Advice for a 22 year old starting with van?
- Thread starter dc843
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I don't think you do. I should have included a sarcastic smiley face thing.
I don't think you do. I should have included a sarcastic smiley face thing.
I got the sarcasm, so that kind of makes it even funnier now
I'm developing a Moot app for Android (but not iOS)I don't think you do. I should have included a sarcastic smiley face thing.
I got it and it was funny. It's just a bit of a sore spot is all having kids coming of age and knowing they are going to have serious struggles just trying to keep up with the previous generations.
But every generation faces the gauntlet laid down by the previous generation. I'm a baby Boomer. Our predecessor was the Greatest Generation. Tough act to follow.
I sometimes think and do things differently, like expediting. The logical progression would be cargo van, straight truck, tractor/trailer. I did the opposite. I put 20 years driving tractor/trailer. A little over a year doing expedite in a cargo van and straight truck and then moved up to cargo van owner/operator.
I also believe that Social Security is totally backassward. A person should collect SS from their 18th birthday until they turn 40. During that time they can get a post secondary education, travel, have kids, whatever. Turn 40, get a job and work until you're dead.
Isn't that the way Obamacare was set up to save Social Security ?
Make sure fewer of us live to reach our full retirement age ?
Well said. Our generation rode a wave of prosperity that has not been seen since. We had the best schools, often in brand-new buildings. We went to the best colleges, when private-college room, board, books and tuition cost less than the price a new car each year. We drove on the best highways, often brand-new interstates. We're now headed to the best retirement homes, again often newly constructed.
We're leaving behind aging infrastructure, bankrupt government agencies, a gutted middle class, sharply higher divorce rates and a society that lives hand-to-mouth on borrowed funds. Part of that is due to a population that nearly doubled in our lifetime, and people who live 20 years longer than people in the Greatest Generation (health care advancements). Part of it is due to our generation leaving behind the values of service and sacrifice the Greatest Generation manifested. Their slogan was make the world safe for democracy a better place for our children. Our slogan was Party On!
I joined the Army immediately after high school. Using money saved from my Army pay and part time work off post, I paid $5,100 cash for a brand-new Pontiac Firebird. When honorably discharged, I drove that car to a private college where I studied full time and worked part time in various off-campus jobs. One year of room, board, tuition and books cost about $5,100 and much of that was paid by the GI Bill. A public university education was far cheaper. I graduated with a small student loan that was taken out so my wife and I could take a study trip to Israel. That loan was quickly paid off after graduation.
No young enlisted soldier could do that today. When I hear of the student loan burden young college graduates enter the world with today, I can't imagine what life will be like carrying that amount for so long. The global changes in the labor market and the growth of government give us the world we live in today. It is so different now for the internet generation that seasoned folks like us cannot begin to imagine what it is like to live like them. Our generation did not leave the world a better place and we have not earned the right to tell younger people how to live or what they should care about.
Our voting power will ensure that our Social Security checks keep coming. As always for boomers, it's Party On! It will be up to the generations behind us to make the world a better place. And that is no small challenge given the growth in the global population and the phenomenal increase in complexity instantaneous global connectivity creates.
When we grew up, there was no internet and America's enemies had been soundly defeated. While we were building factories and freeways, the other major world powers were crawling out of war rubble. Kids these days see a different world than we saw in our day. Our points of reference, values assumptions and other such life-defining things are therefore different.
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To bring this back on topic, it would be interesting to see someone familiar with cargo van expediting compare the opportunity before to the opportunity now:
Communications:
Before: Pay Phone
Now: Cell Phone
Typical Van MPG:
Before: ???
Now: ???
Typical Pay Per Loaded Mile:
Before: ???
Now: ???
Fuel Cost Per Gallon in First Year in the Business:
Before: ???
Now: ???
Cost of a typical new, fully-equipped van:
Before: ???
Now: ???
Insurance Cost:
Before: ???
Now: ???
Other items of significance
Communications:
Before: Pay Phone
Now: Cell Phone
Typical Van MPG:
Before: ???
Now: ???
Typical Pay Per Loaded Mile:
Before: ???
Now: ???
Fuel Cost Per Gallon in First Year in the Business:
Before: ???
Now: ???
Cost of a typical new, fully-equipped van:
Before: ???
Now: ???
Insurance Cost:
Before: ???
Now: ???
Other items of significance
Outstanding post. Hard to imagine how the greatest generation dropped the ball when it came to passing on their ideals to the next generation. It is as if the boomers just consumed everything they could and left nothing for future generations.
Later boomer here. Our parents strived to make sure that we would not face the deprivation they did as children or young adults during the Depression. The good economic times our Nation enjoyed in the 50's and 60's spoiled us all, because we enjoyed ever increasing prosperity and opportunities. Nicer houses, nicer cars, the whole nine yards.
We also decided we wouldn't listen to our parents concerning real-world issues. After all, they were old fashioned and out of touch. Why be constrained to their ideas about sex, or drugs, or whether it was right to go to war? It's our world now, baby! Not only that, but we were too young to have a major effect on the country when the boom times sputtered in the 70's. By the time we were able to make a big difference in the way things were happening, here come more good times in the 80's and 90's. We rewrote the rules, and we could do no wrong. We never imagined that our brave new world wouldn't always be better than what had come before. Now, we're finding out differently. We're discovering that you can't lend without due diligence, can't bend other nations to our will, and that we can't keep giving things to people without a means to pay for it.
However, even now some of us in power are trying to hoodwink our kids into keeping the whole thing going. We're promising them free college, free healthcare, you name it. Well, guess what? Some of them are on to it. You wanna see tears and anger? Just ask my 23 year old daughter whether or not she'll ever get a cent of Social Security, that even at her young age, she's still paying in to. If and when the brown stuff hits the spinny thing, it will not be pretty. Not at all.
Can you spot Phil in this picture?Not to go off topic, but I can't imagine Phil doing the party gig..... lol....... just saying, Phil.....
Saw a few things here about money...the silver in a quarter still buys the same amount of gas as it did in the sixties...currency manipulation pure and simple, the answer lies in our system. Inflation is a tax, and it will carry on, our kids will be talking about the good old days when gas was 4.00 a gallon.
A lemonade van perhaps? ........
