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Thread: Cruise to Key West, Cuba, and Port Canaveral

  1. #41
    Senior Member Teacher Terry's Avatar
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    We can not always control what happens to us in life but we can control our reactions to it and not become bitter. Bitterness is a poison to the person. A good example is my BF whose 19 yo daughter died from a rare liver disease. Although, her world was devastated she has carried on and not allowed it to consume her or make her a bitter person.

  2. #42
    Williamsmith
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    There are some commentaries that do stand the test of time and can be found . This one from The Economist “Government Workers of the World Unite” provides an accurate analysis of the sector envy Public/private and rightly points out the unions as the driving factor for wage and benefit differences. It takes a nasty swipe at the public sector and as I see it, justifiably in many instances. But as it was written in 2011.....it was accurate in its prediction that the pendulum has begun to swing against the public sector. State and Federal government is quickly reaching the crisis point where pension obligations exceed funding.

    The “shaming” of public sector employees is rather wasted energy. I suspect most are like me, I feel like I earned it, sacrificed myself over and over again and my family, pulled up stakes and moved once too often and exposed myself to injury or worse because we all know government isn’t as efficient at providing services nor do they provide the best tools to work with. Just ask the private sector.

    If I were starting again, government work would not be my choice. The canary in the mine is about to fall off its perch and go ten toes high.

    https://www.economist.com/node/17849199

    Oh yeah, I don’t begrudge having to help others with their student loans that can’t or won’t help themselves......I just wish they’d gotten a better education for my money.

  3. #43
    Senior Member Ultralight's Avatar
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    1. There was a time not too long ago when gubmint workers envied those guys working the line at the Ford factory. They had great pay, amazing bennies, a hell of a retirement plan, and strong unions.

    2. Private sector workers gripe about us gubmint workers and our amazing pay and bennies. It is as though they say: "If I can't have what they have then they shouldn't have it either!" But I say: "I want all workers to have fair pay, excellent bennies, a great retirement plan, and strong unions." I have voted and been an activist in line with this sentiment my whole adult life.

    3. I make about $49k. I have a 401k style retirement vehicle at my job, along with a small Roth and a small traditional IRA I fund myself, voluntarily out of my own pocket. When I worked private sector (for a labor union as a researcher) I made $50k plus $9k for food. I had better healthcare too. But this really is exceptional. If I was to try to break into the private sector I would like make a lot less. There are not many private sector jobs that do what I do. Non-profits do, but I would like make the same or less. Chances are I would have to enter a low-paying private sector different than the line of work I am in now, if I went private sector.

    3. I am not a member of a union where I work. At OSU only a small unit of trades workers are in a union. The rest of the employees across all the types of work are at-will schlubs.

  4. #44
    Yppej
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    You make more than me despite living in a lower cost of living area. But I am subsidizing your student loans while you jet around the world. And you admit you think you are better than other people. This cultural condescension put Trump over the top thanks to the white working class in places like Michigan. Teacher Terry, bitter is an interesting choice of words. "Bitter clingers" has now been embraced with pride in the way other groups have taken derogatory terms and appropriated them.

  5. #45
    Senior Member Ultralight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yppej View Post
    You make more than me despite living in a lower cost of living area.
    That might be because of luck. It might also be because I can be very charming in interviews. It could also be that I have a certain skill set that I acquired at university. It could also be that when all others in my graduate school cohort waited and waited for the "perfect" job in their field in the location they wanted I was willing to go anywhere and to do work outside the scope of my education. It could be a combination of these things and others.

    I also don't know much about you, your education, your training, your experience, or how you come off in person.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yppej View Post
    But I am subsidizing your student loans while you jet around the world.
    I am 38 years old. I have been to 10 or 12 nations (depending on how you count):

    -Canada (went to Niagara Falls with my parents when I was a kid)
    -Costa Rica (I studied rain forest ecology and Spanish there in college)
    -Spain (part of my honeymoon)
    -Portugal (part of my honeymoon)
    -England (part of my honeymoon)
    -Aruba (vacation with a girlfriend)
    -Israel (solo vacation)
    -Palestine (solo vacation)
    -Jordan (solo vacation)
    -Argentina (solo vacation)
    -Uruguay (solo vacation)
    -Cuba (this cruise)

    That is less than 1 country every three years. I am hardly in the jet set.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yppej View Post
    And you admit you think you are better than other people.
    Yes, I admit it. So what? I am better than the a%$hole drunks back in my old neighborhood who beat their wives and kids. I am better than Neo-Nazis. I am better than a lot of people. But it is not like I am some Jonas Salk or Neil DeGrasse Tyson or even my friend Tonya who is a pediatrician with low-income kids or my friend Jim who still works at organizing workers.

    Quote Originally Posted by Yppej View Post
    This cultural condescension put Trump over the top thanks to the white working class in places like Michigan.
    For your own sanity you need to let this go. What made Trump win the election was the ignorance of those that voted for him.

    Tell me a bit more about yourself, Yppej. What do you do for work? What are your hobbies? What is your social circle like?

  6. #46
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    1. There was a time not too long ago when gubmint workers envied those guys working the line at the Ford factory. They had great pay, amazing bennies, a hell of a retirement plan, and strong unions.
    not in a long long time, this was mostly lost with NAFTA etc. that was a long time ago. More than my working memory or my memory of working anyway.

    Student loans is a difficult one, people frankly in many cases were charged too much for their education even at state schools (although pretty reasonable in this state). Some careers actually do require degrees from somewhere prestigious, and many will do just fine with a degree from state U, and it's a ton of debt otherwise without scholarships or bank of mom and dad.

    But education is neither ultimately the problem (do people with student loans really think they have it worse than others including those who never went to college - privileged whining is always an ugly look at least do it in private not in public) nor really the solution (as pumping out more educated people won't help as there already aren't jobs that really require all those credentials). The problem is too many jobs pay too little to live off.
    Trees don't grow on money

  7. #47
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    I repeat – it would be stupid of ultralight to pay off his loans ahead of schedule. This is a benefit of his job that any of us would take advantage of if it were offered to us. And we would travel and enjoy our lives along the way.

  8. #48
    Senior Member Ultralight's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tammy View Post
    I repeat – it would be stupid of ultralight to pay off his loans ahead of schedule. This is a benefit of his job that any of us would take advantage of if it were offered to us. And we would travel and enjoy our lives along the way.
    No, Yppej would work so hard to make as many extra payments as possible, all the while thanking every taxpayer they met all the time.

  9. #49
    Senior Member jp1's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Yppej View Post
    The average American has been to 3 nations. 29% of US citizens have never been out of the country.
    Dang. What a depressing pair of statistics. Undoubtedly there are people who've tried traveling and just don't like it, but I suspect there are plenty who would enjoy it and learn something along the way but just haven't done it. I've done a fair amount of international travel and the money it cost (although it seemed significant at the time) was a pittance compared to all the people met, experiences had, things seen.

    And I'm just a rank amateur compared to some people I've known. Decades ago I had a friend who would work several months a year at an Alaskan fish cannery which paid great money (and included room and board and one roundtrip airfare to Alaska. the only thing to actually spend money on where it was was alcohol, which she didn't do.) She'd save up $6-8,000 and then spend the rest of the year traveling in whatever part of the world she'd planned to see that year. Once money ran low she'd come back to the states, go up to Alaska again, and start the process over.

  10. #50
    Senior Member jp1's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by iris lilies View Post
    I worked in the public sector and regularly heard that bullshit about how we could make more money in the private sector.

    I unequivocally assure you that my group could NOT make more money in the private sector considering all of the financial and workplace perks and considering the number of “private sector” library positions that exist. Could NOT. That old canard always pissed me off, it was pure fantasy.
    Undoubtedly it depends on what skillset one has. My father spent the last 24 years of his working life as an accountant working for the federal government. He knew he could earn more money in the private sector (and had taken a sizable pay cut when he took the gov't job, but since his wife (my mom) had given him an ultimatum of "we can move one more time but never again or I'm divorcing you and moving back to denver" he happily accepted the pay cut since it also meant moving to denver to live happily ever after) He could have then found a private sector job in denver that paid better but the civil service pension and retirement healthcare benefit were generous enough that he chose to stick it out until he was 63 when he retired in the early 90's. I have no idea if the same would be true today.

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