StrangeSox

QUOTE (Chisoxfn @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 02:56 PM) Does a tip differentiate from a bonus? Sure, in that my employer pays out a bonus on top of my salary/wages. I don't get a bonus from the customers.

Here's the 2000 and 2010 census info. http://www.infoplease.com/us/statistics/us...on-by-race.html Whites are 75%, but that includes hispanics. White non-hispanic is somewhere around 63%. Arabs, Indians and lots of others get lumped under "white" for census purposes, but together those groups would only make up a few percent.

University of Illinois Pays $875,000 to Settle Salaita Case

We have huge maples around our current house, so we get to clean them in the spring when all of those helicopter seeds drop and then again in the fall. Water was pouring off the roof last night, gonna have to find some time to get up there.

Homer. We're both from around that area originally and our parents are still there. My commute triples in distance from 6 miles to 18 miles, but time-wise it's only about 10 minutes more because I avoid the 15 stop lights I currently hit. My wife's commute bumps up a bit.

Good advice, we're going to have to figure out the timing and logistics for sure. Luckily, we should be closing on our sale right after the new year, so my wife will have two weeks off to pack prior to that. Did you have them take it to one of their facilities for temporary storage while you were between houses?

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 10:44 AM) I was going to look into that too. We refinanced almost 3 years ago and got a 3.75% rate. Wonder if they've improved since then. No, they're creeping up slightly in anticipation of the fed raising rates soon. We're getting quoted around 4.1% for a 30 year fixed right now.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 10:26 AM) Yeah I need an appraiser, someone to tell the bank the value has gone up and we're beyond that 20% mark. If you're trying to tell your current lender to remove the PMI, I'm not sure how that'd work. We refinanced to both take advantage of lower rates and to get rid of PMI, so the new lender was eager to help us along.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 10:18 AM) How did you go about finding one? Through the lender? I want to stop paying our PMI insurance, but it's still going to take another year or more. Our place hasn't been appraised since we bought it (5 years) and i'm confident it's going to appraise for a lot more. It'd be worth the 3-400 bucks to get it done. A surveyor? I think I just googled someone. I was just finding my plat of survey last night, so I can tell you that it was Nekola Survey. They did a good job (as far as I know), price was around $350. The lender can probably recommend you one as well. That's why we did the refinancing, too. Word of advice to anyone looking at loans in the future, FHA loans had their rules changed this year. You pay an upfront premium (something like 1.5% of the loan) and then you pay PMI every year forever regardless of loan-to-value. We're going with a conventional loan on our new place. edit: if you mean appraiser, yeah, the lender had someone they used. edit2: don't know what I was thinking, you don't need a survey for a refinance.

Yes, we did a couple of years ago as part of refinancing our mortgage. They won't care about permits.

Their policies helped enable it, but it was still the combo of mortgage companies, investment banks, ratings agencies and insurance companies that built the house of cards so high. FWIW I just came across this on real wage growth: Why Jeffrey Lacker Is Worried About Inflation

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 09:40 AM) Right, thats the other model, your listed prices will be 15-20% higher than what it says today and consumers will pay your tips without knowing and your wages will be more consistent. However those big blow out nights where you are literally working like a dog for 12 hours until 4am on your feet dealing with drunk assholes and you actually make a ton of money will be a thing of the past. Servers aren't universally in favor of a tipless model for exactly that sort of reason, plus pretty big skepticism that the employers will pass on the new 20% service fee to the staff entirely and not take their own cut. edit: there have to be comparisons out there between actual take-home pay for servers in the US versus no-tip countries

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 09:35 AM) Oh, and tipping a bartender for beers? For literally taking the top off? Wtf? Why is that acceptable? I can understand it if you spent 2-3 minutes and made me a drink (even though i'm paying 10-15 bucks for it, why isn't that included?). But so many times I felt compelled to drop an extra dollar on an 8 dollar beer. The older I get, the less likely I am to do that crap. lol you are already a crotchety old man in your 30's eta: their pay is most likely based on tips. b**** at the owner for not paying their employees a decent wage themselves, but don't take it out on the servers.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 09:34 AM) My time as a server in IL/OH the minimum wage would be lets use 8 bucks. Your wage rate would be 3 dollars and the rest would be made up by tips. On the employers records and your W2 without claiming tips you were effectively make a fraction of minimum wage. On really slow night or with s***ty customers (quarter beer night or the sort) I would work 8-10 hours and make less than 50 bucks. One thing to remember in the restaurant industry as well, you have to tip out people that arent exactly customer facing like the bar backs and bus boys as well. So your "tip jar" actually gets divided up quite a bit Yep. And employers are supposed to make up the difference if the tips don't bring you up to at least the standard minimum wage, but lol good luck

The market thought the US economy was doing amazingly well in 2007, though. How much do we rely on that collective wisdom? I do agree that this long, protracted recovery hasn't been great for everyone, and the economy was sliding downward at the end of Clinton's presidency (it both shot up and then slid down mainly because of tech, not anything caused by Clinton really).

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 09:27 AM) Because their employer is probably a s*** head that factors in a percentage of their pay to tips and they rely on that additional piece. I take it you've never actually worked in the service industry. California doesn't have a separate tipped minimum wage, not sure if other states are like that. In many other countries, restaurants are required to pay their employees' wages instead of relying on the customers to do it directly.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 09:25 AM) All the more reason to get rid of tipping playing any role in their compensation. I remember American Life did a podcast on whether attitude/attentiveness changed the amount of the tip. They deliberately had the waiter be super flirty, nice, attentive, etc. and then they had them act the opposite. Not rude, but basically take the order, bring the food. That's it. And while it was only a few servers in one day at one restaurant, they found that how nice/attentive they were didn't mean anything. People are going to tip you how they're going to tip you. If you're a person that tips 15%, you could have the nicest experience ever and the server is still getting 15%. Yeah, making positive comments about the weather or drawing a smiley face on the check has an influence on tipping, too. Plus, a lot of the problems can be out of the wait staff's control, anyway. Food came out wrong or cooked wrong? Took too long? Didn't like what you ordered? None of that has anything to do with the waiter's service, but it could definitely affect how much they take home.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 08:06 AM) I don't know one, but just wanted to say I hope everything goes alright. That's tough stuff for a young guy. Hopefully the recovery is quick. Same, good luck and get well soon.

I think it'll be yes and no with this one. Bigger house, much bigger piece of property (1 acre bordered by forest preserve on two sides). But we've completely renovated our entire house top to bottom, and the one we're hoping to buy will definitely need lots of updates over the years. Not in a "fixer upper" way, it's definitely livable, but I'm sure we'll eventually replace damn near everything like we did in our current house. We've already started a list of planned improvements so that we can prioritize what we want to do and when. But a house that is as nicely updated as our current one that's as large as our hopeful new one and on as much property would be at least $100k more, plus like I've said elsewhere we like doing that sort of stuff anyway. eta: what's going to suck the most is having to move twice. Our closing dates are separate by a couple of weeks right now, so we're considering getting one of those PODS containers instead of having to move it to our parents' houses and then to our new house. Either way, probably stuck living at the in-laws for a couple of weeks, but they've got plenty of space and we all get along. Word of advice: NEVER EVER USE PUBLIC STORAGE BUILDINGS FOR ANYTHING YOU CARE ABOUT. My brother does a lot of contract work for those types of places. They flood frequently, often from sprinklers breaking, and you're basically completely SOL. Absolute last resort, and if you do, make sure you raise anything important off the ground and cover it in tarps/plastic sheeting.

QUOTE (Big Hurtin @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 07:04 AM) You must have been all-in with tinkle down economics, even though it's been demonstrably proven false. Greg's been pretty vocal about how terrible Gov. Brownback has been for the state of Kansas in the past.

QUOTE (NorthSideSox72 @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 08:12 AM) In terms of implications for the budget, this is definitely true. One side wants massive tax cuts, the other massive spending increases. I think Bernie's proposed tax increases as well as cuts to military spending to fund his programs, not entirely sure though.

Yeah our economy is really in the toilet again, just like the end of Clinton's presidency. Thank God we had eight years of strong leadership and growth under the Republicans, otherwise we'd probably be at 50% unemployment. Your company is using health care premiums as a way to cut your pay. The ones loudly protesting higher wages are Republicans. The ones trying to abolish social security or keep raising the retirement age are Republicans.

QUOTE (raBBit @ Nov 11, 2015 -> 11:39 PM) Server is the #1 job in the world for women. There would certainly be plenty of resistance because of that. Also, the thread title is misleading. Joe's Crab Shack is trying it out at SOME of their stores. This isn't much of a movement. As a server, if I worked at Joe's Crabs Shack and they took away tips and were going to pay the servers 12-14/hr I would go to a different restaurant before they could put the new rule in effect. Incentivizing is important. From the consumer's point of view, I understand the argument but if you took away the carrot in front of the server it would change the quality of work. How does the rest of the world manage to survive without tipping? Both service sectors in other countries and people with non tipped jobs here.

QUOTE (greg775 @ Nov 12, 2015 -> 02:03 AM) Well, heard some horrifying facts about Butler today. One of our talk shows devoted the whole show to how Missouri got played for fools. This Butler guy is not only rich, but he's a renowned activist. He goes around trying to stir up s*** and he succeeded at Mizzou. The football team thought a student was dying on a hunger strike. It turned out to be activist Butler, 26 year old spoiled rich kid Butler. WOW. MU's president and chancellor quit over some punk stirring up trouble because that's what he does. All anybody had to do was google Butler's name and MU would still have a president/chancellor. WOW. He's a graduate student at mizzou and his parents wealth is irrelevant. Stop listening to right-wing radio. http://www.snopes.com/mizzou-hunger-strike-butler-wealthy/

QUOTE (pettie4sox @ Nov 11, 2015 -> 04:26 PM) Well you'll see an increase in your food prices to compensate for the wage increases waiters will receive. Yeah, but you're already paying $20 for your dinner + 20% or whatever.