Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I won't be frugal on down comforters! I prefer to sleep in a cool room, but want to be warm while I'm sleeping. So a good down comforter is a must!
I grew up in an old and uninsulated house in Massachusetts, with no central heat/no heat in the 2nd floor bedrooms. Heat rose to the 2nd floor through 2 "heat vents" (grated holes between 1st and 2nd floors above the 2 heating units). It was COLD up there--the ice that formed on the inside of the single-pane glass sure was pretty Funny thing is that to this day, my siblings and I have always been exceptionally healthy, rarely getting colds, etc. While I enjoy warmth throughout the house during waking hours, I feel stifled if it's too warm while I'm trying to sleep.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KonaKat
Yay! I grew up in an uninsulated farm house in Missouri. We heated with wood, and there was NO heat in the upstairs bedrooms except for an electric blanket. A small gas heater in bathroom. I helped haul and stack more cords of wood than I ever want to see again. When I was 18 I moved to a larger nearby city for school and work. AH the heaven of central heat (and later, central air). I never ever complained about a utility bill all those years in Missouri and then 10 years in Las Vegas.
I feel like I now live in the perfect place of course, no need for heat nor AC in my home. (of course we have horrible electric rates but that's beside the point).
I never skimp on shoes and quality clothing. Lasts 10 times as long and looks nicer than cheap crap from discount stores.
Yay! I grew up in an uninsulated farm house in Missouri. We heated with wood, and there was NO heat in the upstairs bedrooms except for an electric blanket. A small gas heater in bathroom. I helped haul and stack more cords of wood than I ever want to see again. When I was 18 I moved to a larger nearby city for school and work. AH the heaven of central heat (and later, central air). I never ever complained about a utility bill all those years in Missouri and then 10 years in Las Vegas.
I feel like I now live in the perfect place of course, no need for heat nor AC in my home. (of course we have horrible electric rates but that's beside the point).
I never skimp on shoes and quality clothing. Lasts 10 times as long and looks nicer than cheap crap from discount stores.
KonaKat, Your post made me think of my uncle.Grew up in an uninsulated bungalow on the northern atlantic.I heard the stories.Coal/wood cooking stove and the only heat in the first floor kitchen.My mom,him and 3 other kids in the kitchen at the crack of dawn,wrapped in all their blankets,learning to first hold then drink hot coffee and tea.At a family gathering debating the worlds best invention,.....he voted emphatically for the,....Thermostat !!!
Fabric. I'm not going to spend hours and months making a quilt and quilting a quilt to have it get pilly after two washings. Ill buy fabrics on sale, but I'm going to buy good fabrics.
Not worth what? How much are you going to pay for this, exactly? Did you not read my previous post about financial aid?...
I did read it and it doesn't matter as I didn't say that cost equated money. There is also the opportunity cost of the time it takes to get one of these degrees. This was the point of bringing up the black jack table. Of course these decisions are much more complex than that, but you did spell out a specific reason, based in mathematics no less ,for why one of these degrees is superior to a "normal" degree. So I provided an analysis of this math that proves your conclusion was not warranted when looked at in a practical manner.
It was long winded way to say that you made a statistical fallacy called a false causality. i.e. you concluded that because 10% of the CEOs have Ivy League degrees then an Ivy League degree must have been the reason they got those jobs and hence the degree is more valuable. I could also say however that 90% of the Fortune 500 companies refuse to hire CEOs with Ivy League degrees so one of these degrees is bad. It's the exact same logic which is why it is called a fallacy.
Well I assume that most 18 year olds have some sort of ambition.
And like I mentioned before, after financial aid, most Ivys are free to students whose parents make 60K or less - so no debt.
oh well if you got in, would def be worth it, otherwise, not sure..the top 10 uni's or so are on another level, the rest not so much for the ambitious. If we are talking ambition, we are talking about entrepreneurship as well, and they don't exactly need the degree. at best they would just get the network of people out of this which is more valuable than what was taught in the classroom easily. in my field, many great programmers a cs degree would be useless as well depending on what they wanted, they enter university with knowledge already beyond the entire undergraduate spectrum of classes... many of these kids were programming since they were 5 years old. If I went to a prestigious school like uchi, harvard, princeton, stanford then I could very well have a diff attitude, I went to state u however b/c I couldn't quite cut it into that ivy league echelon (or maybe I could, I didn't apply) I had a 4.4 gpa and 1330 out of 1600 SAT. I got into duke and gt but with no funding but don't know if I would have fared well with entry into say harvard, northwestern, brown, stanford (places a few of my peers got into) (and wasn't aware of these things at the time) and my education was mostly paid for... the classes however were like meh...I'm pretty sure Ivy League is in the 1480 out of 1600 range, or was at the time.
If I had to do it over again in high school I might very well be gunning for acceptance into these schools.
I did read it and it doesn't matter as I didn't say that cost equated money. There is also the opportunity cost of the time it takes to get one of these degrees. This was the point of bringing up the black jack table. Of course these decisions are much more complex than that, but you did spell out a specific reason, based in mathematics no less ,for why one of these degrees is superior to a "normal" degree. So I provided an analysis of this math that proves your conclusion was not warranted when looked at in a practical manner.
It was long winded way to say that you made a statistical fallacy called a false causality. i.e. you concluded that because 10% of the CEOs have Ivy League degrees then an Ivy League degree must have been the reason they got those jobs and hence the degree is more valuable. I could also say however that 90% of the Fortune 500 companies refuse to hire CEOs with Ivy League degrees so one of these degrees is bad. It's the exact same logic which is why it is called a fallacy.
Opportunity cost simply means that you are giving up current leisure for the prospect of future leisure. Simply put, you can slack off in HS and pay for it later in life, or work hard in HS and attempt to gain access to a better career later in life.
It's more than just who makes or doesn't CEO. Just look at where the top companies (Google, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, etc) recruit. They only hire from elite schools.
oh well if you got in, would def be worth it, otherwise, not sure..the top 10 uni's or so are on another level, the rest not so much for the ambitious. If we are talking ambition, we are talking about entrepreneurship as well, and they don't exactly need the degree. at best they would just get the network of people out of this which is more valuable than what was taught in the classroom easily. in my field, many great programmers a cs degree would be useless as well depending on what they wanted, they enter university with knowledge already beyond the entire undergraduate spectrum of classes... many of these kids were programming since they were 5 years old. If I went to a prestigious school like uchi, harvard, princeton, stanford then I could very well have a diff attitude, I went to state u however b/c I couldn't quite cut it into that ivy league echelon (or maybe I could, I didn't apply) I had a 4.4 gpa and 1330 out of 1600 SAT. I got into duke and gt but with no funding but don't know if I would have fared well with entry into say harvard, northwestern, brown, stanford (places a few of my peers got into) (and wasn't aware of these things at the time) and my education was mostly paid for... the classes however were like meh...I'm pretty sure Ivy League is in the 1480 out of 1600 range, or was at the time.
If I had to do it over again in high school I might very well be gunning for acceptance into these schools.
If you get in, then of course it is worth it. BTW, don't say you couldn't cut it at an Ivy. The hard part is getting in. Once you're in, it's very easy to coast and graduate with honors. Just look at the extremely low dropout rates of the elite schools and the average GPA in these schools.
Whether your hard work in HS matters depends a lot on the quality of the high school.
That is true. Can we trickle down? How about working hard in grammar school to get into a good HS?
For example, I scored in the 99th percentile on a 7th grade HS entrance exam and was awarded a scholarship to a Catholic school, which was better than my zoned public school. I was able to work hard in HS and gained entrance to a top-25 ranked college with more financial aid than my state college.
Opportunity cost simply means that you are giving up current leisure for the prospect of future leisure. Simply put, you can slack off in HS and pay for it later in life, or work hard in HS and attempt to gain access to a better career later in life.
It's more than just who makes or doesn't CEO. Just look at where the top companies (Google, Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, etc) recruit. They only hire from elite schools.
Hmm. The richest man in the world, Bill Gates, dropped out of Harvard when he decided a degree from there wasn't worth it. Your point is still not proved and you continue to make the same causality mistake that I proved mathematically above, using your own numbers, which you are now ignoring and have not acknowledged. Google, like tech companies, simply do not limit themselves to hiring from the Ivy League. in many cases those degrees are not competitive in many fields needed by these industries.
If you want to change the argument now from your original contention, then I would agree that certain NY based financial companies will only look at MBAs from certain schools, but even these are not limited to the Ivy League as for example a MBA from Duke University would be considered on par with any degree available in the USA.
Your understanding of opportunity cost is incorrect, but it is actually irrelevant to your contention anyway.
Last edited by lumbollo; 11-29-2009 at 05:09 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Funny thing is that to this day, my siblings and I have always been exceptionally healthy, rarely getting colds, etc. While I enjoy warmth throughout the house during waking hours, I feel stifled if it's too warm while I'm trying to sleep. 
