Economics & Racing Beyond Our Means

[Bruce Noland]

Lynn,

You have posted this comment about the top 4% of wage earners paying 96% of "all taxes collected" several times before. Please clarify "all taxes collected" for us. I guess you are not including any earnings outside of wages. Correct? I am very interested in knowing how 4% of the wage earners are paying the bill for 280 million Americans. Maybe Dave Ring can help us out with this one.

[Rick Angles]

I am one who used to spend money all the time. Just tell me what the monthly payments are and where to sign. Working for a new car dealership as a technician, you see the paychecks go up and down a lot. I bracket raced occasionally but never got to serious. Sometime around the turn of the century, I started seeing the work changing, which meant more wildly swinging paychecks. And the last few years have gotten worse. Living in central Ohio, you constantly see in the paper or on the news about companies shutting down. About 4-5 years ago I started getting more into my income/expenses. Total card debt now is less then $400, Tahoe will be paid off in 4 months and house is on the downhill side.

What does all this mean? I bought my Starfire last year to build as a stocker, a dream of mine. Work has been going at a crawl because I am trying to pay for everything as I go. Bargains always help as I found a set of new pistons on ebay for 0.99. Thats right and I was the only bidder. So total with shipping was just over $13! Goal at the beginning of the project was to have it running before the end of '07. It changed to maybe summer/fall of '08. Now I am not sure about making it this fall, maybe by next year. And after it is running, I still need a way to get it to the track. Enclosed trailer would be nice but an open one is looking better all the time.
Guess there are always something more important comes up and our fun hobby will have to take a back seat,

[Chuck Porter]

First of all I?d like to say I am enjoying this thread. There are many valuable comments and insights being presented.

Dick ? I can relate in many ways to what you are saying. One of our son?s is an engineer and he was required to take an economics course. It planted the seed early in his career and he has prospered in part because of it. This wasn?t the case when we were young. In high school we took basic economics and business. You know the drill, how to prepare a budget, write a business letter etc. I suppose it was better than nothing.

Jack ? I particularly like the idea of a mandatory economics class in high school.

When reduced down to it?s simplest form, ?education? is the key. If we are well informed, most people would be less likely to fall into traps such as the sub prime issue. I said ?most? people, but there are a hell of a lot of people who would ignore the warning signs and dive right in.

Denial & Ego
Most of us involved in this sport would like to win. I think that is a given. We also apply that emotion to business or our work. Most of us can keep winning and losing in perspective. However there are those to whom winning and their ?image? is everything. You know who they are. They will sell their soul in order to keep up appearances. There comes a day when you have to pay the piper. It baffles me how some seemingly intelligent people have allowed themselves to get to a point where they are one paycheck away from bankruptcy. This basic ARITHMATIC and they ?DO? teach that in school! Maybe these people are using the New Math?Denial is a powerful thing! Do they deserve a bail out? I think not.

Who was it that said, ?There?s no free lunch?.

Chuck

[gymracer01]

Very interesting thread at a very interesting time. I'm lucky enough to race with cash. That's because I'm retired from one state and went right back to work in another doing the same job. Being older I have learned the hard way to operate this way. I built a couple of cars in the 70's with every dollar I could scrape up and not have enough money to race them. I had planned to build an engine to run SS/GT with my car this year, but with fuel prices and uncertianity, I'm holding on for now. I race with the NMCA which has less races and cost less to run. I have always been a fan of NHRA but realized I could not afford it when I started racing Nationaly in 99. I'm very thankful that the NMCA schedule looked good for us last year and we were able to win the championship. We went to the first race in Bradenton and runner-upped this year so we broke even or better on that but will not run all the races this season unless we go to more finals. I love racing as much as anyone but I won't put my family in danger to do it and hope no one else will either. Like someone on here said, you can tell by my tow rig, I run a cash deal. Good luck all and let's hope it gets much better.
Jim Netherland
2007 Nostaglia Super Stock World Champion
1967 Buick GS 400 B/NSS

[Adger Smith]

This is a great thread. I have enjoyed the comments.
Dick said:Yesterday I visited a Opthmology school with our son. I was impressed, oh yes they had equipment, they had personel but the big impressive point was they started first year of the four year school with personal finance, business investing, how to evaluate a medical practice, and how to create a financially secure future with stock and investing. These classes are part of the required courses for four years. What an improvement. WE ALL NEED EDUCATION on money issues.
I am really impressed too. I've run my own business for 36 years & have watched other locals come & go. I've had employees that had little or no understanding of business, yet they were considered some of the best @ local high schools. Another thing I have noticed is the younger generations have not been taught to think things out. I would say it is because of teaching "for the test" instead of teaching a student to reason. It is refreshing to see the Opthmology School teaching a student how to stay in business first, then how to do the business second. What good does it do if one is the best in his field & he can't make his business profitable & be a success? These teaching/school issues need our attention & have for a while.