich.  It’s just one pill a day, after all. That apparently is so prohibitively expensive some can’t afford it without committing heinous acts. 

If there ever was a post to show you are not living in reality, justifying knowingly passing HIV to others because “its not the 90’s anymore lolol” and “it’s just a pill a day!!1!” has to be the pinnacle. A truly disgusting, vile, and frankly evil take on a place littered with bad takes.  Congratulations. 

   Never met a street worker I see? Mentally broken. Skiddish. Likely has a record due to some hardships long before the HIV situation. Have you looked up the cost of HIV medication for the uninsured? 2k a month. Not many options for her. To keep herself alive she is going to have to keep working the street. Also, most street workers practice safer sex than regular people by and large.

   The lack of compassion for people is something you should probably take a long look in the mirror about. Girls like that were often set on that path by the people who were supposed to care for them in child rearing. Physical and mental abuse. Molestation and rape. That's why @trauma babe is reading you the riot act. You should try volunteering somewhere long enough for people to open up to you. Maybe then you will see that a lot of times its not their fault where they are.

Edited by Thatguy
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24 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

That’s fucking rich.  It’s just one pill a day, after all. That apparently is so prohibitively expensive some can’t afford it without committing heinous acts.

Yes! Our most commonly prescribed medication costs $3,700 - $4,000 a month!

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4 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

This isn’t reserved for the poor. 

 My daughters friend that lives around the corner has a nanny that picks up the kids. They also have a tutor that comes to the house. They have a 9000 sq ft house. My wife went on month long vacations to Europe when she was a kid. She had been to 22 countries by the time we met. Not everyone is out there slaving away, missing their whole kid's childhood, and dying at age 64 due to preventable health issues. Driving this morning I saw a whole crew of dudes framing an apartment complex. On a Saturday. Meanwhile I am at home hammering away on the internet, and my wife and daughter are out shopping.

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44 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

That’s fucking rich.  It’s just one pill a day, after all. That apparently is so prohibitively expensive some can’t afford it without committing heinous acts. 

If there ever was a post to show you are not living in reality, justifying knowingly passing HIV to others because “its not the 90’s anymore lolol” and “it’s just a pill a day!!1!” has to be the pinnacle. A truly disgusting, vile, and frankly evil take on a place littered with bad takes.  Congratulations. 

Quit while you’re behind

 

 

FF5A6073-CE2F-49C3-9380-4995DFB30105.png

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31 minutes ago, Biff Tannen said:

You could still institute a wealth tax because it’s the right thing to do. Who cares if some people think it’s for a different reason?  They can be mutually exclusive. 

You ever have rational conversations with conspiracy theorists ?

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I dont understand why the minimum wage is an arbitrary figure argued to death in the political sphere rather than something that is adjusted annually to basic CPI (food, electricity, etc).

This means the lowest skilled people dont starve or freeze to death.*

The supposed corporate price-gouging or cost-passing won’t de-peg essential goods from affordability for these people. 

Thats the basic care govt should ensure, not your kids roster spot in peewee football.  And Jeff and Elon are free to pursue wealth building in private enterprise because how shitty your life might be is not a consequence of how good their life is.

If those guys are using tax advantages, take your umbrage to the politicians you put in office, not them. Or show me what deductions you voluntarily skip on your 1040s. 
 

 

*by and large, i dont think this unavoidably happens today. e.g. when my family was on the cheese, medicaid covered health. but there is probably a weak spot on the income spectrum where you’re ineligible for it but it constitutes a large expenditure. 

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3 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

So you’re ok with saddling an unsuspecting individual with the same burden, to make ends meet? Completely forgetting the health consequences, for a min.  Feel like I’m taking fucking crazy pills. 

Why would you think I’m ok with it? It’s reality

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26 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

If those guys are using tax advantages, take your umbrage to the politicians you put in office, not them. Or show me what deductions you voluntarily skip on your 1040s. 
 

  We do, and then maps get redrawn to favor the people in this thread that think the system is fine. Rinse and repeat. No CR.

Edited by Thatguy
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1 hour ago, fattyflattie said:

Yeah, I sort of know how that feels. As I’m sitting in a site trailer, 1500 miles from home. 

  I was that guy too. I moved for work 7 times, and have worked in 5 different states. I promised my wife I would stop when my kid got to middle school and wherever we were at that point was where we would stay until she graduated. So we came here. Last year I realized I was working so much I was missing all the significant things in my daughter's life. Took a hard look in the mirror and said for these last 4 years I am going to be present and accounted for at everything because I cannot get it back. Quit my job last June and started a small business. Coming up on a year. Am I making as much money? No, but ask yourself is the tradeoff worth it when your kid tells you at 25 that you weren't there for them? If work life balance was only important to me I wouldn't give a shit, but ask Andy Reid how much throwing money at your kids but not being there for them when they need you matters. Kids need us my bro.

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It's very telling that Fatty assumes this person, who is a real person, has sex with HIV-negative clients when they might transmit the virus. This person has sex for money to pay for medication to keep their viral load undetectable (and thus un-transmittable). If they lose access to their meds, which happens from time to time, they have to grind a much-less "lucrative" hustle for a while. We also are able to give limited amounts of the drug for free to help, and we help them navigate assistance programs and drug company benefits, none of which ever last very long. It's very fucking telling indeed.

No word about how ludicrous it is that these drugs cost so much? That a person has to resort to that to get continue treatment? No? Just a bullshit assumption about some of the lowest-rung people in American society while doing everything you can to keep them in that cycle? Cool cool cool.

Edited by trauma babe
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9 hours ago, RatJuul said:

As usual TwiceHorn gets what I’m trying to say without being an emotional freakazoid like brisket.

Can you please translate my words to those who can’t hear because when they see an animal and tobacco product their brains shut down?

And he's back!  RatJuul.  Seriously, what's the deal with your name generator?  

If I ever get banned I'm coming back as BullReefer

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3 hours ago, Thatguy said:

 

  But what if she didn't get adopted or the heroin addicted woman decided to keep her? Would she be a different person, not deserving the respect we give her now when she pulls up in her new 6 series Audi? What if she was sitting at the bus stop, or working the counter at some fast food restaurant? We Americans judge people based on their success as if its only them that dictating it.

I didn't judge anyone.

I did question the effort of some.  Yep. Stand by it too.

Of course there are some folks in your scenario, but it isn't the beginning point for social policy.

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11 hours ago, RatJuul said:

As usual TwiceHorn gets what I’m trying to say without being an emotional freakazoid like brisket.

Can you please translate my words to those who can’t hear because when they see an animal and tobacco product their brains shut down?

Well, in the final analysis, I think you and brisket and I come to about the same point.  You favor UBI.  I think I do too.  Brisket thinks the government, and business should make more investment in people.

The post-war era was a great one for America, well white America, anyway.  It's a dirty shame that not everyone was allowed to participate.

Another thing that's changed.  If you ever read Ben Graham's "Security Analysis," which was written in 1934, the "security" in question was primarily corporate bonds, not equity.  Equity was the realm of speculators, not investors, so corporations at that time and until the fairly late 20th century, remained mostly unconcerned with share price and quarterly performance, except as necessary to meet their debt obligations and remain an ongoing business.

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2 hours ago, trauma babe said:

It's very telling that Fatty assumes this person, who is a real person, has sex with HIV-negative clients when they might transmit the virus. This person has sex for money to pay for medication to keep their viral load undetectable (and thus un-transmittable). If they lose access to their meds, which happens from time to time, they have to grind a much-less "lucrative" hustle for a while. We also are able to give limited amounts of the drug for free to help, and we help them navigate assistance programs and drug company benefits, none of which ever last very long. It's very fucking telling indeed.

No word about how ludicrous it is that these drugs cost so much? That a person has to resort to that to get continue treatment? No? Just a bullshit assumption about some of the lowest-rung people in American society while doing everything you can to keep them in that cycle? Cool cool cool.

It was your anecdote. You chose not to clarify. I fail to see how that assumption should be made while you were giving your best shock anecdotal story.  Tying it back to the thread, $7/hr bump for papi Elon isn’t going to help shit on 4k/month medicine. 
 

2 hours ago, Thatguy said:

  I was that guy too. I moved for work 7 times, and have worked in 5 different states. I promised my wife I would stop when my kid got to middle school and wherever we were at that point was where we would stay until she graduated. So we came here. Last year I realized I was working so much I was missing all the significant things in my daughter's life. Took a hard look in the mirror and said for these last 4 years I am going to be present and accounted for at everything because I cannot get it back. Quit my job last June and started a small business. Coming up on a year. Am I making as much money? No, but ask yourself is the tradeoff worth it when your kid tells you at 25 that you weren't there for them? If work life balance was only important to me I wouldn't give a shit, but ask Andy Reid how much throwing money at your kids but not being there for them when they need you matters. Kids need us my bro.

Yeah I get it. I’d be lying if I said it’d be a different discussion if my neighbors consist of 9000Ft^2 houses.  

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32 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:


 

Yeah I get it. I’d be lying if I said it’d be a different discussion if my neighbors consist of 9000Ft^2 houses.  

   Man, I am a regular dude with a regular house by these guy's standard. These guys bring real meaning to the saying that there is always someone with more than you. Took a pic for you. Honestly, I am guessing on the sq footage. Might be more than 9000. You tell me.

20220514_184305.jpg

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41 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

It was your anecdote. You chose not to clarify. I fail to see how that assumption should be made while you were giving your best shock anecdotal story.  Tying it back to the thread, $7/hr bump for papi Elon isn’t going to help shit on 4k/month medicine. 
 

 

Also 7 dollar an hour bump might put you in a spot to afford health insurance which would then allow you the ability to be able to get said meds. Just spitballing here, though I did stay at a Holiday Inn awhile back.

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5 minutes ago, Thatguy said:

   Man, I am a regular dude with a regular house by these guy's standard. These guys bring real meaning to the saying that there is always someone with more than you. Took a pic for you. Honestly, I am guessing on the sq footage. Might be more than 9000. You tell me.

20220514_184305.jpg

No idea. Nice hood. Makes the work and sacrifice worth it. 

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8 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

No idea. Nice hood. Makes the work and sacrifice worth it. 

  Once again regular house owner here. But yes, while your kids are small get a plan together to get out of the grind. We executed the dad will be present plan perfectly, though it was scary as shit for the first few months of being my own guy. The next phase is operation downsize. We are going to sell this house as soon as my kid graduates 4 years from now, and get something small, cash, with the equity we have in this house. Then we are gonna travel and work comfortable hours because we can. Shit, depending on where she decides to go for school we might sell it beginning of her senior year.

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15 hours ago, Thatguy said:

  We do, and then maps get redrawn to favor the people in this thread that think the system is fine. Rinse and repeat. No CR.

So what years did gerrymandering take away from the representation you support that wouldve inplemented what you wanted?

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37 minutes ago, 52-80 said:

So what years did gerrymandering take away from the representation you support that wouldve inplemented what you wanted?

  You are wasting everyone's time being intentionally obtuse, and this is the wrong thread for where you are going. But if you have looked numbers, not districts, but hard numbers on issues like this then you would already know the answer to that.

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Gerrymandering is like bonus bets the casino allows you to make.  If it didn't give an advantage to one party, they wouldn't fucking do it.

 

Even someone  as recalcitrant as I can acknowledge that.

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This thread is wild’n out now. If you disclose “I have HIV+ and/or AIDS, still want to do this?” Then okay, caveat emptor and let your freak flag fly. Consenting adults should be free to do whatever they want morally and legally (and I understand sex work is illegal in this scenario).

If there is no forthcoming disclaimer then that should criminal assault with a deadly weapon.

Also the guy who used Uber as an example, what are you even talking about? The worst trick finance heads ever played on business was that EBITDA was a good metric. Charlie Munger has a funny blurb about it.

Still, Uber also posted a $5.9 billion loss in the period.

"We are serving multi-trillion dollar markets, but market size is irrelevant if it doesn't translate into profit," he said

Edited by Vegas64
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