Quoted from porkcarrot:Now you are bragging about getting useless degrees that we had to pay for. You understand that right?
Two points on this.
1. I used benefits I earned to pay for the degree.
2. I never would have gotten this degree if it wasn't free.
If number 2 is true... how many more people would get degrees they didn't need if they were free?
Quoted from elcolonel:I have worked for the largest tract builder in the country, and it was a horrible leviathan, and that is precisely why I am a proponent of keeping the federal government as small as possible.
I think this is a poor analysis. Big, private companies are competing against other companies in a “free market” and have every incentive to be as cut throat as they can, whenever and wherever they can. The individual contributor and private citizen be damned.
The federal government is built by and for the people and has a COMPLETELY different mission. A small govt. could never properly manage the scale and complexity of our social economy. Let alone govern and police the, criminal, anti-social and (mostly corporate, but many individuals as well) greed heads.
Small gov is what the 1% want, and they brainwashed a whole lot of people to perpetuate the myth that what we really need is to let multinational corporations (and the mega rich) call the shots, tipping the scales ever more in their favor. Citizens won’t have a chance in a small govt. it’s been going this way since the 1980’s, and THATs why things suck so bad now.
Quoted from SantaEatsCheese:Two points on this.
1. I used benefits I earned to pay for the degree.
2. I never would have gotten this degree if it wasn't free.
If number 2 is true... how many more people would get degrees they didn't need if they were free?
The degree wasn’t free! It was paid for, it was paid for by us! You complain about rising cost of tuitions because people are taking degrees that aren’t needed, that’s literally what you did, multiple times! It doesn’t matter if you think you earned it, it’s still a degree that was paid for that wasn’t needed.
Quoted from Gornkleschnitzer:Although this post was half the forum thread ago by now, I feel like a major element of this argument got swept under the rug.
I remember the first talk about raising the minimum wage all the way to $15 from - gasp! - $7.15 or whatever it was. This was one of the main arguments against it, along with "businesses won't be able to stay afloat paying this much in wages" as well as arguments that the minimum-wage jobs are NOT WORTH $15/hour.
And I'm quite certain those arguments are from people still living 30 years in the past and completely out of touch with the current value of the dollar.
Minimum wage, applied to bare minimum entry level jobs, exists for a basic purpose. To ensure that an employee spending their whole day working for an employer is, at MINIMUM (not quite a pun but certainly intended), able to afford to be a functioning human being, living under a roof. And for this reason, minimum wage is supposed to increase with inflation. You know, so that your entry level job, which pays the bare minimum that you need to be a functioning human being in society, is able to fund your food and rent, regardless of the current market price that everyone is paying for a loaf of bread.
Except, that's not what happened. Those complaining that YOU SHOULD NOT BE MAKING $15/hr FLIPPING MY BURGERS haven't been noticing that while the normal forces of inflation have steadily brought up the dollar amounts required to live a minimal life, minimum wage stopped being updated since at least the 1990s. So for over two decades now we've been learning to associate the $7-8 minimum wage as what an entry level worker should be making. All the while, the cost of living has drifted ever higher, so that those eight dollars can no longer support a single independent person anymore. Sure, it's not a problem for those living with parents or rooming with friends, but not everyone has that luxury. Do you think that person dutifully flipping the burgers you love to eat should be spending their free time living on the street, just because *most* of the other minimum wage workers have a place to stay rent-free?
The argument that "the owners cant pay the other staff more to balance it out"...? To the business, I say that's a you problem. Are you actually telling me that your waitstaff's work is so worthless to you that despite the fact that they work forty hours a week, they don't even deserve enough money to keep them out of a cardboard box under a bridge? If paying your employees the bare minimum they need to function in society is going to put your business under, then you need to rethink your business operations.
Oh, and the cook needs a raise. If the quality of his work is really 75% more valuable than your busboy, then the busboy should be making $15 (what minimum wage should have reached at this point, if not more) and the cook should be making $26. If you as an employer can't afford that, then maybe you shouldn't be promising - to borrow a saying from a certain infamous thread - a Ferrari at Kia prices.
i totally get it, a lot of responses thrown my way are with this tone as if I personally have a problem or I personally dont want people to earn a LIVING WAGE but if anyone just reads what i said, is that people that already making something close to the newly raised amount dont see their wage raise to compensate for the skillset of entry level versus skilled work above entry level and they get pissed and stop caring about how good they do. But somehow me just saying "hey this IS A FACTOR of poor work ethic" magically translates to MRM_4 doesnt understand inflation and has an ego problem because the little guy got a raise. And I get all these "DO YOU THINK THIS, DO YOU THINK THAT?" As if Im the face to blame for other people's emotions.
It doesnt matter what I think, the people in that position are the ones pissed, my brother works at a high end restaurant in Akron that went through it, a have a few friends that are cooks in Cleveland that talk about it, my wife thats a loan officer for a major bank went through it. Its a thing regardless how you guys interpret what I say or try to justify how the scenario triggers you.
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Unbalanced pay fucks with morale in the workplace. Why is my observation of this being argued?
Quoted from SantaEatsCheese:Deleted post
The plain fact is defense spending is a huge part of our budget and we spend excessively more on defense than every other country in the world. That in itself is a waste. Maybe your department didn’t have excessive money, but excessive money goes to defense and the military. You work for the defense department which is the biggest waster of government money. It’s money we don’t need to spend, but it’s money we do spend. It’s money we pay for ships and planes and tanks and personnel and whatever else that we don’t actually need. We have massive amounts of all of these things that we don’t need, we’ve just built ourselves up into thinking we do. It’s literally called the military industry complex, everyone knows about it.
It’s not an attack on service members or what they’ve done, it’s just a fact that our military is a massive strain on our budget. And it is hypocritical for someone who benefits from that to complain about other government spending. Taxpayers don’t want to spend trillions on the military either, but that’s how it is.
Quoted from rai:You say a new car costs $40k on average. That doesn’t mean you have to spend $40k to buy a new car, you can buy something new for half that and a used car for a tenth of that price.
That's not the point. The point is inflation is so bad that the average new car costs more what 2/3 of the population can afford. Yes you can buy a cheap used car, but then you get to deal with the inflation attached to repairs, maintenance, registration, and taxes, pricing out a large chunk of the population as well.
Quoted from SantaEatsCheese:Deleted post
This is the hypocrisy I’m talking about. You look at yourself as different from others, even though you do the same things. It’s not about your service, it’s about your use of government spending.
You served in the Marines, and you were given benefits to pay for a degree. That’s all fine. It even let you get multiple degrees, that’s also fine. But then you complain about other people getting degrees they don’t need, when you’re literally getting degrees you don’t need. Yes it’s a benefit offered to you, but not a benefit you have to take. You didn’t have to spend our money on a useless history degree but you did it anyway and contributed in a small way to the cost of rising tuition. I don’t understand how you don’t see the hypocrisy there.
Quoted from porkcarrot:I just love the hypocrisy of military people complaining about government programs and taxpayers paying
Silly soldier. Imagine you thinking that risking your life in service is worth some type of compensation. How can you be so oblivious not realizing the real heroes are home playing Minecraft.
Of course they deserve the same free tuition as you..
This thread has officially jumped the shark.
Quoted from embryonjohn:This thread has officially jumped the shark.
ok lets pause and summarize what this thread has taught us so far:
Boomers hate Millennials
Everyone hates Boomers
Gen X is stuck in the middle
Nobody really wants to work anyway
Pinside has turned into Facebook
*
Let's go ahead and close the thread before we all start hating each other more
Quoted from embryonjohn:Silly soldier. Imagine you thinking that risking your life in service is worth some type of compensation. How can you be so oblivious not realizing the real heroes are home playing Minecraft.
Of course they deserve the same free tuition as you..
This thread has officially jumped the shark.
I mean my buddy is in the military, and is out on boat duty a lot. Though he spends most of that duty playing fighting games and MMOs on his fancy laptop, not dodging bullets.
Quoted from SantaEatsCheese:Deleted post
Nobody is insulting you buddy. Just pointing out that you too benefit from welfare with a different name. I'm glad you got that history degree. The world needs more folks who understand history, just like it needs more folks who understand and study gender, or art or writing. There's not much or even any money in those kinds of degrees, but we would be in a much more bland and boring place without them.
I would much rather my tax money went to paying for your history degree than paying for another bomb to get dropped on a wedding halfway across the world. That much is certain.
Quoted from embryonjohn:Silly soldier. Imagine you thinking that risking your life in service is worth some type of compensation. How can you be so oblivious not realizing the real heroes are home playing Minecraft.
Of course they deserve the same free tuition as you..
This thread has officially jumped the shark.
Ok, One last time it’s not about the soldiers or being compensated for their service. But at the root of it in joining the military is taking advantage of a government program. It can be a high risk government program, but it’s a government program nonetheless. You work for us for X amount of years and we give you Y benefits.
My problem isn’t with taking advantage of the government program, it’s with complaining that other people take advantage of different government programs.
Quoted from mrm_4:i totally get it, a lot of responses thrown my way are with this tone as if I personally have a problem or I personally dont want people to earn a LIVING WAGE but if anyone just reads what i said, is that people that already making something close to the newly raised amount dont see their wage raise to compensate for the skillset of entry level versus skilled work above entry level and they get pissed and stop caring about how good they do. But somehow me just saying "hey this IS A FACTOR of poor work ethic" magically translates to MRM_4 doesnt understand inflation and has an ego problem because the little guy got a raise. And I get all these "DO YOU THINK THIS, DO YOU THINK THAT?" As if Im the face to blame for other people's emotions.
It doesnt matter what I think, the people in that position are the ones pissed, my brother works at a high end restaurant in Akron that went through it, a have a few friends that are cooks in Cleveland that talk about it, my wife thats a loan officer for a major bank went through it. Its a thing regardless how you guys interpret what I say or try to justify how the scenario triggers you.
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Unbalanced pay fucks with morale in the workplace. Why is my observation of this being argued?
Most of my argument was directed more at those who actually don't understand inflation (which many of the anti-increase-minimum-wage crowd seem to struggle with), but regardless, I'm glad you are indeed on the same page there.
I think what may have thrown off my initial impression of your post was "minimum wage jobs were not designed to be career jobs" from the first paragraph, which is something I usually see floated as an argument against raising minimum wage at all. In context, I can see the validity in your statements. And yes, bringing up non-entry-level pay at the same time as entry-level pay is something that should be done but is too often overlooked.
Quoted from frisbez:Nobody is insulting you buddy. Just pointing out that you too benefit from welfare with a different name.
Not welfare; its part of his compensation package should he wish to exercise it for turning over his body to the US Government for "X" number of years.
Quoted from porkcarrot:The plain fact is defense spending is a huge part of our budget and we spend excessively more on defense than every other country in the world.
The rest of the world should be grateful for that!
Quoted from porkcarrot:I just love the hypocrisy of military people complaining about government programs and taxpayers paying for other people when their whole livelihoods are paid by taxpayers. It’s a huge chunk of our federal budget and involves massive government waste, but somehow it doesn’t count when it applies to them.
Well, it is part of the terms of their employment and it's a career field not without risk. My brother retired from the Army and did two tours in Afghanistan and two tours in Iraq and spent the better part of 20 years on overseas deployments. He also watched many friends die that he came up with when his sister Chinook in their flight crashed into the ocean back in the early 2000's (the US was carting Philippine special forces around chasing Abu Sayiff after they kidnapped three americans).
So, I can't begrudge a military service member utilizing taxpayer funded benefits as per the terms of their employment. I doubt Gracia Burnham would either...
Quoted from Knxwledge:If its been 6 years, it sounds like your employer has no intention of raising your wage, and is happy to wring you completely dry until you break. I dont blame the new hires for looking at your scenario and being cautious
I never said he didn't raise my wage, it's gone up 3-4% each year for the base pay, let alone the OT money. The new hires are not looking at me, they have no idea my situation. And there surely not looking at years down the road either but only for today, they have proven that time and time again.
John
Quoted from enkiktd:I mean my buddy….not dodging bullets.
We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a *damn* what you think you are entitled to!
I couldn’t resist the Jack quote from A Few Good Men…
)
Quoted from embryonjohn:We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it! I would rather you just said "thank you" and went on your way, Otherwise, I suggest you pick up a weapon and stand a post. Either way, I don't give a *damn* what you think you are entitled to!
I couldn’t resist the Jack quote from A Few Good Men…
)
Wasn't this right before he got arrested for a cover up of illegal hazing and abuse? I'm not sure this is the huge own you think it is here...
Quoted from grantopia:Wasn't this right before he got arrested for a cover up of illegal hazing and abuse? I'm not sure this is the huge own you think it is here...
You realize I wasn’t going for a “huge own” or whatever the hell that means.
I was going for comedy
I get it…keyboard warriors are better than the real ones…please don’t cancel me
Quoted from Haymaker:Exactly, the boomers gave themselves every opportunity in the world, and ruined it for future generations and then tell them to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.
This needs to be said again and again to every boomer that complains about the kids these days.
Quoted from embryonjohn:You realize I wasn’t going for a “huge own” or whatever the hell that means.
I was going for comedy
I get it…keyboard warriors are better than the real ones…please don’t cancel me
Yikes, lots of projection to unpack here.
Quoted from Gornkleschnitzer:Although this post was half the forum thread ago by now, I feel like a major element of this argument got swept under the rug.
I remember the first talk about raising the minimum wage all the way to $15 from - gasp! - $7.15 or whatever it was. This was one of the main arguments against it, along with "businesses won't be able to stay afloat paying this much in wages" as well as arguments that the minimum-wage jobs are NOT WORTH $15/hour.
And I'm quite certain those arguments are from people still living 30 years in the past and completely out of touch with the current value of the dollar.
Minimum wage, applied to bare minimum entry level jobs, exists for a basic purpose. To ensure that an employee spending their whole day working for an employer is, at MINIMUM (not quite a pun but certainly intended), able to afford to be a functioning human being, living under a roof. And for this reason, minimum wage is supposed to increase with inflation. You know, so that your entry level job, which pays the bare minimum that you need to be a functioning human being in society, is able to fund your food and rent, regardless of the current market price that everyone is paying for a loaf of bread.
Except, that's not what happened. Those complaining that YOU SHOULD NOT BE MAKING $15/hr FLIPPING MY BURGERS haven't been noticing that while the normal forces of inflation have steadily brought up the dollar amounts required to live a minimal life, minimum wage stopped being updated since at least the 1990s. So for over two decades now we've been learning to associate the $7-8 minimum wage as what an entry level worker should be making. All the while, the cost of living has drifted ever higher, so that those eight dollars can no longer support a single independent person anymore. Sure, it's not a problem for those living with parents or rooming with friends, but not everyone has that luxury. Do you think that person dutifully flipping the burgers you love to eat should be spending their free time living on the street, just because *most* of the other minimum wage workers have a place to stay rent-free?
The argument that "the owners cant pay the other staff more to balance it out"...? To the business, I say that's a you problem. Are you actually telling me that your waitstaff's work is so worthless to you that despite the fact that they work forty hours a week, they don't even deserve enough money to keep them out of a cardboard box under a bridge? If paying your employees the bare minimum they need to function in society is going to put your business under, then you need to rethink your business operations.
Oh, and the cook needs a raise. If the quality of his work is really 75% more valuable than your busboy, then the busboy should be making $15 (what minimum wage should have reached at this point, if not more) and the cook should be making $26. If you as an employer can't afford that, then maybe you shouldn't be promising - to borrow a saying from a certain infamous thread - a Ferrari at Kia prices.
Minimum wage and it's history is always an interesting topic to me.
Without a doubt FDR's intention was that minimum wage was supposed to be a living wage. His words on the subject with regard to his intent are unassailable.
As implemented, minimum wage was not a living wage, nor was it for decades (if ever). Minimum wage in inflation adjusted dollars vs the CPI is higher right now than it was for the first decade after the FLSA. Minimum wage purchasing power peaked over 50 years ago in 1970.
Of course, the goal posts of what a "living wage" is have shifted significantly since the 40's. I doubt many people would be happy owning a home with the exact same amenities offered in your typical 1940's dwelling.
The percentage of the labor force on minimum wage wasn't tracked until the end of the 70's when it was at approximately 13% of all jobs. Minimum wage jobs (not considering undocumented labor) dropped to only approximately 2% of the labor force by 2017 and to 1.5% by 2020. That said, that percentage only reflects those employees making exactly minimum wage.
So, just my humble opinion, federal minimum wage should be pushed to match it's inflation adjusted peak in 1970 and pegged to inflation at that point. Further, the impact on the total economy would be less severe than many would have you believe as the percentage of true minimum wage workers with regard to the total labor force is at one of the lowest points in history.
Quoted from The_Pump_House:Of course, the goal posts of what a "living wage" is have shifted significantly since the 40's. I doubt many people would be happy owning a home with the exact same amenities offered in your typical 1940's dwelling.
That's also a good point that isn't brought up enough in comparisons with standards of living from past decades. There are quite a few things we now depend on to be productive that simply weren't a part of life back then. At one point I was told that one typically gets a job by bringing a resume to a prospective employer. Then I tried looking for a good job myself - only to have printed resumes and requests for paper applications largely ignored if not outright turned away, with companies telling me they only take applications online. If I'd been living on my own and earning a bare minimum living wage for 1940s standards, I probably wouldn't have had the personal budget for an internet connection with which to do so.
Sure, libraries usually have free internet, but in order to accept a job offer, I also need a phone line... Thus you can add the cost of an internet subscription and a personal phone to the modern-day bare minimum essentials - and all the lovely headaches those services come with.
So, I swung into my local Burger King today for a quick burger for lunch.
"Now Hiring!" banners, flags and music - everywhere.
When I pulled up the window, I noticed the windowperson was not wearing the usual BK nametag.
Instead, they had on one of those "HELLO MY NAME IS" stickies with "Sarah" in black Sharpie.
Obviously that begs the question, so I asked "Didn't they get you a Burger King name tag?"
Her Answer:
"Nope. They said that people quit so fast that they're gone, before their new nametags come in.
And, they got tired of wasting the money on official nametags that went into the trash."
Yikes.
Quoted from Miguel351:These past few years, I've been self employed. Covid was tough to get through and work still hasn't really ever come back to normal. So, I've been applying for jobs where I'm 90-100% qualified for what they've got listed. In the last year and a half or so, this is about 30 jobs. Guess how many interviews I've had. Two. I'm in my 40's and my resume shows that I tend to stay at the places where I work for at least five years, if not longer. It also shows that I've been promoted along the way in those companies. The only reason I can think of that I'm not getting interviews, and subsequently the jobs, is due to my age. Everybody seems to want some young go-getter that they think will be there for decades to come. Joke's on them! I laugh when I see the same exact job opening at the same exact company a few months later. I apply for it again, and I still get nothing. I don't have a facebook page, instagram, or any kind of social media. I think people try to google me and when they don't find anything, they pass me over.
All of what you guys say about the younger generations can be true, and typically is, but when you have an employer who is apparently dead set against hiring anyone with more "life experience", it makes it hard for us older types to find a good job.
My wife has been going through this as well. She managed a retail place for 15 years and was an employee there for 5 years prior. COVID burned her out and the company kind of screwed her, her good employees got burned out and moved to higher paying jobs and she was stuck trying to hire and could find no one who would actually show up. So she quit, took a bit of time off and now trying to find a job....and crickets. My thought is it is due to her age as well. They are making a mistake, she's a very hard worker. Hiring signs everywhere, but no one is actually hiring anyone that we see.
Quoted from BriannaWu:This is just me, but I post on Pinside specifically to AVOID politics. I get enough of it on Twitter.
All your troubles could just go "POOF!" with one push of this button. Think you can do it?
Quoted from The_Pump_House:I doubt many people would be happy owning a home with the exact same amenities offered in your typical 1940's dwelling.
Err. I'm sitting in a house built in 1900, it's pretty common for New England.
In the 1940's they had toilets, running water, heat, phones, electric. Aside from a portable a/c unit in a window, the house is fairly unchanged. The stove dates back to the mid 50's and is built like a tank. My wife pulls out a knife if I even joke about replacing it.
Things were built to last then, not so much anymore.
Well my kids are Gen Z and they and their friends bust their asses and are hungry and motivated. Which is pretty amazing considering they’ve had a good chunk of their formative years (school, social life, sports seasons etc) canceled or a shit version of what it should have been. Sure they’re snarky as hell and don’t trust their workplace to have their best interests in mind. They’re raised by Gen Xers like myself who recognize that, as has been stated, loyalty is unfortunately dead. The whole bitching about the younger generations is so tired. They have the internet and the end of corporal punishment by parents and teachers. Awesome. However, the number of obstacles and issues these kids face that weren’t around for us is ridiculous. Didn’t mean to rant, I just always feel the need to stick up for the kids. Also, boomers and millennials have a lot more in common than they’d care to admit 
Quoted from gdonovan:The state mandates nursing levels.
If you think the fact that state mandated nursing levels exist is a bad thing, you have NO idea what nurses go through.
With several nurses in my family, I can definitively say this is an incredibly shitty take. Your disdain for nurses honestly disgusts me.
See the below post for a sensible explanation:
Quoted from Kwaheltrut:State mandated nursing levels are typically bare minimum. They are licensed professional staff that can be held financially and more recently criminally liable for human error. Unreasonable work loads can have serious consequences for them and their patients. I find your statement to be comparable to an airline complaining about being required to have two pilots for certain flights. Responsible risk mitigation does not directly equal skewing the market. Would you be ok flying on a plane with just one pilot? Few states would shut down a healthcare facility for occasional unsafe staffing. It happens. Unlike an airplane, you can't just decide not to fly a hospital full of people. The minimums are in place to force organizations to make a good faith effort at budgeting for safe care. One person could probably sit in a nursing home at night while everyone sleeps. Maybe some care would be missed but everyone would probably survive. It would definitely save a lot of money. However, like the airplane, eventually something will happen and it will be catastrophic.
Been reading this thread awhile and my 2 cents. I'm older and tomorrow starts my 1st official retirement day. My SS and my pension kick in. I worked a long time, 48 years and will still do so. When I went to college in 1978 my Penn State tuition was under 2K a year, now it's 17K.
Funneling kids in college now to accrue huge debt when many high paying jobs are in the trades, doesn't make sense. I worked in the trades, remodeling houses the last 15 years and the money there can exceeds what a degree would bring with far less debt. HVAC techs, automotive techs, solar energy installers, plumbers, electricians, welders etc are in high demand. Less training than the 4 years college, and many companies will take a tech school grad and groom them.
Problem is, "you gotta get your hands dirty". And a lot of the younger generation won't do that. And that gets your cell phone dirty too.
Quoted from tomdrum:I worked in the trades, remodeling houses the last 15 years and the money there can exceeds what a degree would bring with far less debt. HVAC techs, automotive techs, solar energy installers, plumbers, electricians, welders etc are in high demand. Less training than the 4 years college, and many companies will take a tech school grad and groom them.
And trade jobs are far-harder to outsource. If you job involves processing information, creating "content", or providing knowledge, you're at risk of outsourcing. It's already happening. Far-better to get hands-on and fix something. Considerably harder to outsource that job to someone in SE Asia.
Quoted from Deez:The younger generation has realized that the concept of hard work equals success and security is a lie and are demanding better from employees.The issue isn't lazy workers as much as cheap employers.
Why show loyalty to a company that isn't loyal to you?
Quid pro quo baby.
They havn't realized anything. This has been the case since the beginning of time. Imagine work in the industrial era. Like the new generation is genius or something?
Quoted from tomdrum:Been reading this thread awhile and my 2 cents. I'm older and tomorrow starts my 1st official retirement day. My SS and my pension kick in. I worked a long time, 48 years and will still do so. When I went to college in 1978 my Penn State tuition was under 2K a year, now it's 17K.
Funneling kids in college now to accrue huge debt when many high paying jobs are in the trades, doesn't make sense. I worked in the trades, remodeling houses the last 15 years and the money there can exceeds what a degree would bring with far less debt. HVAC techs, automotive techs, solar energy installers, plumbers, electricians, welders etc are in high demand. Less training than the 4 years college, and many companies will take a tech school grad and groom them.
Problem is, "you gotta get your hands dirty". And a lot of the younger generation won't do that. And that gets your cell phone dirty too.
Congrats on your retirement ! I’m a few years out but I can see the light. I’m not in the trades myself but I absolutely thought my son would crush it in the trades and kind of tried subtlety nudging him a bit that way but he wanted to play football in college and get his degree. But I have a bunch of buddies in the trades that say the same and I agree that should be a legit consideration for a lot of kids. I’m sure a lot of parents being hellbent on college for their kids is a huge obstacle unfortunately.
Quoted from LoranSlater:For people who aren't as lucky as me and do have debt, the idea that they can possibly afford these things is laughable. You come from a time where these opportunities were meaningful and there was a way up the ladder. People instead chose to spend on things that make them happy now because there's nothing meaningful they CAN do for their future in the current American economy. Life is too short to make yourself miserable with the tiny chance that you might be able to afford something, and so people don't.
So your life advise is just YOLO?
Quoted from tomdrum:Problem is, "you gotta get your hands dirty". And a lot of the younger generation won't do that. And that gets your cell phone dirty too.
There are 2 ways of being ageist:
1. Bemoan the old for being out of touch. This shows your lack of respect for experience.
2. Bemoan the youth for their lack of experience. This shows you’re old and out of touch.
While I understand that owners of HVAC, Plumbing and Electrical companies make really good money, (top 1% like anything else) the majority just make OK money.
HVAC techs have a median pay around $48k and the top 10% make around $78k a year according to the BLS.
Plumbers have a median pay around $60k and the top 10% make around $100k a year according to the BLS.
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/plumbers-pipefitters-and-steamfitters.htm#tab-5
Electricians have a median pay around $60k and the top 10% make around $100k a year according to the BLS.
https://www.bls.gov/ooh/construction-and-extraction/electricians.htm#tab-5
Not to mention all the years being an apprentice making around half the median wage.
I've met quite a few people in the trades that have had injuries, surgeries, etc. that normal people won't have at a desk job.
The pandemic accelerated what was going to eventually happen anyway
At least 20 years ago corporate America started destroying the social contract with employees - layoffs become the first option instead of the last and as things progressed showed how little they care about loyal employees with the decimation of defined pensions - which was a major motivation for employee retention
Business is finally reaping what they have sown for decades - now with little employee loyalty and highest bidder gets the win
Employees finally have the upper hand and too many people just can’t deal with this concept - but every individual has to look out for their own best interest because business and Govt has certainly proven they will NOT…..Power To The People !!
Quoted from gdonovan:Err. I'm sitting in a house built in 1900, it's pretty common for New England.
In the 1940's they had toilets, running water, heat, phones, electric. Aside from a portable a/c unit in a window, the house is fairly unchanged. The stove dates back to the mid 50's and is built like a tank. My wife pulls out a knife if I even joke about replacing it.
Things were built to last then, not so much anymore.
Shocker, sometime between 1900 and 2022 someone updated your house. Your house is not "fairly unchanged" system wise. Practical electrical systems were only introduced in the 1880's. Only 10% of rural america was "electrified" by 1932. It wasn't until 1932 (and again FDR comes up, that f@#ker is pretty much legend at this point) that the REA was established which was largely responsible for getting electric to the masses. If your house built in 1900 had electricity the owners were damn filthy rich. Further, it would be knob and tube wiring. I would bet my entire pinball collection that there is little, if any, knob and tube wiring active in your house (If there is, get an electrician in there pronto). But, you can probably find the remnants of it in your attic. Parallel un-insulated wires approximately 6"-12" apart on small white ceramic insulators.
In 1940 roughly 45% of homes reported to the census bureau that did not have indoor plumbing. You went to the bathroom in an outhouse and kept a bucket of water nearby your hand pump to prime it, 15% didn't have electricity, heat was primarily via a central wood stove and only 37% had a phone. I can remember as a kid there were three elderly people that we would walk the neighborhood to visit because they always had cookies handy (and by neighborhood, I mean rural). While all of them had electricity, all of them got their water from a cistern hand pump in the yard. Getting water for them was part of the childhood ritual of scoring cookies.
It wasn't until the 1970's that indoor plumbing came in nearly 100% of new home construction.
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Crofton, MD