For someone like you and like me, where the salesperson has to do virtually nil, I agree whole heartedly. For someone like my mother who will walk in with a bit of an idea and not much more than that, paying closer to the sticker price is fine by me, so long as the salesperson wasn't trying to sleaze the whole time.

The dealership I bought my car from, I'm quite happy with how they handled it and they were very respectful and didn't beat around the bush with me as I knew exactly what I wanted. When my parents went in, they took 3 weeks of looking at various cars before they decided which one specifically, and their salesman was respectful and knowledgeable, still cut them a bit of a deal, and still made money for his time. Frankly, I don't see the problem with a salesperson who is knowledgeable, helpful, friendly, and not a sleaze making decent to good money.

So far there aren't many comments here, but all of them are sitting here flaming Tim Cook. No where in the articles linked did it say that shareholders (as a group) wanted this. In fact, if you RTA (the last linked one), you'll see that it received less than 3% of the vote. But people who are too afraid to post under a user name are also apparently all too happy to post that Cook is doing a disservice to his shareholders, even though the overwhelming majority of said shareholders agree with him.

So what should those that don't do? Buy something else. I don't get why people who are seemingly for the free market are up in arms about a company doing something their way and telling people that if they don't like it, they can go somewhere else. Just because the ROI in one company might not be as high as possible (according to a think tank, not a court of public opinion by any stretch, which is where Apple exceeds), doesn't mean that the company is doing a disservice to its shareholders, unless those shareholders are in it for the shortest term possible.

Helps when you put the D in there.

Depends on the vegan. My brother will consume honey, but he is still a vegan.

I don't know why, but I did not get redirected to Beta. Ever. The only reason I knew everyone hated it was the comments (and the fact that I saw it when it was initially created and left feedback that this sort of thing would happen). I have no idea as to why, but I'm not complaining.

Studio One is amazing and if I didn't have years of Pro Tools under my fingers, I'd be running Studio One. Elegant, relatively simple, and still powerful.

I have tried just about EVERY option I can find in FOSS and they do not quite hold up to the current commercial offerings. Frankly, both as an end user and as a pro audio salesperson, I've only ever had mediocre luck with Make Music/Finale. At the very least, with Avid's Sibelius, I've been able to get decent tech support. I haven't had as much luck with Ardour as I'd like, and Audacity doesn't cut it. Getting into a decent Sequencer without dropping a fortune, I'd get into Studio One personally.

If you want more details and/or want to know more about my opinions on the matter, please feel free to PM me.

Yeah, it's come a long way since the original, it's called Fretlight. Sure, there's some added features on the gtar over what the Fretlight's have, but not much.

As I recall, it's not food in the eyes of the FDA. It's a dietary supplement. Muchlike Slimfast shakes don't fall under the same privy of the FDA as, say, that box of Kraft Mac & Cheese. As such, there's different regulations.

Note, I'm not extremely knowledgeable about that topic, I merely am recollecting off of what I read in my research last time this topic came up on /.

Clinton, a very educated man, never perjured himself. According to the terms of the case, sexual relations meant intercourse. As he never had intercourse with her, he was being honest to the letter of the law/terms of the case.

That being said, it doesn't make it right, but it's a much less meaningful lie than, say, there are weapons of mass destruction, we know where they are and we're going to get them...

My friend (a 24 year old mechanic at the time working one job and having one heck of an alcohol habit) bought a car that originally retailed for nearly $40k without putting too much thought into it.

The upper-middle class can afford a $35k car if they want it enough or if they buy used. The middle class individual hits 50k according to your information, figure a 5 year loan, 10% down, 4.9% interest (which is a high rate for the current market) the monthly payment is approximately $600/mon ($7200/yr) buying new. That comes to 14.4% of gross income which is a little high for the debt-to-income ratio if the household bought an expensive house, but not impossible by any stretch.

Long story short, this is not a loan that a bank would necessarily turn down on the numbers that you have provided. And if you're a good negotiator, you can probably make it lower, or you can wait and buy used like many people do. $35k for a car is not unheard of in upper-middle class. Upper class, well that's a drop in the bucket when you look at Porche and Ferrari, and don't even get me started on the real high end ones.

You obviously missed my point by removing details from the quote. The upper middle class car that I'm talking about is the vehicle that Tesla is claiming will be to market in approximately 3 years and will be in the $35k range. Tesla was founded in 2003, 5 years later, the Roadster came out, 8 years after that, they're aiming to have an upper middle class price point.

I don't have time right now to address the other issues you've pointed out, but I feel the need to point out that you're wrong about Tesla. As a 2010 post on non-other than slashdot references, Tesla makes the drivetrain for the RAV4EV, which ends up being about a $20k premium over the equivalent, gasoline based RAV4. Additionally, Tesla has paid off their subsidized loans early. In even more recent news, Musk was on CNN's New Day in a a prerecorded interview this morning commenting on how they're working on a new car that's going to be more reasonably priced (about 1/2 the price of the Model S) to be released in about 3 years.

Frankly, if it takes a company 13 years to go from no product, to 5 years later an extremely high end, only the super rich can afford situation to a situation, that's fine, then 8 years later they're at hey, an upper middle class, or even middle class individual can afford their vehicle, I'd consider that reasonable. Especially if they decided that it was more important to pay off their debts first.