Stens has up'd their free shipping limit

[StarTech]

And $5149 really don't go very far does it.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Getting right off topic but all governments fund all sorts of things that may seem strange to the external viewer
Some is just to keep idiot senators with barrows to push happy , others are for political reasons or to appease foreign governments .
Businesses are only able to operate because there are roads, rail lines , workers with appropriate skills, a society where there is some sort of order , a sound financial system , no conflicts on their soil etc etc etc
No company made 1¢ of profits without those things in place despite the owners who think THEY made all of the profits .
Thus business have obligations to all those around them which more & more they are withdrawing from as share holders get greedier & greedier for higher returns on their capital..
Then we get the insane idea that shareholders are guaranteed a dividend and have the right to sue directors if their dividend is big enough .
If governments spent no money what so ever unless every one agreed it was being well spent then nothing would be spent and every woman would need 4 security guards to prevent them being raped every time they left the house , all delivery vehicles would need two armed guards to ensure they were not held up , ships would need armed escort ships to ensure pirates did not take them over etc etc etc etc
Not a world any of us would want to live in.
Most business go to extreme lengths to avoid paying any tax what so ever but expect to receive endless government support ,so perfect example was the continuing bail out of Wall St .
In a true capatilist system , share holders are just that so they get a cut of the profits when times are good but also have to put their hands in their pockets when times are bad & the business needs more liquidity .
IF a business is run badly then it must be allowed to fail because the assets of the failed business get picked up by others , usually at a discount so can help them become bigger & stronger and the shareholders loose their shares . That is the way the system is supposed to work .

Now when it comes to social security, the fasted way to stimulate a flagging economy is to give MORE social security to the poorest sector of the community because they will spend it.
They will pay off loans liberating bank funds to write even more loans, they will buy food from the local stores, they will replace worn out cloths / appliances etc etc.
All of this ultimately provides a benefit to the upper levels because the increased activity will create increased turn over and thus increased profits .
Give Musk a 10% tax cut and all he will do is buy Face book or You Tube which benefits no one other than the shareholders .
President Regan got it 100% wrong , there is no trickle down effect , the flow of cash stops very abruptly, usually at the share market or real estate market and the benefits to the majority of the population is zero
In the USA the problem is short duration of governments so no long term policy can ever be instigated , Senators who get elected forever ( the USA trying to pretend they are a kingdom like the UK with a house of Lords ) and voluntery voting so candidates for anything from local police chief right through to the President have to kiss the backside of the wealthy to get the funds needed to whip up a frenzied response in the population in order to get them off their backsides to vote and those funds come with big strings attached so the system can only ever be corrupt and the corruption just gets deeper & deeper over time

 

[PTmowerMech]

No company made 1¢ of profits without those things in place despite the owners who think THEY made all of the profits .

Their employee's made a profit. Hardly any money into the company, and every week they get a check. If it wasn't for employers, there'd be no employee's or businesses.

In fact, you don't even have to have government for businesses to function. All that's really needed is customers with a median of exchange for goods and services.

A LOT of people have ran businesses outside of the governments knowledge. I did at my last shop. That is until the city tax man came around saying I had to pay them to put up a sign and start collecting tax. ($100 just to put a sign up) That's why I started shutting down the shop and moved out into the country.
Governments aren't very helpful when it comes to businesses. Especially when they devalue the currency and force inflation on the masses. They always require taxes, permits and retarded regulations that cost the business and it's customers money, for things that benefit no one except themselves. Where as a business benefits everyone who needs that business.

I don't mind paying some taxes as long as the money is going to benefit the people that pay them. The 2018 gender studies funding for Pakistan benefited no Americans.

And if it wasn't for the rich people around here, there wouldn't be enough jobs for us to even have a town.

Elon Musk is great for almost any economy.

 

[bertsmobile1]

No one can get to your door if there was no road to it .
No one could pay you is there was not a financial system that worked
There would be no electricity if the government did not force the electric company to connect to loss making households
So don't kid yourself about the need for some sort of government.

Musk is the reincarnation of PT Barnam . a showman to the nth degree who got lucky in the tech boom same a Bezos 20% effort 80% dumb luck.
With Tesla Musk is a typical start up with no one to answer to other than himself as he had enough cash to kick it off without substantial financial backers.
So he is the same as Ford was back in the days of the model T.
When businesses are new they are run by people with a vision and usually backed by venture financers.
Venture finance looks for a massive sell off profit and will accept no dividends so they are happy to finance loss years and get no dividends .
Then when the business is profitable they sell their 20¢ shares for $ 20 to $100 and invest the profits into other start up ventures .
However they always sell to rent seekers who are hungry for dividents to recover their $ 100 a share so they elect directors who maximumize dividends at the cost of research, devlopement & growth which is where all the other vehicle makers are currently at .
People like to think there is a closed loop cospiracey between auto makers & oil companies that force car companies to continuslly fit bigger engines and not branch out into things like EV's.
The reality of it is launching a new product into any market that is different from the established product line is a big risk
Tooling up for an EV cost in the order of $ 100,000,000 and that is on top of the $ 200,000,000 spent on research & deveopement
So that is $ 300,000,000 that has to be diverted from dividends that the rent seekers will not condone untill forced into doing it .
Increasing the engine size cost a few hundred thousands and gets recouped in the first sale year .
Introducing a new model can take a decade to break even .
Cold economic reality .
Most of the auto makers had an EV almost ready to produce but the problem was finding a suitable power source.
Musk forced things by using an unsuitable power source ( Li batteries ) and in time the massive problems of using Li will become apparent but Musk will have sold out by then and playing on his mountain of money .
HE is not criminal but he is not the Messiah either , just some one who saw a chance of turning a quick buck.
If he was as worried about CO2 pollution as he pretends to be then he would have started with a 1 to 4 ton delivery vehicle not a 300 mph car
Every city has hundreds of thousands of delivery vehicles that all use 1 to 2 tanks for fuel each & every day plus cost a fortune for fuel & servicing so the delivery companies would leap naked over burning coals if they could get a reliable electric delivery vehicle even if the ticket price is 4 times an ICE vehicle because they will make that up in the first year and be laughing all the way to the bank for the next 6 to 10 years when they can sell them off for 1/2 what they paid for them .
For 30 years I ran a delivery business.
We bought junkers for the drivers which the 3 partners kept on the road as cheaply as possible .
All ran on LPG apart from the 8 motorcycles .
Our biggest cost was wages , next to that was running costs which were around 75% of wages .
There have ben several trials of EV's for delivery and one group actually used them reasonably effectively
These were older style vans converted to run an Pb batteries which were converted fork lift batteries , charged durning the day from solar pannels on the roof & swapped over each shift .
It did not pan out financially as the runs had to be too short to be economic due to reduced payloads because of the 1100kg of batteries and limited range .

 

[StarTech]

There is a thing called common sense that sometimes it takes freight train running over some before they get it.

Some companies are just better at providing a service than others. Here I went last week Sunday and Monday trying to buy some storage boxes from Lowe's On neither trip I could get any help getting them down from the overhead top shelf. Finally had to drive further this Sunday to Home Depot to get the same boxes. At least I researched before I went and knew HD had them in stock. Boy what a difference in the level of help getting them down. The boxes were too on the top shelf which took a forklift to get down. Now I was just buying one box either it was ten of them. I was surprised that they were actually lower in cost too. I will going back for some larger boxes later for my v-belt storage.

But right now I got to label the current boxes and clear our out my living room of parts. This way I know where things are and stop ordering things I already have on hand.

 

[PTmowerMech]

No one can get to your door if there was no road to it .
No one could pay you is there was not a financial system that worked
There would be no electricity if the government did not force the electric company to connect to loss making households
So don't kid yourself about the need for some sort of government.

No one said there shouldn't be government. I just said it doesn't need to be a 1000 headed monster, hell bent on taxing everything under the sun to pay for their pet projects.

Musk is the reincarnation of PT Barnam . a showman to the nth degree who got lucky in the tech boom same a Bezos 20% effort 80% dumb luck.
With Tesla Musk is a typical start up with no one to answer to other than himself as he had enough cash to kick it off without substantial financial backers.
So he is the same as Ford was back in the days of the model T.
When businesses are new they are run by people with a vision and usually backed by venture financers.
Venture finance looks for a massive sell off profit and will accept no dividends so they are happy to finance loss years and get no dividends .
Then when the business is profitable they sell their 20¢ shares for $ 20 to $100 and invest the profits into other start up ventures .
However they always sell to rent seekers who are hungry for dividents to recover their $ 100 a share so they elect directors who maximumize dividends at the cost of research, devlopement & growth which is where all the other vehicle makers are currently at .
People like to think there is a closed loop cospiracey between auto makers & oil companies that force car companies to continuslly fit bigger engines and not branch out into things like EV's.
The reality of it is launching a new product into any market that is different from the established product line is a big risk
Tooling up for an EV cost in the order of $ 100,000,000 and that is on top of the $ 200,000,000 spent on research & deveopement
So that is $ 300,000,000 that has to be diverted from dividends that the rent seekers will not condone untill forced into doing it .
Increasing the engine size cost a few hundred thousands and gets recouped in the first sale year .
Introducing a new model can take a decade to break even .
Cold economic reality .
Most of the auto makers had an EV almost ready to produce but the problem was finding a suitable power source.
Musk forced things by using an unsuitable power source ( Li batteries ) and in time the massive problems of using Li will become apparent but Musk will have sold out by then and playing on his mountain of money .
HE is not criminal but he is not the Messiah either , just some one who saw a chance of turning a quick buck.
If he was as worried about CO2 pollution as he pretends to be then he would have started with a 1 to 4 ton delivery vehicle not a 300 mph car
Every city has hundreds of thousands of delivery vehicles that all use 1 to 2 tanks for fuel each & every day plus cost a fortune for fuel & servicing so the delivery companies would leap naked over burning coals if they could get a reliable electric delivery vehicle even if the ticket price is 4 times an ICE vehicle because they will make that up in the first year and be laughing all the way to the bank for the next 6 to 10 years when they can sell them off for 1/2 what they paid for them .
For 30 years I ran a delivery business.
We bought junkers for the drivers which the 3 partners kept on the road as cheaply as possible .
All ran on LPG apart from the 8 motorcycles .
Our biggest cost was wages , next to that was running costs which were around 75% of wages .
There have ben several trials of EV's for delivery and one group actually used them reasonably effectively
These were older style vans converted to run an Pb batteries which were converted fork lift batteries , charged durning the day from solar pannels on the roof & swapped over each shift .
It did not pan out financially as the runs had to be too short to be economic due to reduced payloads because of the 1100kg of batteries and limited range .

Elons a GOAT. He employs people all over the world. Over 50K here in the US. His EV's are fine for somethings. Not fine for other things.
I wouldn't buy an EV pick up to haul a lot of stuff all day long. But if I could pick up a cheap one, just to go to town and back, or maybe short trips (less than 200 miles) that would be fine too.
I darn sure wouldn't want one to go 1000 miles in. Most folks don't even drive more than 100 miles per day.

I do love how some will complain about how they mine the lithium. Saying it's destroying the land. But will support coal. lol. They've never seen how they flatten mountains in West VA, or Pennsylvania.
Americans used to lead the world in new technology. Now it seems to be frowned upon. I don't get it.

 

[7394]

Americans used to lead the world in new technology. Now it seems to be frowned upon. I don't get it.

That's the point, they don't want anyone to get or understand it..

 

[bertsmobile1]

No one said there shouldn't be government. I just said it doesn't need to be a 1000 headed monster, hell bent on taxing everything under the sun to pay for their pet projects.


Elons a GOAT. He employs people all over the world. Over 50K here in the US. His EV's are fine for somethings. Not fine for other things.
I wouldn't buy an EV pick up to haul a lot of stuff all day long. But if I could pick up a cheap one, just to go to town and back, or maybe short trips (less than 200 miles) that would be fine too.
I darn sure wouldn't want one to go 1000 miles in. Most folks don't even drive more than 100 miles per day.

I do love how some will complain about how they mine the lithium. Saying it's destroying the land. But will support coal. lol. They've never seen how they flatten mountains in West VA, or Pennsylvania.
Americans used to lead the world in new technology. Now it seems to be frowned upon. I don't get it.

I have an applied science degree so I understand just how much damage Lithium mining dose and it makes coal look quite beingn .
There is a big difference between a big hole in the ground and land that is toxic to all forms of life for decades.
And you do not know what an open cut coal mine really looks like till you see some of the ones here where New York city & subburbs would fit in them 3 times over and none of the skycrapers would come up to ground level
Then there was Mt Lyall which at one time was the richest copper deposit in the world.
All that is left of it is a lake , and most of the copper from it is in the USA as roof cladding , gutters & railway electrification lines .

My engineering upbringing has me hating wasting resources just because they are cheap and we have been allowing businesses to squander what is not actually theirs to make massive profits leaving a big mess for future generations to clean up.
And 99% of what we do is wasting, not using economically as we should be doing .
How amny resturants do you know where they have outdoor heating so you can eat outdoors in winter ?
A perfect example of squander .
Lithium is a wonderful power source, for watches , clocks, cameras, phones and perhaps as high a power load as for an E scooter or E bike but that is the limit
In a EV the batteries go 2 to 4 tones so yo are in a situation where more energy is being used to move the batteries than the payload , and then there is the spontaneous combustion if it is not charged according to a strict protocol ( all the houses that burn down with E something on the wrong or faulty charger ) and of course batteries damaged in collisions , let alone the fact that Li batteries can not be recycled economically, just recovering the different parts costs 4 times what a new one costs .
They have to be ery carefully dissasembled because if you accidentially short out the plates it will explode then catch fire and te fire can not be extinguished and on top of that if the battery gets hotter than 75C to 85 C ( depending upon the exact chemistry ) it will explode and burst into flames .

apart from the gasses produced buring coal, the rest of the byproducts are useful.
The fly ash can be minned for the radioactive elements like thorium ( power station feed) and when you are finished the reminder goes into cement , about 30 to 60 % by volume is fly ash , also used in road base , bitumen & insulating boards .

 

[StarTech]

What they found here that the limestone was emmitting radioactive gasses that are building up in homes in the area. The solution was for us all to have powered ventilation system at to our homes crawl spaces. Now with the added concrete products used we should just glowing in the dark.

 

[bertsmobile1]

Have not heard about that one but it does make sence even whith my limited knowledge of mineralogy .
And I hope you see the abject stupidity of this.
Gasses are coming out of the lime he house is built over and that is making a few people sick
So we now vent that gass into the atmosphers so we can make every one sick