pressure cooker still, be cafeful. there are 2 holes in the lid, one that has air coming out for the counter weight to adjust pressure, a good spot to tap the copper line. the other is sealed as a safety blow out. it blows out at HIGH pressure. they are usually aluminum, which above was discussed. so if its stainless, i would drill the blow hole and leave it empty, tap teh counter wieght hole and put copper on it. when you use it, put the lid on tight and plug the hole with dough made from bread and water. it will blow out with low pressure and is cheap to replace. the taste wont effect anything.
5 gallon pot. you need some space for the air to go at the top of the pot, if you have 2 inches, thats fine. if you boil the wort at all, you are going to have troubles thou. anything that pops and gets to the hole in the lid will pass thru to your condensor and you will get taste and contaminations. yuk. i like to go by thirds. 2/3 wort, 1/3 air. steam collects and can build up before the strongest % will go up the tube.
plastic carbouy. plast carbouys, never heard of one, but could be a first. it could be a plastic 5 gallon water bottle. they are kinda blue. its ok for storing liquids in, but it has 2 issues. the material is not chemical resistant, like to alcohal, and can leach out chemicals. not good. dont know how that will effect the mash, but it would not be worth it. 2nd, the plastic, at a molecule level, is spaced out, there is room for air to pass and breath, this will allow oxygen in as it 'ages' for days. oxygen will effect the mash, negatively. i am not saying this will not work, just that if you had a choice, use something made for chemicals.
As A child my mother dated a guy who beat me almost every day. This went on for years. I can't rember most of it, I think I blocked it out in my head. After reading this I'm going to mentally try and forgive this person. I'm 22 and still think of these events everyday. I see that person come out of me, not in physical abuse but in verbal. I always have fill sick to my stomach when I catch myself argueing or yelling at my fiance. It has also turned me into the kind of person who always tries to please everyone. Maybe forgiving him will help me take a step in a diffrent path in my life. Ill give it a try and give an update in a couple weeks.
I lost my job about 5 months ago and as it was a specialist field, I found no other positions available within Europe.
What I decided to do was take on a training/coaching programme a couple of months ago and have never looked back since.
From being a Commercial Specialist Contractor I now have one business that is beginning to show steady growth even in it's juvenile stages, and another one that goes live today in a European Niche Market for ATV Vehicles.
Anything can be possible when you put your mind to is, and once you have realised that you can sustain a good Positive Mental Attitude then your over half way to getting things back on track.
Distraction is the EVIL
Knowledge is the POWER
A Positive Attitude can be the best guide you will ever meet.
Longer benefits are only available where UNEMPLOYMENT IS HIGHER. My goodness, are you that ignorant about our unemployment compensation system? 79 weeks is available because CA's unemployment is 10.8%!!! Benefits are more limited where jobs are more available. When they extend unemployment benefits, that's what happens.
Of course people are taking longer to find jobs where unemployment benefits are extended --jobs are harder to find there!
Also you are suggesting a causal link between extended benefits and longer job searches, but you are not backing it up. You are "alluding" to studies which purport to demonstrate a causal link --but you've provided none. At most, you evidence a "correlation" and that said, you haven't produced one study to show even a correlation.
Why would someone want to stay unemployed? Because even $12/hour jobs are not easy to find these days.
Because people lose their health benefits or have to pay out of pocket.
Because people have existing rent to pay (they aren't going to be able to downsize and get accepted to a smaller place while unemployed --you didn't even consider this).
Because people have existing mortgage payments and they aren't going to be able to sell in this market.
Because people have children to clothe, feed and house.
And the best reason for generous unemployment benefits (and California's is a pittance compared to most wealthy nations): The nations with highest standard of living for the greatest proportion of their people have: generous social programs, strong safety nets for the unemployed, universal health care regardless of income, strong unions or protections for labor and so forth.
It just so happens it's better for the economy and people living in the country if people aren't scared out of their wits they will become homeless and hungry. It just so happens it's better for a country if their children don't do without health care because their parents can't afford it.
So, you can cheap out and thereby motivate people, but the proof in the pudding is that the nations that do the opposite seem to have the wealthiest citizens across the board as well as the shortest workweeks, best health care (and most affordable), etc. etc.
I would also recommend that you develop some sensitivity to people that are madly looking for work for many months now and post a more thoughtful item about unemployment or don't post at all.
Yeah!!! Certainly, if you can control your self and you may enjoy more benefit compare to non-credit cards holders. But bear in mind; do choose credit card where best match to your life style.
The thing about Amazon Prime two day shipping is that it's two BUSINESS DAY shipping. So unless you order it by Wednesdays cut off, you won't get it until the beginning of the next week, because that two day shipping isn't delivered on the weekend. At least the free super saver shipping would get delivered on the weekend. If I had known that before I signed up, I would have skipped it and stuck with just buying things with the free super saver shipping. I don't know if the extra one day shipping includes weekends yet, but I've already paid extra for prime to begin with, and am not about to pay more to get something on the weekend that they should do to begin with. I admit I felt a little swindled when I discovered this.
"This works fine for probably one to five percent of the population, but unfortunately for the others they don't have enough self control.
Don't get me wrong; I'm in the 95 % group...."
"...I am not part of the elite 5% that can consistently pay of my card each month...."
Both of you are fooling yourselves and spreading misrepresentation about the "elite 5%". It's more like the majority of people. According to a Gallup poll from last year43% pay off their balance always and another 17% pay off their balance usually every month.
That leaves Phil and Dan in, you guessed it, the minority!
Next time you try to justify your irresponsibility by stating you're not one of the "elite 5%" make sure you check for references on the matter.
For every person who sticks it out for a better job because unemployment makes it possible, there's another person at the end of their rope who will take that job.
Higher unemployment benefits keep people from falling into poverty, and also ease the downward pressure on wages that come from too many unemployed people.
And really, if employers are so damned concerned about "total employment costs" maybe they should lobby for government-funded universal health care.
This is getting pretty far afield from the topic of this post, but in fairness to Phil Gramm I have to take issue with Guest above. Gramm gets blamed by partisan ideologues for the mortgage crisis because he sponsored a bill back in 1999 to encourage competition between banks and other financial institutions, competition usually being a good thing for consumers. It was approved by the vast majority in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate, and signed into law by (drumroll) Bill Clinton.
And Bill Clinton promised to veto the legislation unless it included a provision prohibiting banks from getting regulatory approval for mergers unless they were lending enough to subprime borrowers. So, yes, Phil Gramm agreed to that amendment, and that certainly did help bring about the subprime crisis, but it hardly seems fair to blame him for something Bill Clinton insisted on.
And interestingly enough, even the people who try to shift the blame to Gramm don't seem to be proposing to change the law to force banks back out of other financial service sectors and vice versa.
The far bigger problem always was the combination of 1) forcing banks to lend to subprime borrowers (creating a whole lot of risky loan products which ended up being used by lots of people who were not subprime) and 2) the perception that the U.S. government was guaranteeing the resulting debt through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And who refused to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Well, it was not Phil Gramm, who left Congress in 2002. And it was not the Bush Administration, which was pressing for reform starting at least in 2003 and even earlier. If you judge by who got the biggest campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it was Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, in that order.
In a way, maybe this comment does relate to the topic.
The obvious answer to the question, do generous unemployment benefits prolong the length of unemployment is, absolutely, yes. This has been proven time and again through economic analysis, and the fact that so many people commenting here get all hot and bothered about that is a big part of our national problem, which is an unwillingness to face unpleasant facts. SOME people DO delay returning to work until their benefits run out. Not all, but some. Therefore, the longer the benefits, the longer the average period of unemployment. Of course, not all people on unemployment are lazy, but those who are lazy will take advantage of the system. Duh.
Likewise, lending money to people with poorer credit WILL cause more defaults. Of course not all people with poor credit are deadbeats, but a lot of deadbeats do have bad credit, and some of them will get loans when lending standards are loosened. This is so obvious it is amazing it has to be said, but apparently a lot of people would still rather everybody just shut up about unpleasant truths.
J, I didn't want to propose that scenario because in a way it seems like milking the system even further. The EITC is a refundable tax credit, which means people don't have to pay income taxes to receive it. So yes, a person could technically collect unemployment for part of the year and then get a job that pays $12000 for the rest of the year and get a few thousand dollars back. In that case it is better than unemployment because the total amount of money received by that person during the last few months is quite a bit more more than unemployment benefits. So I guess the person in question really has to consider every single benefit available to make an informed decision.
I still think that people would be wary with taking a job that pays lower than their unemployment benefits because once they take on a full time job it is much harder for them to take time out to find another job. Even though the EITC gives a benefit in the last few months of the year, they may be stuck with the low paying job for a while. If they could use their unemployment benefit to search for a better job fulltime I think some people would choose that option instead, and thus prolong the amount of time they're unemployed. Like I said, it's not necessarily a bad thing.
Xin, why are you assuming that your job will run from Jan 1 to Dec 31?
You may have had no EI all year, and getting a job in the last few months of the calendar year, even if you only earn a few thousand dollars, will enable you to qualify for the EITC.
Anyway, folks can't usually time their employment so precisely -- you don't know when the next job offer will come along if you turn one down. But the tax incentives for earned income vs. unemployment insurance are there.
I have a very old fiberglass shower that has terrible hard water and lime stains . I use a cleaner called The Works you can get it at most stores . They have one for the shower and one for the toilet. It does a wonderful job like no other . Price is not bad either.
As to the discussion about vacation days in America, I think AnnJo is right in saying that any paid vacation is a part of your wages. You can always negotiate for more or less vacation for pay when you get a job offer, but most people don't. Also, in pretty much all the places I've worked at, if you ran out of vacation days you can choose to take the days unpaid as long as your work isn't severely interrupted. I think that's perfectly fair.
J. You can get the Earned Income Tax Credit if you earn an AGI that's below a certain amount and it is fairly low. I think for a single person the qualification is that you have to have earned less than $12000 a year. For a person with 2 kids you have to earn less than $38,000 a year for 2008. So for a single person collecting $2000 a month on unemployment, it is not worth it to earn $12000 a year and get a tax credit. If a person is earning $38,000 then they would be doing better than unemployment, then it would be worth it to take the job anyway. Basically, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone to take a job that pays half of unemployment for the sake of the EITC. It really depends on the situation.
Social Security is a system that is based on the credits you have already accumulated. I believe you can get social security disability benefits as long as you have several years of work based on your age and you qualify for the retirement/death benefits if you have 10 years or 40 credits of work. It doesn't matter if you are unemployed now as long as you already qualify for the benefits based on your entire work history over your lifetime.
Health insurance is definitely a good incentive, though.
Something else to keep in mind is that you pay sales tax on the sticker price, before any rebates. For example, if you live in a state with 5% sales tax, a $100 item with a $5 rebate will actually end up costing more than a $95 item with no rebate.
Just a tip - I once bought a GPS unit with a $30 rebate and the rebate company never delivered the check. I phoned the rebate company and the GPS company and got the runaround. After a month or two, the money became less important and I kept after it based on the principle of the thing.
About eight months after the purchase, I snail-mailed a letter to the CEO of the company explaining the situation and within two weeks, I received the rebate check. Don't be afraid to go to the top if you're not getting serviced properly
are not necessarily lazy, but they have traditionally traded higher "benefits" for lower overall wages and higher chronic unemployment, as well as much reduced labor market flexibility. Between 1991 and 2005, average wages after inflation in Germany DECLINED while ours increased. For most of a generation, Germany's unemployment rate was considered excellent if it got down to levels that we would call a severe recession. Our economy has added millions of new jobs (most of which are still there in spite of this recession) for our growing population and our immigrants, while Germany has added no new jobs and its labor force has remained about the same size for years.
If you've never been an employer, there is something you probably don't understand. An employer looks at the total cost of an employee when deciding whether to hire, including wages, health coverage, employment taxes, "paid time off," training costs, severance costs, everything. If it costs an employer $60,000 to add an employee, it is irrelevant to the employer how much of that goes to wages, how much to employment taxes, etc. The total cost is all that counts. That new employee has to add much more than $60,000 to the employer's bottom line to make it worth hiring him/her, because that employee has to be supervised, supplied, officed, etc., and of course, make a profit, because otherwise there's no point in the employer existing.
From the employer's standpoint, the cleanest system would be to pay an employee that $60,000 (less employment taxes) and let the employee decide to spend it. One employee might prefer to spend some of it to "buy" vacation time or sick leave, another might prefer a particular health plan, etc., and the employer could dispense with most of its HR department. But most employees are too ignorant to figure that out, and they allow themselves to be manipulated by offers of various "benefits" in lieu of money. The government has also distorted the picture by making some of those benefits pre-tax.
If you think that an employer actually "gives" paid time off, you are deluding yourself. Employers don't "give" anything, and why should they? The employer has adjusted that employee's overall compensation package to account for the vacation time. Every employee "buys" his/her vacation and sick leave time through lower wages, whether they know it or not. And that includes Germans.
The fact that Americans don't usually get as much "paid time off" as Germans is simply because Americans by and large still prefer to take the money, rather than the time. Those Germans who would rather have the money emigrate to the U.S.
like I said multiple times, if you are getting $X a week then there is no point to take a job that pays less than that.
Saying it multiple times doesn't make it so.
In addition to the social reasons for getting a job (any job), and the potential benefits like health insurance, the whole tax system greatly favors getting a low-paying job (over collecting unemployment). For instance, you can only qualify for Earned Income Tax Credit if you have (wait for it!) earned income! Also, you will not be paying into the social security system, so you won't be eligible for things like disability, death benefits for relatives, retirement benefits, etc. etc. These things may be theoretical to your 20-something friends, but to folks like me with kids, they are very real.
The system almost always favors those with earned income, such that in most cases it's preferable to take the job... if you can get one (big if).
don't listen to the NAR scumbags, bank bastards, or wall street derivatives traders that drove this mess - stuff all your spare cash in an IRA, mail the keys to the bank and let them figure out what to do with the bad investment THEY made. The house was the collateral - let them have it.
Don't let anyone tell you you owe the rest of your life living in your debtors' prison home, only to merely get to ZERO 15 years from now. Housing prices will NEVER EVER get to the point they were at, so don't listen to these new lies from the NAR. Don't let them tell you you are getting off scott free either - you are taking the penalty of completely ruining your credit for 7 to ten years...but at least this is a sane persons' life, not sitting in the bottom of a chasm from which to climb out merely because you made the mistake of purchasing a roof over your head.
AnnJo, I suppose you didn’t correctly read my line, "Most employed people I know, in the US, work 60+ hours.”
The key words are “most people I know.” The fact is many people whom are still emplyed do work more than one job to make ends-meet. And please don’t reference Phil Gramm, as he pushed for most of the deregulation that ended up bungling our economy. Mr. Gramm is nothing more than a wealthy political hack.
There will always be people like you that have little value for labor rights, and go on shifting the dialogue by referring to any real discussion as “whining.” The core reason why we lack the labor benefits people enjoy in some other countries is because we are too quick to equate such benefits to “laziness.” I am sure that you feel that workers in Germany who receive an average of 4 paid weeks of each year are lazy, right? I am sorry, but no one has a right to cheap or overworked labor.
pressure cooker still, be cafeful. there are 2 holes in the lid, one that has air coming out for the counter weight to adjust pressure, a good spot to tap the copper line. the other is sealed as a safety blow out. it blows out at HIGH pressure. they are usually aluminum, which above was discussed. so if its stainless, i would drill the blow hole and leave it empty, tap teh counter wieght hole and put copper on it. when you use it, put the lid on tight and plug the hole with dough made from bread and water. it will blow out with low pressure and is cheap to replace. the taste wont effect anything.
5 gallon pot. you need some space for the air to go at the top of the pot, if you have 2 inches, thats fine. if you boil the wort at all, you are going to have troubles thou. anything that pops and gets to the hole in the lid will pass thru to your condensor and you will get taste and contaminations. yuk. i like to go by thirds. 2/3 wort, 1/3 air. steam collects and can build up before the strongest % will go up the tube.
plastic carbouy. plast carbouys, never heard of one, but could be a first. it could be a plastic 5 gallon water bottle. they are kinda blue. its ok for storing liquids in, but it has 2 issues. the material is not chemical resistant, like to alcohal, and can leach out chemicals. not good. dont know how that will effect the mash, but it would not be worth it. 2nd, the plastic, at a molecule level, is spaced out, there is room for air to pass and breath, this will allow oxygen in as it 'ages' for days. oxygen will effect the mash, negatively. i am not saying this will not work, just that if you had a choice, use something made for chemicals.
As A child my mother dated a guy who beat me almost every day. This went on for years. I can't rember most of it, I think I blocked it out in my head. After reading this I'm going to mentally try and forgive this person. I'm 22 and still think of these events everyday. I see that person come out of me, not in physical abuse but in verbal. I always have fill sick to my stomach when I catch myself argueing or yelling at my fiance. It has also turned me into the kind of person who always tries to please everyone. Maybe forgiving him will help me take a step in a diffrent path in my life. Ill give it a try and give an update in a couple weeks.
I lost my job about 5 months ago and as it was a specialist field, I found no other positions available within Europe.
What I decided to do was take on a training/coaching programme a couple of months ago and have never looked back since.
From being a Commercial Specialist Contractor I now have one business that is beginning to show steady growth even in it's juvenile stages, and another one that goes live today in a European Niche Market for ATV Vehicles.
Anything can be possible when you put your mind to is, and once you have realised that you can sustain a good Positive Mental Attitude then your over half way to getting things back on track.
Distraction is the EVIL
Knowledge is the POWER
A Positive Attitude can be the best guide you will ever meet.
All of my guidance came from using ......
//www.SimpleMethodology.com
Longer benefits are only available where UNEMPLOYMENT IS HIGHER. My goodness, are you that ignorant about our unemployment compensation system? 79 weeks is available because CA's unemployment is 10.8%!!! Benefits are more limited where jobs are more available. When they extend unemployment benefits, that's what happens.
Of course people are taking longer to find jobs where unemployment benefits are extended --jobs are harder to find there!
Also you are suggesting a causal link between extended benefits and longer job searches, but you are not backing it up. You are "alluding" to studies which purport to demonstrate a causal link --but you've provided none. At most, you evidence a "correlation" and that said, you haven't produced one study to show even a correlation.
Why would someone want to stay unemployed? Because even $12/hour jobs are not easy to find these days.
Because people lose their health benefits or have to pay out of pocket.
Because people have existing rent to pay (they aren't going to be able to downsize and get accepted to a smaller place while unemployed --you didn't even consider this).
Because people have existing mortgage payments and they aren't going to be able to sell in this market.
Because people have children to clothe, feed and house.
And the best reason for generous unemployment benefits (and California's is a pittance compared to most wealthy nations): The nations with highest standard of living for the greatest proportion of their people have: generous social programs, strong safety nets for the unemployed, universal health care regardless of income, strong unions or protections for labor and so forth.
It just so happens it's better for the economy and people living in the country if people aren't scared out of their wits they will become homeless and hungry. It just so happens it's better for a country if their children don't do without health care because their parents can't afford it.
So, you can cheap out and thereby motivate people, but the proof in the pudding is that the nations that do the opposite seem to have the wealthiest citizens across the board as well as the shortest workweeks, best health care (and most affordable), etc. etc.
I would also recommend that you develop some sensitivity to people that are madly looking for work for many months now and post a more thoughtful item about unemployment or don't post at all.
Yeah!!! Certainly, if you can control your self and you may enjoy more benefit compare to non-credit cards holders. But bear in mind; do choose credit card where best match to your life style.
Listen everyone, this is not a board for selling hair. Please read the article for details as to where you can sell your hair.
The thing about Amazon Prime two day shipping is that it's two BUSINESS DAY shipping. So unless you order it by Wednesdays cut off, you won't get it until the beginning of the next week, because that two day shipping isn't delivered on the weekend. At least the free super saver shipping would get delivered on the weekend. If I had known that before I signed up, I would have skipped it and stuck with just buying things with the free super saver shipping. I don't know if the extra one day shipping includes weekends yet, but I've already paid extra for prime to begin with, and am not about to pay more to get something on the weekend that they should do to begin with. I admit I felt a little swindled when I discovered this.
"This works fine for probably one to five percent of the population, but unfortunately for the others they don't have enough self control.
Don't get me wrong; I'm in the 95 % group...."
"...I am not part of the elite 5% that can consistently pay of my card each month...."
Both of you are fooling yourselves and spreading misrepresentation about the "elite 5%". It's more like the majority of people. According to a Gallup poll from last year 43% pay off their balance always and another 17% pay off their balance usually every month.
That leaves Phil and Dan in, you guessed it, the minority!
Next time you try to justify your irresponsibility by stating you're not one of the "elite 5%" make sure you check for references on the matter.
For every person who sticks it out for a better job because unemployment makes it possible, there's another person at the end of their rope who will take that job.
Higher unemployment benefits keep people from falling into poverty, and also ease the downward pressure on wages that come from too many unemployed people.
And really, if employers are so damned concerned about "total employment costs" maybe they should lobby for government-funded universal health care.
This is getting pretty far afield from the topic of this post, but in fairness to Phil Gramm I have to take issue with Guest above. Gramm gets blamed by partisan ideologues for the mortgage crisis because he sponsored a bill back in 1999 to encourage competition between banks and other financial institutions, competition usually being a good thing for consumers. It was approved by the vast majority in the House and by unanimous consent in the Senate, and signed into law by (drumroll) Bill Clinton.
And Bill Clinton promised to veto the legislation unless it included a provision prohibiting banks from getting regulatory approval for mergers unless they were lending enough to subprime borrowers. So, yes, Phil Gramm agreed to that amendment, and that certainly did help bring about the subprime crisis, but it hardly seems fair to blame him for something Bill Clinton insisted on.
And interestingly enough, even the people who try to shift the blame to Gramm don't seem to be proposing to change the law to force banks back out of other financial service sectors and vice versa.
The far bigger problem always was the combination of 1) forcing banks to lend to subprime borrowers (creating a whole lot of risky loan products which ended up being used by lots of people who were not subprime) and 2) the perception that the U.S. government was guaranteeing the resulting debt through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. And who refused to reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac? Well, it was not Phil Gramm, who left Congress in 2002. And it was not the Bush Administration, which was pressing for reform starting at least in 2003 and even earlier. If you judge by who got the biggest campaign contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, it was Chris Dodd, John Kerry, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, in that order.
In a way, maybe this comment does relate to the topic.
The obvious answer to the question, do generous unemployment benefits prolong the length of unemployment is, absolutely, yes. This has been proven time and again through economic analysis, and the fact that so many people commenting here get all hot and bothered about that is a big part of our national problem, which is an unwillingness to face unpleasant facts. SOME people DO delay returning to work until their benefits run out. Not all, but some. Therefore, the longer the benefits, the longer the average period of unemployment. Of course, not all people on unemployment are lazy, but those who are lazy will take advantage of the system. Duh.
Likewise, lending money to people with poorer credit WILL cause more defaults. Of course not all people with poor credit are deadbeats, but a lot of deadbeats do have bad credit, and some of them will get loans when lending standards are loosened. This is so obvious it is amazing it has to be said, but apparently a lot of people would still rather everybody just shut up about unpleasant truths.
J, I didn't want to propose that scenario because in a way it seems like milking the system even further. The EITC is a refundable tax credit, which means people don't have to pay income taxes to receive it. So yes, a person could technically collect unemployment for part of the year and then get a job that pays $12000 for the rest of the year and get a few thousand dollars back. In that case it is better than unemployment because the total amount of money received by that person during the last few months is quite a bit more more than unemployment benefits. So I guess the person in question really has to consider every single benefit available to make an informed decision.
I still think that people would be wary with taking a job that pays lower than their unemployment benefits because once they take on a full time job it is much harder for them to take time out to find another job. Even though the EITC gives a benefit in the last few months of the year, they may be stuck with the low paying job for a while. If they could use their unemployment benefit to search for a better job fulltime I think some people would choose that option instead, and thus prolong the amount of time they're unemployed. Like I said, it's not necessarily a bad thing.
You really hit it on the nose.
Please come to http://freedom-forum.com and make an account, or just poke around
We could really use some highly conscious people like you
Really, with words and a brain like that, you'd be doing the country, its people, its future and yourself a disservice
Xin, why are you assuming that your job will run from Jan 1 to Dec 31?
You may have had no EI all year, and getting a job in the last few months of the calendar year, even if you only earn a few thousand dollars, will enable you to qualify for the EITC.
Anyway, folks can't usually time their employment so precisely -- you don't know when the next job offer will come along if you turn one down. But the tax incentives for earned income vs. unemployment insurance are there.
I have a very old fiberglass shower that has terrible hard water and lime stains . I use a cleaner called The Works you can get it at most stores . They have one for the shower and one for the toilet. It does a wonderful job like no other . Price is not bad either.
I will not even think about the comment #15 above.
What I actually wanted to respond to was:
Also, she gave up coffee. Well, that's just plain sick.
LOL!
Yes, that's where I draw the line as well. My kids wore/wear
cloth diapers, but don't take away my (fair trade, shade grown, home brewed) coffee!!!
As to the discussion about vacation days in America, I think AnnJo is right in saying that any paid vacation is a part of your wages. You can always negotiate for more or less vacation for pay when you get a job offer, but most people don't. Also, in pretty much all the places I've worked at, if you ran out of vacation days you can choose to take the days unpaid as long as your work isn't severely interrupted. I think that's perfectly fair.
J. You can get the Earned Income Tax Credit if you earn an AGI that's below a certain amount and it is fairly low. I think for a single person the qualification is that you have to have earned less than $12000 a year. For a person with 2 kids you have to earn less than $38,000 a year for 2008. So for a single person collecting $2000 a month on unemployment, it is not worth it to earn $12000 a year and get a tax credit. If a person is earning $38,000 then they would be doing better than unemployment, then it would be worth it to take the job anyway. Basically, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone to take a job that pays half of unemployment for the sake of the EITC. It really depends on the situation.
Social Security is a system that is based on the credits you have already accumulated. I believe you can get social security disability benefits as long as you have several years of work based on your age and you qualify for the retirement/death benefits if you have 10 years or 40 credits of work. It doesn't matter if you are unemployed now as long as you already qualify for the benefits based on your entire work history over your lifetime.
Health insurance is definitely a good incentive, though.
Something else to keep in mind is that you pay sales tax on the sticker price, before any rebates. For example, if you live in a state with 5% sales tax, a $100 item with a $5 rebate will actually end up costing more than a $95 item with no rebate.
Just a tip - I once bought a GPS unit with a $30 rebate and the rebate company never delivered the check. I phoned the rebate company and the GPS company and got the runaround. After a month or two, the money became less important and I kept after it based on the principle of the thing.
About eight months after the purchase, I snail-mailed a letter to the CEO of the company explaining the situation and within two weeks, I received the rebate check. Don't be afraid to go to the top if you're not getting serviced properly
are not necessarily lazy, but they have traditionally traded higher "benefits" for lower overall wages and higher chronic unemployment, as well as much reduced labor market flexibility. Between 1991 and 2005, average wages after inflation in Germany DECLINED while ours increased. For most of a generation, Germany's unemployment rate was considered excellent if it got down to levels that we would call a severe recession. Our economy has added millions of new jobs (most of which are still there in spite of this recession) for our growing population and our immigrants, while Germany has added no new jobs and its labor force has remained about the same size for years.
If you've never been an employer, there is something you probably don't understand. An employer looks at the total cost of an employee when deciding whether to hire, including wages, health coverage, employment taxes, "paid time off," training costs, severance costs, everything. If it costs an employer $60,000 to add an employee, it is irrelevant to the employer how much of that goes to wages, how much to employment taxes, etc. The total cost is all that counts. That new employee has to add much more than $60,000 to the employer's bottom line to make it worth hiring him/her, because that employee has to be supervised, supplied, officed, etc., and of course, make a profit, because otherwise there's no point in the employer existing.
From the employer's standpoint, the cleanest system would be to pay an employee that $60,000 (less employment taxes) and let the employee decide to spend it. One employee might prefer to spend some of it to "buy" vacation time or sick leave, another might prefer a particular health plan, etc., and the employer could dispense with most of its HR department. But most employees are too ignorant to figure that out, and they allow themselves to be manipulated by offers of various "benefits" in lieu of money. The government has also distorted the picture by making some of those benefits pre-tax.
If you think that an employer actually "gives" paid time off, you are deluding yourself. Employers don't "give" anything, and why should they? The employer has adjusted that employee's overall compensation package to account for the vacation time. Every employee "buys" his/her vacation and sick leave time through lower wages, whether they know it or not. And that includes Germans.
The fact that Americans don't usually get as much "paid time off" as Germans is simply because Americans by and large still prefer to take the money, rather than the time. Those Germans who would rather have the money emigrate to the U.S.
like I said multiple times, if you are getting $X a week then there is no point to take a job that pays less than that.
Saying it multiple times doesn't make it so.
In addition to the social reasons for getting a job (any job), and the potential benefits like health insurance, the whole tax system greatly favors getting a low-paying job (over collecting unemployment). For instance, you can only qualify for Earned Income Tax Credit if you have (wait for it!) earned income! Also, you will not be paying into the social security system, so you won't be eligible for things like disability, death benefits for relatives, retirement benefits, etc. etc. These things may be theoretical to your 20-something friends, but to folks like me with kids, they are very real.
The system almost always favors those with earned income, such that in most cases it's preferable to take the job... if you can get one (big if).
don't listen to the NAR scumbags, bank bastards, or wall street derivatives traders that drove this mess - stuff all your spare cash in an IRA, mail the keys to the bank and let them figure out what to do with the bad investment THEY made. The house was the collateral - let them have it.
Don't let anyone tell you you owe the rest of your life living in your debtors' prison home, only to merely get to ZERO 15 years from now. Housing prices will NEVER EVER get to the point they were at, so don't listen to these new lies from the NAR. Don't let them tell you you are getting off scott free either - you are taking the penalty of completely ruining your credit for 7 to ten years...but at least this is a sane persons' life, not sitting in the bottom of a chasm from which to climb out merely because you made the mistake of purchasing a roof over your head.
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AnnJo, I suppose you didn’t correctly read my line, "Most employed people I know, in the US, work 60+ hours.”
The key words are “most people I know.” The fact is many people whom are still emplyed do work more than one job to make ends-meet. And please don’t reference Phil Gramm, as he pushed for most of the deregulation that ended up bungling our economy. Mr. Gramm is nothing more than a wealthy political hack.
There will always be people like you that have little value for labor rights, and go on shifting the dialogue by referring to any real discussion as “whining.” The core reason why we lack the labor benefits people enjoy in some other countries is because we are too quick to equate such benefits to “laziness.” I am sure that you feel that workers in Germany who receive an average of 4 paid weeks of each year are lazy, right? I am sorry, but no one has a right to cheap or overworked labor.