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Legendary surfer/shaper reviews Firewire Surfboards
- Thread starter surfwhere
- Start date
You’re not getting it, the US pays more for healthcare than any other nation and with similar or worse outcomes. Doesn’t that indicate that it could be improved?
The facts.
Not necessarily.
But yes, it could be improved.
The problem is multivariate and you have to make sure the solution is better than the problem.
Thinking we fix everything with universal healthcare and ride off into the sunset is as stupid as claiming the USA has the best healthcare system in the world.
As of October 22, only 1% of Americans see healthcare as a "most important issue" and if we're looking at a 0.0001% rate of people filing for bankruptcy with medical bills as a component...while having some of the best treatment outcomes in the world...things must not be that bad.
Aussies also don’t have to pay Medicare taxes if they buy private insurance. At high income levels insurance makes more sense than paying about 5% of your income.
aussies really have a better system. To those saying America has a better healthcare system they are delusional. I have lived in both countries and and used both systems extensively and would take the aussie system 100% of the time.
Aussies have true choice. Medicare if you want it, insurance if you want it. Private doctor if you choose, government doctor if you choose. Also insurance is regulated and has to at least cover the same as Medicare. Australia doesn’t have a massive for profit medical lobby.
outcomes for disease also don’t matter if you can’t access the care because it’s too expensive. The USA has the very best doctors. If you have a rare disease I would want to be in the USA if I could afford it. But the USA also has one of the very worst systems, if you could even call it a system. It’s not a system. It’s a for profit scam to steal money from people and keep them sick.
other Americans in this thread please take a true reflection and realize that our system is sh!t. America has great doctors horrible system
Well, that abortion was said to be the second most important issue shows just how proficient American leaders are at manipulating their sheep.The facts.
Not necessarily.
But yes, it could be improved.
The problem is multivariate and you have to make sure the solution is better than the problem.
Thinking we fix everything with universal healthcare and ride off into the sunset is as stupid as claiming the USA has the best healthcare system in the world.
As of October 22, only 1% of Americans see healthcare as a "most important issue" and if we're looking at a 0.0001% rate of people filing for bankruptcy with medical bills as a component...while having some of the best treatment outcomes in the world...things must not be that bad.
All of the proposed US healthcare systems put the tax rate to pay for it at least 10%.
They also all would make private insurance illegal.
We can’t do universal here without it being considerably worse than what we have now. Australia is not America.
American government needs to be as far away from the healthcare system as possible.
Just got back after being away a couple of days.
Did I miss anything
Oh, and
Did I miss anything
Oh, and
NOOOOOO VOICE OF REASON!!!
The one thing here that's misleading:
"outcomes for disease also don’t matter if you can’t access the care because it’s too expensive."
Everyone that walks into a hospital in the USA gets care, no questions asked. If you don't have insurance you're assigned a social worker and they work out payment. There are a variety of ways you end up paying (or not paying) - this is based on your income/ability to pay and eligibility for Medicare or Medicaid/Medi-Cal and hospital charity.
There are plenty of patients we treat that don't have insurance, private or government, that never pay a dime.
I'm glad that you've finally come around the the fact that our system is sh!t.
Did you read my first post?
Try again:
There are major problems with pretty much every system in the developed world.No doubt, the system in this country is stupid, absurd, and inefficient on multiple levels.
But in no way is it "the worst among developed nations." That is some funny-ass sh!t.
Ours is the above - cost. Which is a major problem.
The care, otherwise is excellent - and despite what is claimed - accessible to all.
And a minutia of people actually go bankrupt from medical bills, despite the politicians that claim otherwise (see fact checking article I posted by the Washington Post , a left-wing newspaper that advocates for single-payer)
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I would guess for most families they pay currently more than 10% of their income for healthcare on top of what employers pay for our already bloated system.
there has to be a middle ground type of system. Why should employers have anything to do with healthcare?
switzerland is an example of where the system works. With private insurance.
while it’s true nobody can be denied care it doesn’t mean you are screwed with overinflated costs are a significant portion of your life
Regarding Maurice Cole's swellnet post BASE interview where he said "If I had a choice I'd use Asia to mass produce my boards because then they'd come in a lot cheaper and you'd actually earn money off that which would pay for the R&D. "
Yes, it would have been the Firewire model.
That was a decade ago, the Surfers Journal interview is from early this year I think, so he has obviously changed his mind regarding the virtues of brand names producing in Asia. He gets respect from some surfers from the Torquay region who I used to know and surf with. I don't surf out that way any more and never had one of his boards. About 10 years ago I used to see a lot of his boards in the water, they were popular with the middle aged crew and made to suitably sized proportions. Then they either fell out of fashion or perhaps he wasn't shaping many due travelling or dealing with health problems, I don't know.
We don't need to necessarily agree with him to acknowledge he is legendary. Greg Griffin used to give him respect, never criticised his deep concave despite Greg's strong design philosophy that the flat bottom was most "efficient".
What I find amazing is that he was involved with early tow board big wave design at the time tow boards went narrower than normal boards, very different requirements to the Melbourne weekend surfers who used to ride his boards. Torquay has changed a lot since then, some Melbourne surfers moved to Torquay and even before the pandemic it's population was expanding.
Firewires at Beach House are 20% off today.
Pyzels still full price.
Pyzels still full price.
I don’t personally know the guy but have owned 2 of his boards and they have been in the top 3 boards I’ve owned. They really are well suited to easy performance surfing. He makes great boards for m-f office crew that went something easy to catch waves but can still rip a few turns
then that says something about the demand for Pyzels if they are not discounted.
And on the other side some Australian surfers want US brands of which CI and Sharpeye seem to be the most popular - I think they are made locally in Aus aren't they (PU/PE)?
Considering that all the major names resort to Asia for epoxy/composite production I don't think they are building pu/pe locally for ideological reasons, it must make most economic/customer satisfaction sense. Of the names mentioned JS is an anomaly (building on australian wages and shipping to US) which Greg Griffin thought was showing an inability to work with local craftsmen rather than economically forced to take that step.
So there is still opportunity for crafts-person jobs in that industry. Maybe not as much as before. I have been visiting the region where I now live for years and there used to be 3 local manufacturers, now there is only one. I think most erBB members who have built boards for themselves would say that they are too cheap for the labour involved. I do not know how the big names do it, but if I look at the 2 places which have cut my annual hobby build, they are both small labels not seen much outside their region, but big enough to own and run a shaping machine. I had 3 great custom experiences with one - in person consultation with shaper, one of his standard designs with rail volume and taper tailored to my tastes - all boards exactly the same and ride the same (snapped the first 2 in dumping beach break). I do know my shaper has other sources of income and that the factory is part of a chain of local retail shops selling all sorts of things such as skateboards, SUPs as well as some imported boards such as Torqs and softboards. Not sure if they are selling FW now, I haven't been paying close attention, but I know they used to.
The other outfit cuts for a shop on the Mornington peninsula (the other main commutable surf region from Melb) and also makes, sells and imports life saving paddle boards (the life saving clubs are big thing in Aus).
At the end of my street is a traditional backyard shaper. Fishes, mid-lengths and longboards only - I think just custom. Has other jobs.
CI and Pyzel don’t make their epoxy boards in Asia afaik.
Lost and pyzel are made in the same factory on the Gold Coast and TC usually does the glassing.
DHD and JS build in their own facilitiesand Asian made epoxy.
CI, sharp eye, ACSOD, and many others are made at the glass lab in tweed.
CI had boards also made in Sydney.
almost all aussie shapers do custom epoxy in australia if you ask and are willing to pay.
in USA vast majority of boards in shops are made in USA. All CI boards other than surftech are manufactured in the USA and almost all other PU/PE boards are USA made.
firewire is really a niche brand making niche shapes. Outside a few boards they are mostly alt boards that don’t seem to be seen often in the water. Firewire doesn’t undercut market pricing either.
also JS used to make boards in San Diego. At the time the quality of PU boards in USA were Crap compared to aussie boards. Aussie PU boards were lighter and stronger. Also it’s cheaper to do business in australia especially if you export. Wages for skilled craftsmen here are much higher than aus and we have much stricter osha rules. Not to mention exchange rate. It’s 30-40% cheaper to make a board in australia than here probably and they sell for the same price or more. It’s a no brainer from a business standpoint.