True that. I am loving the 1/5 scale BL stuff that is going on around the forums.

Well I get $29/hour for assembling Toyota Camrys all day long. Not what one would call highly skilled labor but you do need certain skills. All in all a good job that doesn't require any education other that being able to speak english. I think it is pretty good. I can afford to make payments on my mortgage (I pay a little extra too) and also enjoy this hobby all on my single income. Not complaining one bit.

I don't pay property tax??? I do pay council rates which are $1200/year. Not sure if that is the same thing???? VAT???? Is that like import tax? If it is then everything bellow AU$1000 coming into the country is free of tax. Fuel is one thing that we get screwed on. We pay lots more for it that you guys in US do. Today I filled up at 134.9 cents and liter. Since a US gallon is 3.78541178 liters then times the 134.9 cents by that and you get $5.10 roughly a gallon of fuel. Just to make it easier for you guys to relate to that. I think that is pretty darn crap. Also food seems to be a lot cheaper in US. I have been looking on the net and seems like there is a fair bit of a price difference there in favor of you guys.

So you're to blame :lol:

VAT = Value Added Tax. It's like our GST except our retail pricing structure incorporates the GST & by law it can't be shown separately

For those that don't know, GST = Goods & Services Tax (10%)

Financial planning
 

Yea I have lieved in many countries and I can assure you that teh USA pays way less for gas than most. Most of Europe has been paying upwards of $5 to even $10 a gallon for gas for quite some time now. Food is somewhat cheaper as well just because of the shear volume of food consumed overall.

Instead of paying extra on your mortgage you may want to think about putting that extra into a savings account just in case you get laid off or the plant shuts down for one reason or another. That would give you something to live off of in case the bottom falls out on you. Auto makers are notorious for paying a lot more than most for labor, because they are making a $hit load of money raping us for the cost of autos in general. We have seen plenty of plants shut all of a sudden without warning, and people get shell shocked when they have to go from making $35 and hour into a normal job making $15 to $20 an hour and cannot afford the level of lifestyle they are used to, because no one else out there is paying anywhere near that amount for an hourly wage. Good for you though, while it lasts.

Don't US residential loans offer what we know as 'redraw facilities'?

The redraw allows you to access the extra payments in times of need all the while keeping the interest component down - win/win for the borrower with spare cash

No
 

NO whatever you pay into the loan stays with the Bank, unless you refinance the entire loan with an increased value on teh property, and request to use some of the equity that may have accrued to pay off credit card debt or other loans/debts. The reason they do it that way is because they get to charge you all sort of fees for doing so.

The reason normally for the fees is that the bank has hedged the interest rate risk on the loan for its duration or possibly even sold the interest payments as a derivative to a third party e.g. Pension fund.

When you terminate the loan it creates a significant knock on effect as any interest rate hedge needs to altered and the person who bought the cash flows will no longer get what they expected and hence charge the bank.

It also depends on the mortgage - additional payments can go directly against the mortgage. The bank will always have a preference to pay down unsecured debt first (for obvious reasons) but this should actually align with the your objectives. Unsecured debt is always much more expensive than secured debt.

No I am not to blame. Blame Toyota that gave my dumb fat arse the job. :lol:

That is exactly my plan PBO. All the extra money that I have put on the loan I can access at any time I want but I have to pay a $50 fee and it has to be a minimum of $2000 redraw. No probs there but what I think it is worth mentioning is the difference in interest rate. The difference is huge compared to what you guys in U.S. pay. I pay 7.30%p.a. Not sure what you guys in U.S. pay but I bet it's a lot less than that. Our economy took the GFC reasonably well compared to a lot of countries but there is a price to be paid for that and higher interest rates are one of them.

Jerry to be honest my particular plant has been blessed. Even when other Toyota plants around the world were dropping shifts and other manufacturers closing doors on some of their plants altogether we were still pumping out cars and doing overtime. The reason for that is that we supply the Arab market with our cars and ........ well they are pretty rich and didn't feel much of the GFC effect. They kept on buying cars at the pretty much the same rate as usual.
Other Toyota plants around the world got pretty jealous with us and we nearly lost a certain percentage of our quota to them but in the end we ended up keeping it somehow. Things are a lot better now so they have left us alone. Right now we are coming to the end of the model run and we are still doing couple of hours overtime a every day. It will slow down for couple of months towards the middle of the year but when the new model kicks in it should be back to crazy amounts of overtime.

you mean iv read this entire thread just to find that there is still not a graph ....
im all about supporting local buisnesses. and i have no problem paying the price for quality
if im actually getting quality with a decent warranty. that said i LOVE castle creations
and am scared of MA. im not saying i havent had 2 mmps just stop... but i was taken care of super fast and with no cost one time and a very small cost the second time....

ma needs to revamp and actually stand behind there warranty on top of making a decent battery. id pay 2 or 3 times the going rate for a turnigy if it had a decent warranty..

"Severely Unaffordable" housing is one...

http://www.demographia.com/dhi.pdf

Page 9 of this US report shows Australian capitol cities among the least affordable in the world (source countries anyway)

Atlanta, GA average housing affordability = 2.3 x average income
Melbourne, AUS average housing affordability = 9.0 x average income
Sydney, AUS average housing affordability = 9.6 x average income

That's right you wasted your time. I have read every Max amps thread on here and every one is the same. MA comes on here and makes claims and promises about getting graphs and and never follow through with what they say. They post graphs that aren't really very good. The one they posted on here I was not impressed with at all since they say 150C. They never follow through with what they say.

It makes me want to start buying cells, assembling and selling them myself with real specs instead of made up crap. It is really a shame that an American company would be so blatantly dishonest, I expect it from the Chinese. Not that there are not snake oil salesmen here (just look at a Sky Mall catalog), but come on.

BTW for S's & G's I was able to start my 3.8L V6 with only a 4S3P A123 cells so them starting that engine doesn't impress me in the least.

Jeff

Yeah but your 3.8l v6 doesn't impress anyone :)

Maybe not this 3.8L but my old one with 440 ft/lbs @ 3500 rpm and 390 hp at 5800 probably would, and it would be just as easy to start :)

Besides most v8 engines will take less than 300 amps to start all day everyday, and that was in the days of the non gear reduection starter.

Max Amps still sucks.

Jeff

Funny how
 

Yea its funny how the MA crew have stopped posting up in here. Kind of reminded me of the old saying, that it is hard to win an A$$ kicking contest when you only have one leg. You cannot win an arguement when you have nothing to stand on, or only half a brain. Kind of like trying to win a murder case, when you know you did it. The guilty always plead the fifth, hence the silence from that end of the table..... MA should be ashamed of themselves for the way they have handled this situation, and crapped all over their own reputation. Not that it was so great to begin with. In my book no better than a suicide bomber walking into a church hurting inocent people who are foolish enough to trust that all people are good by nature. You can dress a skunk up in a Tux, but it still stinks the place up. Sorry but I am so disappointed that they have not followed through with the graphs showing their own claims. It just answers the question as to whether these packs are really what they say they are. NOT!!!!!

They took their OLD 6500SS Series packs, and made some pretty new labels. Then revamped all the numbers.

Probably came up with some new arguments about how nothing can be tested. :oops:

They are not the only ones doing this type of dress up work though.

Recently I bought a "12 cell" laptop battery. It wasn't OEM, but an aftermarket replacement. Clearly marked 8800mah on the pack.

I wanted to get the 12 - 18650 cells to use on a project.

I opened it up and there were only 9 -18650 cells inside, and each cell was only a 2000mah cell. :oops: There were 3 dummy tubes inside to take up the extra space. I'm sure alot of people didn't know the difference.

Just Like Maxamps!