SteveC
Moderator
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| 07 Jan 2010 11:49 AM |
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There's nothing hard or complicated or intractable about fixing social security:
I believe you've forgotten about all the members of the "Upper" & "Lower" houses of the U.S. Congress, and their attitude about spending what is not theirs. |
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Rod Hayward
Brakeman
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Posts:226
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TonyWalsham
1st Class Member
Foreman
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| 07 Jan 2010 02:23 PM |
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Rod, would that be Iceand........ what??? Bundaberg Rum + Coke? Oh!!! OK. Pepsi!!!
I'll drink to that. |
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Best wishes,
Tony Walsham
Remote Control Systems. www.rcs-rc.com/
 Modern technology. Old Fashioned reliability |
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Charles
1st Class Member
Conductor
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Posts:2697
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| 07 Jan 2010 03:07 PM |
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Posted By Idraw4u on 06 Jan 2010 08:41 AM
I am one of the newbie G-Scalers you all seem to refer to.I have been on this sight for about a year and learned a great deal but aside from two loops around the front yard at Christmas, I have not yet gotten started on my permanent layout. Heck I am still completely confused on DCC, DCS, QSI, AIRWIRE and so on… But I will say this.It is posts like this that make me regret spending money to be a 1stReading this is like being on a grade school playground. All the clicks, bickering and backhanded insults. It all makes me want to go back to just stumbling along and figuring it out by trial and error.This thread is like a train wreck, you just can’t look away… and it keeps getting worse.
That being said: The cost of track is not the deterrent most of you think it is to newbies. Just like anything else, if you are serious about it you will find the time and the money. I am much more deterred by the overwhelming options and lack of understanding of what is what and what does what and what will work with what than the cost. There are so many options and so many acronyms that I will start reading a post and be lost by the second reply. So the lack of knowing where to start, or what to do next is more a deterrent than the track price.Lack of personal knowledge is why I joined this site, to learn from all of you. However after reading all of this - all I know how to do is complain and insult people that are here to help.
Track price is what it is? Is it the same price it was1, 3, 5 years ago, probably not but neither is a new car, or a house or a loaf of bread. As a kid I remember collecting bottles and cans and raking leaves and shoveling snow to get some extra $ to buy things that I wanted. It was that hard work and not being able to just go buy what I wanted when I wanted it that made me value what I had. Do none of you remember going to sleep dreaming of that BB Gun or baseball glove or Train set?So I have to save a bit more and it takes a bit longer… I can buy a set right now for $300 that has everything I need out of the box. That will get anyone started and won’t take that long to save for. The empire in the back yard may need to be a dream for awhile and a goal but that is what makes it a hobby and keeps it fun for me. Building it in my dreams and waiting for that day when I have saved enough to buy that Big Boy, or DCC or DCS or whatever it is I need to control it remotely. So track is $6 a foot, don’t eat out 2 times a month and you can by two 5’ pieces. The golden spike in Utah was not driven because people complained about the cost of steel, it was driven because people dared to dream and put down one rail at a time. If they can put down 3K miles of rail one at a time to build an empire… you can save your pennies and put down one 5’ stick at a time to build yours. But I am a newbie… what do I know.
class member.
Idraw4u
Well stated with a good perspective of the hobby as it relates to those who will help it continue. Through I am not sure I would utilize the example of "golden spike" relative to the methods, means and movements of the transcontinental RR as a "model" from which one would be motivated towards the hobby. Yet, maybe you have a point- given how this post goes onto the side track at times. Maybe it is in our nature to be "robber barons" and get the most for our investment!
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Happy Trails on the Rails
Offering services to enhance your steam locomotive
Charles
SA #614
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xo18thfa
1st Class Member
Foreman
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Posts:1887
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| 07 Jan 2010 03:20 PM |
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Posted By lownote on 07 Jan 2010 11:17 AM
There's nothing hard or complicated or intractable about fixing social security: it would be really really easy. Raise payroll taxes slightly--like 1% or less. End of problem. But since the 80s, taxes have become a forbidden and taboo subject. It's like we are standing around a fire with a bucket of water, shrugging our shoulders helplessly.
In the 1950s, all Americans paid higher taxes than they do now: Americans are far more lightly taxed than any other people in any industrial nation. That's just a fact. Say what you like about the merits or demerits of taxes, I would agree with you that Americans want the benefits--social security, medicare wars abroad--without paying the cost. If a politician told me "i propose to fix social security by raising everybody's payroll tax by x percent," I'd vote for him, because he'd be offering an honest and practical way to maintain a program I believe in and have been paying into since I was 16. But no one will say this. Some like social security, some don't. The plain fact is it's easy to fix, but people don't want to pay the cost
I would vote for the first guy who said "Let's kill income tax with holding, everybody pay quarterly estimate tax in cash to their local IRS office". If that happened, how many nano-seconds would it take to get a new political click in DC. Seriously thought, the Senate voting last fall to reduce Medicare by $480 Billion should shock a lot of people. Even the talk of it is catastrophic. I have paid into this since 1973 on the promise it would be there for me when I retire. Now I have to worry. Nothing is a "taboo subject" now.
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Bob Sorenson
Las Vegas, Nevada
SA #13
"Goals are dreams with deadlines"
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xo18thfa
1st Class Member
Foreman
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Posts:1887
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| 07 Jan 2010 03:21 PM |
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Posted By TonyWalsham on 07 Jan 2010 02:23 PM
Rod, would that be Iceand........ what??? Bundaberg Rum + Coke? Oh!!! OK. Pepsi!!!
I'll drink to that.
Can I join you?? |
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Bob Sorenson
Las Vegas, Nevada
SA #13
"Goals are dreams with deadlines"
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blackburn49
Conductor
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Posts:3333
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| 07 Jan 2010 03:22 PM |
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Posted By Charles on 07 Jan 2010 03:07 PM
Maybe it is in our nature to be "robber barons" and get the most for our investment!
And complain about the cost of track, the evils of Ebay , lack of good service, scarcity of LS hobby stores, high shipping costs, etc, etc. Nothing new here. If you are building your LS layout ANYWAY, you have MADE you CHOICE ! You have SET your PRIORITIES. For many of us, the ONLY inexpensive part of this hobby was that initial purchase of that first Bachmann set at Sam's Club, probably to run around a long-forgotten Christmas tree years ago. "Get the most for our investment ?" You're kidding, right ?
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Ronald N. Simpson
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Copper
Center, Alaska |
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Charles
1st Class Member
Conductor
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Posts:2697
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| 07 Jan 2010 03:58 PM |
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Depends on how one plays the "toy market" as to initial investment related to set value. For example purchase good quality used track or high quality engines (auctions etc) that do not loss value over time (eg Aster locomotives) then one gets the most for their investment to the point of making a profit in the end (once one is too old to play) or not taking a loss. If it had true "free market" applications there would be
speculators, investors, stocks, major manufacturers, etc. I do not
know of any outside sponsors with their logos on a Bachmann,
Aristocraft, etc.
The true "return for one's money" in any hobby is not the balance sheet but the involvement, therefore I for one will not be shorted with my time or money spent in the hobby. As to track, you got to pay (ether time, talent or money) to play. So, either make it, pay it now or over time accumulative (probably how must of us had done it) the iron ribbons in the little empire one builds.
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Happy Trails on the Rails
Offering services to enhance your steam locomotive
Charles
SA #614
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kormsen
Brakeman
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Posts:768
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| 07 Jan 2010 04:34 PM |
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Posted By Charles on 07 Jan 2010 03:58 PM
(once one is too old to play)
i think, here you err.
from those persons with a hobby, who i know personally, i got the impression that many treat their toys like their arms: you may have them - but out of my cold hand. |
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Southern & Gulf R.R.
We build for eternity!
(so, why should we hasten?)
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Mik
Conductor
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Posts:2846
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| 07 Jan 2010 05:25 PM |
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Posted By Mik on 06 Jan 2010 08:08 PM
I'm going to make somebody 'an offer they can't refuse'.....
I have a used circle of Aristo R-1 (600mm) track here, it's rather weathered and a little corroded but should clean up OK enough to be usable. I also have a Bachmann transformer out of a Big Hauler set. IF you're a newbie lurker who's ONLY reason not to join in the fun of playing with big trains is the cost of track -- then backchannel me with your story, and if you'll just pay the shipping I'll GIVE them to you. Fair enough?
May the new year bring you everything you need, if you got everything you desired there'd be noplace to put it.....
Just to let you all know, I've been just totally SWAMPED with takers on this offer --- (Not ONE single enquiry so far)... I'd have thunk if it was such a CRISIS there would AT LEAST be a few in a day...but I guess it's a couple hours or so early yet? |
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Mik
Allegheny Valley, the outside, inside, inside, outside railroad..
http://www.the-ashpit.com/mik/layout.html
 Out of my mind -- back in 5 minutes. |
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JEFF RUNGE
Brakeman
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Posts:846
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| 07 Jan 2010 05:53 PM |
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Interesting, you are trying to GIVE track away, but because you are not a 1st class member you can not put it in the classifieds.... Maybe you could put the offer in the Beginners forum, of maybe one of the mods will put it in the classifieds, bending the rules as a good will gesture ? |
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Semper Vaporo
1st Class Member
Conductor
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Posts:4459
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| 07 Jan 2010 06:04 PM |
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Posted By Mik on 06 Jan 2010 08:08 PM
I'm going to make somebody 'an offer they can't refuse'.....
I have a used circle of Aristo R-1 (600mm) track here, it's rather weathered and a little corroded but should clean up OK enough to be usable. I also have a Bachmann transformer out of a Big Hauler set. IF you're a newbie lurker who's ONLY reason not to join in the fun of playing with big trains is the cost of track -- then backchannel me with your story, and if you'll just pay the shipping I'll GIVE them to you.
Fair enough?
May the new year bring you everything you need, if you got everything you desired there'd be noplace to put it.....
One of the things I desire is a place to put all the things I need! 
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My train of thought was derailed -- there were no survivors.
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blueregal
Foreman
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Posts:1884
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| 07 Jan 2010 06:27 PM |
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Yer gonna PLAY, you gotta PAY!! Right???? LOL Regal
Just like crinimals you gonna do the CRIME ya gots ta do the TIME!! Hee Hee |
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Chucks_Trains
1st Class Member
Brakeman
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Posts:567
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| 09 Jan 2010 11:26 AM |
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Back to what this topic started out about I am sorry to hear/read about St. Aubin closing the Las Vegas Store.
Game on 
News about Jon retiring..well what can I say except that now maybe I'l start spending some of my 20k a year train budget up at St. Aubin which by the way is only a few minutes away from me 
As far as I'm concerned this guy has it right..lots of trains and a HUGE layout to play with  If you don't like it the I suggest you cal Dr. Ruth  |
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Chuck |
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