OT: OT Thread XI, we go straight to 11! (Suck it IX and X! VIIICCCXXV can suck it too!)

[ADifferentTim]

You have an excuse at 105 degrees or hotter. You can't do hops or dark beers outdoors in the desert.

*puts flame suit on*

I like Coors Light.

coors > bud

Coors Light Brewery.

Bud Light.

Disturbing

Coors Lite is pretty damn refreshing when you're thirsty and want a beer.

I have a lot of different beers in my fridge.

As for beers, here are my go-to's:

Asian imports: any San Miguel Beer product (Philippines) and Hite (Korea)
Domestic Macro: Miller
Mexican imports: toss-up
European imports: Carlsberg, Heineken, Stella Artois
Domestic micro: toss-up

I heard worse about "piss-beer". That's all.

 

[Reclamation Project]

rs7 just makes me melty. i think i may own a cts-v wagon some time soon. i haven't lost the itch of a fast wagon since i got rid of the e55 estate a couple years ago.

i'm not tracking anymore so i don't care much for turnies, i just like some extra storage and some go fast on my pedal. the V has that and more if you want to add some simple goodies to it as well.

My folks had an E55 sedan and that car was a riot. Been eyeing a facelifted E63 on eBay.

CTS-V is the best of the lot. LSA is a beast of a platform. A pulley/headers/throttle body should be good for 700 horsepower. New cam should get you to 800. Nothing beats a Small Block Chevy - bulletproof, efficient, compact, great packaging, tons of power across the entire band and in every gear, and a great noise. Certainly looks the part too.

Can't wait to drive the new CTS-V. The LT4 is a brute.

I got to be honest with you guys but every time I see a BMW on the road and to a lesser extent, an Audi, I say to myself "I bet that guy drives like an a-hole" and they almost always confirm that. The BMW is the car most synonymous with a-hole driving. A guy driving the Volkswagon is just a guy who can't afford a BMW but still plays the part.

There's a reason Audi has four **** rings as a logo.

 

[Jason Squirties]

My folks had an E55 sedan and that car was a riot. Been eyeing a facelifted E63 on eBay.

CTS-V is the best of the lot. LSA is a beast of a platform. A pulley/headers/throttle body should be good for 700 horsepower. New cam should get you to 800. Nothing beats a Small Block Chevy - bulletproof, efficient, compact, great packaging, tons of power across the entire band and in every gear, and a great noise. Certainly looks the part too.

Can't wait to drive the new CTS-V. The LT4 is a brute.



There's a reason Audi has four **** rings as a logo.

 

[Buddy The Elf]

There's a reason Audi has four **** rings as a logo.

Four corn holes?

 

[KingsHockey24]

What is this feeling..

 

[Captain Mittens*]

What is this feeling..

It's you realizing that Frolov is never going to play again and coming to terms with your future username: KingsHockey8.

 

[KingsHockey24]

It's you realizing that Frolov is never going to play again and coming to terms with your future username: KingsHockey8.

You wish. He'll be back soon, probably next season actually.

KingsHockey24 forever.

 

[Ron*]

It's you realizing that Frolov is never going to play again and coming to terms with your future username: KingsHockey8.

You wish. He'll be back soon, probably next season actually.

KingsHockey24 forever.

KingsHockey10.

 

[Reclamation Project]

KingsHockey10Part5.

 

[Captain Mittens*]

KingsHockey1tothe0

 

[Jeff18]

KingsHockey26+28

 

[Reclamation Project]

KingsHockey2007

Game's over folks.

 

[Captain Mittens*]

Why are croutons so ****ing good? I snack on the mother****ers like they are almonds or chips.

 

[Reclamation Project]

Laughable.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/19/us-usa-wage-losangeles-idUSKBN0O42GV20150519

 

[Captain Mittens*]

 

[Buddy The Elf]

Laughable.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/05/19/us-usa-wage-losangeles-idUSKBN0O42GV20150519

What I don't get is it seems like somebody pulled that $15 an hour number out of thin air and everyone jumped on board. Why not $20? Why not $14? It seems very arbitrary. I think $15 an hour is a bit high and is obviously going to have an impact on businesses as it inches towards that $15 mark. I'd have to imagine fast food restaurants are going to have the biggest impact in Los Angeles. That doesn't concern me a whole lot. It would if I owned a McDonalds but I don't eat much fast food except El Pollo Loco. My once a week expenditure will go up or I'll find somewhere else to go.

 

[Buddy The Elf]

 

[VEGASKING]

Damn I barely make more than your current minimum wage. I guess it'll be time to move back to California and flip burgers in 2020.

 

[Jeff18]

It's pretty crappy making 9 dollars an hour when it's your career. Even if someone works full time every day, they would still barely be able to pay for expenses. When there's people that make millions playing a game or making ****** music, it's pretty unfair for someone that probably never had the money to do any of those things or go to school to make so little. 15 is pretty fair (especially in Los Angeles) considering how much profit a company like McDonald's makes. They'll probably cut jobs anyways and make prices higher though, which kinda defeats the purpose.

 

[Reclamation Project]

Minimim wage = minimum skills. These aren't careers, they are transition jobs. If these people (many of whom are grown adults) want to make more money, get a better job, or better yet a career. A career by definition is something that someone dedicates a majority of their life too and is started through specialized training.

I go into my local fast foods joints and I see two types of people - students and elderly people. That is exactly the type of people that should be filling these jobs, not middle-aged adults with families to support who need fifteen ****ing dollars an hour to simply keep their heads above water. And all those students and elderly people working there are doing a damn good job. The McDonalds I go to is spotless, efficient, and friendly. The students are engaging the customers and the elderly people are cleaning/preparing. I've never had bad service once, there is never a line because multiple registers are open, and the dining room is immaculate along with the bathrooms and parking lot.

It's gonna backfire big time and then be a wash. They'll scale back their workforce to offset the raise in wages and then unemployment will go up. The private sector isn't like the government where no one cares about expenditures and bloat is fine. This will immediately cut into their margins and employees will be laid off.

 

[kingsfan]

They are trying to do a minimum wage hike for all governmental employees in Canada to $15 an hour too. They being the labour and union supported opposition party.

Hiking the minimum wage is to me largely just a vote grab and money grab for government at the expense of small business and chain stores.

If your minimum wage goes up, so does the amount the government gets in the form of taxes. Your minimum wage goes from $9 to $15 and the government gets say 25% of that, the government is now seeing an extra $1.50 per hour per person that gets that hike.

That's a ******** of tax dollars.

That means the actual wage increase that person will see isn't $6 but actually $4.50. Now what do think is going to happen at some places that employ at or near minimum wage employees, such as gas stations and grocery stores? The costs they charge the customers goes up as well, including those very people who get the increase.

Meanwhile do you think employers are going to pay those above the increase a raise any time soon? Not likely, their costs for wages have just jumped, potentially significantly if they have a lot of minimum wage employees.

In Manitoba the NDP has given out a minimum wage hike nearly every year since they came into power 16 years ago. The minimum wage has gone from $6 per hour to $11 this fall. Yet the average wage in Manitoba over the past 15 years has only grown 1.5% on average, with that 1.5% largely represented by that minimum wage hike.

If governments really cared about the minimum wage employees, they'd increase the tax exemption level, which means everyone earning below X number of dollars a year doesn't have to pay taxes. In Manitoba I believe it's around $7,000 a year and has barely increased under the NDP in 16 years.

To increase the exemption takes tax dollars out of government coffers, to hike the minimum wage increases the tax base the government gets to use. A wage hike benefits the government as much if not more than it benefits the low wage earners while squeezing the middle class who often get by-passed for a wage increase due to staffing costs going up elsewhere. It also increases the number of people at minimum wage and forces some businesses to lay off or not replace employees when they leave. Hence the same amount of work for fewer people.

The minimum wage should go up, but it should be tied to the consumer price index or another model indicating the level of inflation so that minimum wage increases along with the costs of neccesities increasing, not arbitrarally increasing it in a dramatic jump like $9 to $15, or annually or semi-annually like they have been doing here.

But it certainly does grab votes and its hard for your opponent to speak against it without coming off as anti-the little guy.

 

[Captain Mittens*]

And then there is the other end of the economic spectrum

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/ubs-says-settle-fx-probe-pay-545-million-053323621--sector.html

-

Four major banks agreed to plead guilty on Wednesday to trying to manipulate foreign exchange rates and six were fined nearly $6 billion in yet another settlement in a global probe into the $5-trillion-a-day market.

Authorities in the United States and Britain accused traders at Citigroup , JP Morgan , Barclays , UBS and Royal Bank of Scotland of brazenly cheating their clients to boost their own profits using invitation-only chatrooms and coded langu

Wednesday's settlement stands out because Citigroup, JP Morgan, Barclays and Royal Bank of Scotland pleaded guilty and for the size of the penalties, including a $2.5 billion fine by the Department of Justice, the largest set of antitrust fines ever obtained in its history.

 

[Ron*]

Some pretty interesting narrative regarding the minimum wage. It is pretty clear we have a lot of smart posters here on this board.

I will just add my two cents here. Very short: the POS and useless LA City council put a sunrise provision of the increased rate five years from now, when the federal rate will probably be about the same. So the vote is largely pandering to local unions for future greased palms and will have very little to no effect on the local economy.

 

[Buddy The Elf]

It's pretty crappy making 9 dollars an hour when it's your career. Even if someone works full time every day, they would still barely be able to pay for expenses. When there's people that make millions playing a game or making ****** music, it's pretty unfair for someone that probably never had the money to do any of those things or go to school to make so little. 15 is pretty fair (especially in Los Angeles) considering how much profit a company like McDonald's makes. They'll probably cut jobs anyways and make prices higher though, which kinda defeats the purpose.

It is crappy to make $9 an hour which is why that alone should motivate you to do more with your life. I worked minimum wage jobs when I was a kid. I worked retail, washed dishes, cooked, cleaned golf carts and then eventually got an opportunity to work as a file clerk for $9 an hour (minimum wage was around $5 then).

That is when my attitude about this sort of thing changed. There are so many people in this country mailing it in on a daily basis. Then they'll complain about the guy next to them making more. But the fact of the matter is usually the people that work the hardest get rewarded the best. Not always, but usually. And sometimes that comes in the form of a job opportunity somewhere else because somebody outside notices that.

I'm a 34 year old guy without a college education who started at the bottom and now I'm somewhere in the middle making more than most of my peers who even have education. I used to sell my self short on my accomplishments but the reason I get paid the amount I make today isn't because I was handed anything. When I was in my early 20's and my friends were out partying on weekdays while they were bartending or working at restaurants, I was waking up at 6 am to go put pieces of paper in alphabetical order.

There are way too many people who aren't willing to do more than the minimum and most of those people end up making the minimum. There are a lot of people in this country that make bad choices or have little ambition. It's why you see a lot of immigrants come here and thrive. They are willing to do what it takes to make a better life. If that means washing dishes for $9 an hour, they do it and don't ***** about it. They either sack up and do the work until something better comes their way or they work as many hours as they have to in order to get by.

The minimum wage should go up, but it should be tied to the consumer price index or another model indicating the level of inflation so that minimum wage increases along with the costs of neccesities increasing, not arbitrarally increasing it in a dramatic jump like $9 to $15, or annually or semi-annually like they have been doing here.

But it certainly does grab votes and its hard for your opponent to speak against it without coming off as anti-the little guy.

I believe the City of LA proposal does that after the $15 an hour mark is hit 5 years down the road.

 

[Captain Mittens*]