JayB

Please reconcile these: Productivy gains have been enormous over the last decade according to govt stats. In that same time period, real wages have been flat to down, while CFO and CEO salaries have roughly tripled. BTW, I don't think you can eliminate povery by just paying everyone wages that are above the poverty threshold. That is not my assertion. But I also don't believe that you automatically hamstring a business by requiring minimum wage. Further, I assert that when your employees are not having to work two jobs to make ends meet and not stressing the fuck out because they can't take a sick child to the doctor, you will increase productivity of those employees and to some degree offset the higher wage. I don't believe that it is moral, ethical, or christian nor a benefit to shareholders to pay corporate execs wildly bloated salary packages while the rank and file employee can't heat their home or feed their kids. You deem it socialist, I call it human compassion. I leave you with two thoughts: 1. As of 2005, if the minimum wage had risen as fast as CEO pay since 1990, the lowest paid workers in the US would be earning $23.03 an hour today, not $5.15 an hour. 2. In 1965 the CEO:Worker pay ratio was 24:1. Today it is over 430:1. In Japan today it is 55:1. And before you claim "they are worth it" take a look at Treas. Sec Snow's tenure as CEO of CSX Rail, or Ken Lay, Kozlowski, etc, etc. I guess it depends on whether you base your beliefs about this on feelings or evidence. There are a few papers out there that argue to the contrary, but the overwhelming consensus is that legislating a higher minimum wage actually ends up hurting the people that you want to help. There's a pretty solid 60+ year consensus on this one amongst economists, and it can be verified by simple thought experiments. As I said above, not only does it hurt the unskilled and uneducated, the inflation, monetary and otherwise that it brings about has a very real, very negative effect upon anyone living on a fixed income. I'm not sure how a policy which not only harms young people with no skills and old people with no earned income is actually compassionate. I can see that it's born of a compassionate impluse, but real compassion requires doing what works - in this case, actually reducing poverty - not what mereley makes us feel good about ourselves. The bit about CEO pay is pretty irrelevant unless you believe that every time Bill Gates gets paid more, it somehow undermines your standard of living. Besides, it would be more accurate to sum up all of the money earned by the CEOs of the Fortune 500 in a given year, and divide it by the total man-hours worked in the US economy, and see what difference it would make in average wages - not much. If corporations overpay for talent - that's between them and their shareholders, and paying a fortune for a guy that doesn't produce much, then that's a bad management decision that will eventually cost the company in market share, share price, etc. There's probably plenty of people in the country that think you are grossly overpaid for what you do - but the beauty of a market economy is that society's need for what you have to offer at any given time, not popular opinion - determines what you make. The only other quibble I have is that I bet your metric includes only money wages, not compensation. If wages are static and health care premiums are rising at 5-10% YOY, then flat wages + rising benefits = higher total compensation. If both really are stagnating, it's hard to imagine how increasing unemployment and inflation are going to help much - unless you think that a reduction in total wages will be helpful to the nation somehow.

That's what I was wondering. Can't see any reason not to do that.

Meanwhile, back in the real world "KPMG's biannual study measures 27 cost components, such as labour, taxes, utilities and real estate... France and the Netherlands are the most cost-efficient European countries, while the U.S. ranked seventh among the nine countries, the study said. Germany edged out Japan as the costliest place to conduct business." Spin, spin, spin... But Murray, if KPMG is correct, that just show's exactly how harmful France's labor policies actually are. If France is the 2nd most cost-effective place to do business in the G7 - at least in the abstract - then employers should be beating down France's door to open up shop there, and their average unemployment should be amongst the lowest in the G7. The fact that this is not the case suggests that something beyond the expenses that KPMG tabulated is seriously discouraging overall employment there. Seems like labor market rigidity is a good candidate for this, and this is consistent with situation where unemployment is concentrated amongst the least skilled portion of the population - which is exactly what you see there.

I don't think that most people are actually looking to harm the people at the low end of the wage/skill continuum - but it is worth looking at how no minimum wage vs. living wage will affect them. I think it's pretty clear that if the key to eliminating poverty was mandating a sufficiently high wage, then all any country would have to do to turn itself into another Dubai would be to raise the wage to $100/hour or it's equivalent. Bingo - no more poverty. In reality, the only way to raise real wages is to raise productivity through better technology, training, etc. There's a reason why most of us live in a state of material comfort and plenty that would astonish our great-grandparents, and it's not because we are working any harder than they had to. But back to the people at the low end of the wage-skill curve. What actually happens to them is that when you raise wages above the value that a person with no skills and a GED can generate on an employer's behalf - e.g. the employer will lose money every hour that they keep them on the job, the employer will either shed staff, go out of business, move elsewhere, or hire only people with enough skills to make them more money than they pay out in wages. All that you have to do to confirm this is a quick mental excercise where you keep ratcheting up the wages a dollar at a time, and ask yourself whether or not the local McDonald's franchisee is going to pay $15 an hour to have someone man the till. We've been through this drill before, and what actually happens is that when you raise wages above a given threshold with no increases in productivity, you increase unemployment, and this unemployment is most heavily concentrated amongst the least skilled members of the workforce. Once unemployment gets high enough, the political pressure mounts and the central bank increases the money supply until inflation erodes the momentary gains in real wages that the increased minimum wage brought about, and purchasing power for those earning the lowest wages stays where it was - at best. Meanwhile those who have been saving money rather than borrowing it, and especially those living on fixed incomes - get thoroughly hosed by the ensuing inflation. Less than 3% of the workforce actually earns minimum wage, and half of all minimum wage-earners are under-25, and a high percentage of the under-25's are actually teenagers who aren't supporting a family with what they earn - so on balance I'd rather have a policy that keeps Granny from shivering under the afghan all winter and cracking open the Purina. There's also the fact that very few people who start out earning the minimum wage actually keep earning the minimum wage for very long, as the skills and experience that they pick up on the low-end of the job market eventually translate into higher wages. However, if you raise minimum wages high enough, you will effectively keep the least skilled/educated people from ever taking their first step, and raising the number of unemployable people in the economy, especially amongst the youth, will not have a very beneficial effect on the crime rate. Anyhow - it's interesting that even with your background in economics you support the notion that the way to eliminate poverty is through legislating higher money wages, as that's not a common perspective amongst people with your background. Not as uncommon as Biology majors who don't believe in evolution (actually knew one of those), but pretty rare. Is that something that you cam about through your training in econ or is it a populist working-class solidarity thing that you've hung onto despite your training?

I don't have time to address everything in one shot, but when the ECB and BOJ raise rates that, in conjunction with the FED actions, should tighten lending standards on the front side, and dry up some of the oceans of liquidity that the disparity between ECB and BOJ rates have brought into the MBS market by means of the carry trade, which should help to contain one of the primary symptoms of the asset/credit bubble that you were talking about. Ending tarriffs and subsidies alone wouldn't erase the deficit, but over the long term it'd have a significant impact on economic growth, as every billion that gets wasted growing surplus crops that can be produced more cheaply elsewhere - sugar and cotton are great examples - could be either diverted to more productive uses like infrastructure spending or kept out of the government's hands all together. On the whole I'm less concerned about spending for this program or that program than I am about the percent of GDP that's extracted to fund the government. Somewhere there's a level that optimizes both economic growth and government revenue, and that seems like a reasonable goal to shoot for, but if I had to err on one side I'd definitely favor erring on the side of economic growth. As far as the pampering goes - we should compare work histories. When I was 16 years old I was spending 40-50 hours a week working swing/graveyard shifts as dishwasher, and got to do things like clean-up oceans of puke off of toilet fixtures at 3:00AM, then trying to talk the depressed, 35-year old alcoholic coworker that lived with his Mom out of committing suicide that night. Fun stuff.

Fuck that. I'd hang with any of those croissant-munchers over that wanker any day. Work is a necessary evil, and the less work is necessary, the better. JayB, you go back to dutifully fellating your employer as a gesture of your thanks for the high privilege of occupying one of said person's fine cubicles. [i'm significantly more important than you because I work in a laboratory, and I am afraid there is a communist or group of communists hiding under my bed waiting to share something of mine while I sleep.] But, so, like, you're not denying the employer-fellating, then. Smashing. So, do you occaisionally steal pens and logo items and stationary from the office to convince yourself that you aren't "one of them," and that despite appearances, you are monkeywrenching this whole capitalism thing.....one stapler at a time?

Higher interest rates should take care of 2/3 of those problems. Other than that, I'd eliminate all subsidies and tarriffs, scrap the minimum wage, eliminate the tax deduction for employer sponsored health care and transfer the deduction to individuals for HSA contributions, reduce the capital gains tax to zero, phase out the mortgage interest deduction, raise the maxiumum contributions for Roths and 401(K)'s, eliminate all legislation that forces governments to pay inflated union rates for work that the taxpayers foot the bill for, make every state a right-to-work state, outlaw unions for public employees, and get the line-item veto going for appropriations bills.

To be fair, that picture better sums up JayB Way better muscle tone, less hair, and I hold out for Tacoma's with 33's, airlockers, and a couple of inches of body lift.

Fuck that. I'd hang with any of those croissant-munchers over that wanker any day. Work is a necessary evil, and the less work is necessary, the better. JayB, you go back to dutifully fellating your employer as a gesture of your thanks for the high privilege of occupying one of said person's fine cubicles. I actually work in basic research, and I've been spending the past few months developing a fast, cheap way to identify compounds that disrupt a hitherto unexploited weakness in the HIV lifecycle. I suspect that you've logged a hell of a lot more time inside the cube than I have. Hopefully listening to punk music and sipping organic, fair-trade coffee from the Che' mug soothes the pain somewhat. "Fight the power!!!!!" Less work is better if you can afford it, but the end result of the policies the folks are marching on behalf of is no work. Give that one a try and see how it goes. You might have to downgrade to Folgers crystals after a couple of months!!

I built one of these Equalette anchors using the rail on my mantle. Let's call the anchor points arrayed horizontally from left to right, A, B, C and D. What I found is that once the anchor is equalized by adjustment of the clove hitches, any movement to the left will begin to put all the load on B and D. Movement to the right will begin to load up A and C. If A and B are vertical and C and D are also vertical in a square configuration, the anchor is now perfectly equalizing in the horizontal plane, but now it no longer equalizes in the vertical plane. If A, B, C and D are linear in a vertical array then you have the opposite of the first case. That is perfect equalization in the horizontal plane by virtue of "pivot", but imperfect equalization in the vertical plane. The last case is A and B horizontal with C and D also horizontal below A and B, again in a square configuration. This would be the best of all because self-equalization is more important in the vertical plane. Horizontal equalization can be built into the system statically because it is easier to anticipate direction in that plane. Oh, crap, now I've done it. That was way too technical. What is the take home message for the Equalette? That if you build it in a single linear crack, put the pieces that "share a knot" relatively close to one another. So are you saying that when the pieces are in a horizontal crack you can move up and down and not mess-up the equalization, and when they are in a vertical crack you can move from side to side and not mess up the equalization? The main take-away that I've got from the rc.com thread is that cordalettes actually don't equalize worth shit, and no one noticed until now because no one bothered to do any testing, and most people can climb for a lifetime and not have one of their anchors tested by a factor 2 fall. That, and the equalette thingy isn't perfect, but it tests way better than the cordalette nd doesn't take any more time to rig. I also rigged up the gordolette thingy from the rc.com thread, and that also seems to do a good job of equalizing loads and keeping shock-loading to a minimum of one of the pieces blows. FWIW I climb on doubles most of the time now, unless there's some reason to do otherwise I just clove hitch one rope to the most bomber piece, connect the other two with a tied-off sliding-X, and clove hitch the other rope to those two and I'm done. If I'm climbing with someone who will have a hard time following the pitch, or the next pitch looks burly, sketchy, or whatever then I'll rig up something and belay from the anchor.

Interesting. Thanks for posting that, and I appreciate you wading through the spray to provide your input. Couple of questions: - What's the downside of just putting a twist in one of the loops that forms the powerpoint and clipping into that, a la the normal sliding X? -Are those figure eights or overhand knots that the biners are clipped to?

Wow. Great story and killer pictures. Thanks for sharing. What month is prime time for Valdez ice? Seems like March might be a pretty good compromise between cold temps and adequate daylight.

Just rigged up the equalette at home - pretty impressive. Stayed just about perfectly equalized through at least 180 degrees of rotation, and set up just about as quickly as a cordalette. Maybe there is something new under the sun.

I thought that JosephH's last post was pretty damned funny, myself. I think that the likes of Pope and Dwayner or their equivalents rolling up to the average bouldering hotspot and hanging out would send most of the pad-people fleeing into the mountains for some peace and solitude.

It's pretty clear that what's ailing the French economy is the dearth of regulations that employers have to abide by. They've been pretty consistent in saying that if you increase the cost, regulatory burden, and risk associated with bringing on more employees by making it tougher for us to get rid of non-performers - we'll go on a huge-ass hiring binge, especially young people who have no experience. Couple that with laws that raise the price of unskilled labor above the amount of revenue that employers can generate with the said labor so they loose money every minute the folks in that skill bracket are working for them and you've got a surefire way to tackle the massive unemployment problem facing French youth - currently 20% across the board and way higher amongst the types responsible for last years giant Car-B-Que. Smart.

"It means that when I do get a job I will basically have to work as hard as I can to keep it. If I make any mistakes I could be fired immediately. This will affect me severely, so I have taken to the streets. " To the Barricades, mes amis!!!! BBC News I suppose this shouldn't come as much of a surprise when coming from a country where people believe that mandating a 35 hour workweek will actually reduce unemployment.

I just wanted to point out something, in case it isn't obvious to everyone. This method of using a cordellette has the advantage that since the legs are single, rather than double, you have more cord available to incorporate more than the usual three pieces into the anchor. Brian, Brian, Brian - let's keep the on-topic out of this thread, lest it discourage others from contributing any more of the hillarious and useful one-liners.

Not bad. Thanks.

How far south of Seattle is the office? Is it more important to have a short commute to the office or an easy trip to the airport? I think you'll definitely get more house for your money as you go further south, but the flipside is that your commute to work will suck more and more if your office is anywhere close to downtown Seattle.

Excellent. Thanks for that contribution. What I actually wanted was a forum for people to recycle weak-ass one-liners, and it's clear that the best way to do that is to at least appear to ask a real question. The "Should I retire this cam?"------> "Yes send all of your cams to me for immediate demolition, har, har" dynamic, while classic, was clearly showing its age. Sadly, this attempt at weak-ass one liner solicitation hasn't yielded much in the way of new material yet, but I have high hopes.

I'm looking forward to the day when cc.com includes scripts that chime in with worthless shit so you never even have to touch your keyboard.

So Joseph - is this more or less the final configuration of the "equalette" that JL was talking about? To rig this thing you'd basically start with a standard cordalette, tie a couple of overhand knots near the middlen with a 1-3 foot gap between them for the sliding portion of the anchor, then take the remaining loop on each side of the knot and clove hitch the loop to one or two pieces? If I'm reading this right it doesn't seem like this would take any longer to rig up than a standard cordalette, and would have some significant advantages. I especially like the clove attachments to the anchor points as it seems like the slippage in the cloves could really help dissipate max loads.

Pretty interesting. Looks like I'll probably end up wading through the thread after all.... "Funny this should come along just now. I'm just finishing redoing the anchor books into one big anchor building omnibus. We're basically done --all that's left is a bit of editing, and incorporating a slew of drop tests we did with Sterling Ropes (conducted by America's leading drop/test dude, Jim Ewing, with statistical analysis by trad master Dr. Larry Hamilton and climber/fitness model/criminology professor, the esteemd "Crimpgirl," Dr. Callie Rennisson). The tests were to determine, once and for all, which system was better at load sharing when sustaining a dynamic fall (Factor 1 for our testing)--the Cordelette, or the Sliding X. Both rigging systems were tested when rigged to vertical and horizontally oriented anchor points. In the vertical configuration--as you find in a crack--the rigging systems have unequal sized legs; in the horizontal configured anchor (as found, for instance, with bolts placed side to side on top of a sport climb), the legs are as close to equal as they could be tied. Moreover, each set up was tested with several diameters of high tensile strength cord and webbing (Dyneema, Technora, Spectra, et al), as well as with old style nylon cord and webbing. It is still too early to release the results, but I can say right now that there is a significant difference in load sharing performance between the two systems, and much that has been written about the cordelette's equalizing capacities is strictly untrue. More later. I'm just eyeballing the graphs I got from Jim, Larry and Crimpy. At least now we finally know what's up with these systems, and that's a real good thing. JL "

Sounds to me like you might want to consider West Seattle, like toast said. Super-easy commute Seatac that'll enable you to avoid the traffic on I-5, and a reasonable commute to Kent on the days when I-5 is unavoidable, plus slightly cheaper housing and all of the amenities that you specified.

Yeah Matt- pretty much never a problem on routes that get any kind of traffic, but that's not what I had in mind. More like the early/late season alpine routes where everything is iced up or covered in snow, or you are just way the hell off route in crappy rock and you want to get a trustworthy anchor in the minimum amount of time because it's getting dark, stormy, or whatever. Most of the time you can get away with a less than sound anchor because the odds of someone uncorking a factor-2 fall on your shit anchor are pretty low, but all things being equal, I'd rather not roll the dice or spend any more time than I have to get a good anchor in. Not stuff you need to use very often, but nice to have in your toolkit when you do.