phpthrowaway99

This entire war has been an exercise in Ukraine using other people's resources to attack Russia. If they wanted to I'm sure the US and Ukraine could figure out how to get this done.

A decent portion of EU citizens think going without Russian gas is a terrible idea. And that's this summer. Just wait until it gets cold. Going back is very easy. Most of the public wants to go back, and you can go back.

This could be the same for the US or Ukraine. So considering that, all things being equal, it sounds pretty terrible for the main Russian goals, so I'm going to say no it wasn't Russia.

I see huge positives for Ukraine and by proxy the US by removing leverage from Russia.

How does a union welder get saddled with debt trying to stay afloat during covid? What was the thing he was taking on debt for to keep afloat? What does keeping something afloat even mean? He took on new debt to make payments on his old debt?

I say this as someone that knows two pipeline welders in Wyoming. They were living it up with their time off. Who do you think bought all those side by sides in 2020 and 2021. You couldn't find one to buy no matter how far you were willing to drive. Do you think it was the office worker crowd buying $30k go-karts?

And it's a great way to make the rest of Europe never give in to Russian no matter how much they suffer. If enough people in Europe saw their grandmother shivering in January, they might rise up and say hell with it, we need our gas back no matter what the cost somewhere else in eastern Europe. But now they can't say that because it won't get the gas turned back on anyway.

This makes zero sense to me. What does Russia get by destroying their own pipeline? If they wanted to shutoff gas, thats just a turn of a valve.

Russia looses massive leverage by no longer being able to deliver gas, even if they wanted to.

Prior to this, if the public got cold enough, they could tell their government "forget Ukraine, we need gas. Go agree to get it or we will vote you out ASAP". Now.... There's no point in settling anything with Russia, since you're not going to get their gas anyway.

Russia's greatest leverage was Europe needing their gas, and eventually agreeing to stop supporting Ukraine in order to get the gas turned back on.

Now if the pipelines are destroyed, no matter how cold and angry citizens in the EU get, EU leadership has no reason to give in to Russian since that now won't get the gas turned back on.

If anything, this points to Ukraine or the US doing it.

I would assume in a real crash, especially if we're comparing it to the 2000s tech crash, someone must get destroyed. I personally think companies that can't even make a car drive for a demo, something most at home diy ev hobby builders can do, and also lie about it, probably would go first in a crash.

You propose that's not what a crash is. What is it then? And when can we say it's as severe as the early 2000s crash?

I guess I would say that a crash is when the market shifts to being illogical towards the negative side, where even seemingly good companies are struggling.

I wouldn't call it a crash if there is positive irrationality.

In the previous crash, even viable companies that were growing and made sense were brought close to crisis.

Currently Nikola motors is worth a few billion. In a crash they'd be dead.

Toyota was just my random example. Point being, if you offer to pay the asking price, it's pretty painless at most places just like at Tesla.

No, I didn't know of apparently a popular user named ironic name. However, I'd still argue that ironic name is just a username like most. A username that says throwaway in the actual username is always going to be considered basically trollish imo and serves no real purpose of building a reputation around. What, am I going to magically turn this into a network play to land a VP of sales job somewhere?

And to your second point, that while obviously there is no proof of anything by just reading my post history, you'd have to be slightly crazy to think I started a new account recently, and from the FIRST post dreamt up an elaborate plan to seem like a php Saas creating, Berkeley grad, top salesperson persona..

And to think, you caught me in my massive lie because I mistook the MCAT exam for board exams! Something no regular person would EVER do.

Isn't Jewish also a race, not just a choice of holy books? When he said it I assume he meant it regarding the race, not that reading the Torah makes you better with numbers.

Can you think of any possible reason I would do this on a basically new account, labeled throwaway, basically making it worthless as a long term account anyway?

Furthermore, I said early on I was top 1% in the country (for my brand atleast, which already only hires 'better' and experienced salespeople) and later narrowed it down to the most accurate at 0.3%.

But let's say I'm lying.. for fun I suppose? Doesn't everything I wrote apply to someone that actually IS top 1% in car sales? Even if I didn't sell 30 cars a month for 10 years, surely you don't deny someone does that? And even if you'd argue that "no, no one can sell 30 cars a month for years!!"... Doesn't the entire point of my original message still stand.. even a salesperson that is just average will still make tens of thousands of calls, practice thousands of closes, see how thousands of people act as they try to negotiate or stall...

Are you implying top sales people don't exist, or that one wouldn't be on hacker News, or that I was simply not one because of the way I write things?

Ps, if you check my post history, you'll see I went to Cal as an ME, and recently self taught and wrote an entire Saas in shitty php that 30+ companies pay for happily. Unless that is ALSO made up, doesn't that sound exactly like the type of person that would probably outperform the average car sales person?

Do we really need to moderate the fact that while listing proof of how smart and good my team was, I used Jewish accountant as a descriptor? (That I only said because he constantly joked about this himself and it just stuck with me). It was included to accent a list of positives about the groups intelligence.

If I had said we had a Polish mathematician, would that also need moderation? Or if describing how service oriented we were, I included an ex Catholic nun?

This only leaves the potential for massive paperwork and back due fee issues. Surprisingly common on craiglist. A spare current registration sticker gets slapped on that belongs to another vehicle of theirs, and you buy the car not knowing it has 3 years back due fees totally $1000, probably approaching $2k if it's a pickup truck (atleast in California).

Yes that's true about any sales really working, but I thought car sales was an interesting mix of volume and high dollar sales.

Obviously selling a $1M Saas enterprise contract is even higher dollars, but you probably don't get to try and close 5 of those in one day like you do in cars. You'd be lucky to get 5 in a month I assume, if not quarter.

You could get more sales practice selling items at an electronics store, but the stakes are lower than a $50k car so you won't learn the reading people part because few people totally shut down when discussing buying a stereo.

Beyond even what you mentioned, there's crazy payment bonus (holdback) structures based on so many variables it really doesn't make much sense to try to figure out what a dealer paid for a car.

A dealer for example will get more back per car sold, if they have the most modern building style. (a way manufacturers entice dealerships to remodel to latest corporate recommended aesthetics/experience).

They also pay more if your dealership is stand alone. A joint VW/Audi/Porsche dealership will end up paying more for cars (getting less money back technically) than a standalone dealership.

I could go on and on about the various metrics for getting more or less rebate money back.

Would you really pay more for your car because a dealership paid more because they hadn't remodeled recently? Of course not. You compare to what others are doing and that should be enough, unless you really want to try and randomly guess just how low they might go that day and walk and try again everywhere?

I appreciate that you understood exactly what I meant, giving a medschool outsider some benefit of the doubt. Yes it was one of the board exams he couldn't pass.

Others instantly assumed I was lying or exaggerating, as if I need some street cred on an anonymous 1 week old throwaway account.

Car salespeople say a lot of culturally inappropriate things constantly to each other. The sales manager I mentioned constantly referenced himself being a Jewish accountant to us as a fun way to remind us he's good at his job. Somehow it stuck and I guess I forgot even positive stereotypes are now allowed.

I have to admit, the fun banter between salespeople and even management is the #1 thing I miss these days.

He used to joke about him being Jewish as part of why he was so good with our numbers. I meant it in a good way? I guess my sales skills are a bit rusty.

I meant some type of board exam, not mcat. Got the words mixed up.

I mistook boards, for mcat. He obviously had a decent mcat since he got into a medical school.

You mentioned you liked dealers that don't negotiate. So I mentioned you can buy without negotiating at any dealership. The advertised price is pretty fair at 90% of dealerships.

Beyond that, their advertised specials are spectacular deals usually. Who spends money and attention advertising specials that don't even compete with the competition?

To be honest, so was I. Selling you something stupid is a lot more work, and riskier, than selling you what you want and works well.

I personally had more leads than I could handle, because I didn't burn my leads. So if you came in wanting a vehicle for the snow, and all I had was SUVs with the sports package and performance tires, I didn't lie to you or try to downplay it. Sure I mentioned you could have a winter set of wheels and swap, and get the best performance year round, but I didn't say "don't worry, these tires work just fine in snow". It burns leads that know better.

Thus if I couldnt really help you, I'd make the best of the situation if possible and move on. I had enough people to email and call back waiting on me, that spending an hour lying in hopes of a sale really wasn't worth it.

I personally don't think what the dealer paid matters. If a car is desirable, a few are available, we're going to sell for as much as possible.

If a car is undesirable, and many are available and we need to move them, we will sell them for a loss.

I don't blame people for buying cars we sell for at a loss (although sometimes I wonder why these people don't stop and wonder why this car is so heavily discounted). And they shouldn't blame us for charging more for something many people want and is in short supply.

A German brand luxury dealership yes, but honestly just about everything applies the same at a Chevy dealership. The pay per vehicle is less on average, but the vehicles and customers are so much easier to deal with that you sell more per hour worked in my opinion.

Very few franchise dealerships would ever sell a car with problems knowingly. It does happen, because people trade in cars with intermittent problems without telling the dealership.

Compared to Craigslist where there is no shortage of people selling cars directly with current problems, intermittent problems, hidden problems, and massive paperwork issues that can stop you from registering the vehicle all together until resolved.

Op here, selling 3000 cars.

I've never bought a car at a dealership, and neither has anyone in my family in 25 years. But then again, I know cars inside and out (even from before my car sales career) so I feel pretty safe not accidentally buying a scammers car from Craigslist.