https://www.reddit.com/r/Welding/comments/1khd9aj/this_is_co...
Kinda like saying you should go to code school because you can land a 175k/year entry level job at Google. Technically true.
News media will whittle down their data set to get a result that only matters where cost of living is high, and there’s a tiny number of the workers overall.
Leads the innumerates in rural Somewhereville, Flyover, USA, to be all confused they don’t make SF salaries in the middle of nowhere.
Yea, welding offshore/underwater pays very well. Food-grade welding a bit less. Both have fairly miserable working conditions, are hard on your body, have some amount of danger, typically require lots of OT to make the claimed income, and unless you’re union, with mediocre benefits.
Great job for those who enjoy that type of work and/or want to hustle and save then move on. But any claim that it’s easy money or typicsl is just wrong.
Personally, my friend is a carpenter and lives with his dad to save money. This is in Seattle so tons of construction and work to go around. He says he wishes he studied computer science in college (has an english degree).
Worse yet, when your body does fail or is injured, that wage tends to stop. Most tradespersons are working for very small companies, often incorporated as their own one-person company. If you cannot work, it all just stops.
One thing that makes the military different it that while the military can be very hard on your body (infantry) your wage does not stop if you are injured. A civilian carpenter with a broken leg must live on savings for a month. A military carpenter with a broken leg just won a month of desk duty without any drop in pay.
But, yeah, on the whole this business about the virtue of trades and Boomer Facebook making baseless claims about how much money there is to be made is ... problematic. I've been there and these folks face all sorts of risks in the near (e.g. falls, electrocution) and long (e.g. Mesothelioma, (increased risk of) Parkinson's, etc.) terms. Working conditions have improved and seemingly everyone wears hiviz nowadays (possibly performatively / to virtue signal) but corners are absolutely still cut and I've heard many jokes and seen many eyes rolled on OSHA's account.
My old man is a tradesman, qualified as an electrician, worked and kept studying as he went and ended up as senior management.
My little brother has severe dyslexia and ADHD, couldn’t even finish school so went into trades, did some time as a diesel mechanic and qualified as a welder. Now builds race cars for a living ( Dakar ) and is a senior mechanic on track for management.
Ambition and luck plays a role but although yes both of their bodies are a little more beat up than mine, they get actively headhunted and even when they don’t have a full time job they can very easily fall back on the skills they have to fill gaps, people always need tradesmen.
Neither of them are struggling in life, other than some bad decisions.
Both of them are also on most countries critical skills list and emigration has always been an option if the local market drops off.
For those reading this, trades are not nearly as bad as is being described here, there are plenty stories of SEs working for horrible companies.
"When Rios graduates next year, he plans to work as a fabricator at a local equipment maker for nuclear, recycling and other sectors, a job that pays $24 an hour, plus regular overtime and paid vacations."
This sounds like a union job, and the $70k figure sounds like towards the upper end due to hierarchy, so realistically he'll be earning maybe half of that for a couple years first.
Woah.
Can you explain this?
I'm asking the op in particular about what seems like maybe some kind of stance.
Not to say they they aren't correct here, but you shouldn't put too much stock in it.
Welding itself is also a pretty broad scope-- are you taking on broken trailer hitches or are you talking about underwater welding of pressure vessels? Programming robots to do automated welding? etc.
For me in Poland, my high-school education was at liceum, i.e focus on academic subjects.
There are vocational schools, but they're known to be awful quality and you don't go there if you want to earn trade, but if you're an awful student. And if you aren't awful student, then you'll most likely end up as one - as your peers will most likely be :(
There are also "technikum" which is a mix of these two, but it's not for trade per se, and statistically chances you'll pass your end of school exams are smaller.
They probably sent us home with a pamphlet with information at the beginning of the year, but I don't remember.
It's probably even more nuanced than that, though. My parents both attended very small schools in small towns, and both offered shop classes. All four schools mentioned were / are located in the Midwest, though, and none in large cities.
If I had to guess, I'd say probably the majority of schools in the US offer some form of shop class(es). But I don't believe any would necessarily be part of the standard curriculum. Generally, these classes are elective.
I had zero elective classes up through my entire pre-uni education. At my uni, I had one or two elective classes - at fifth and sixth semester, and that's all.
It is an aspect of American education I do like a lot.
(here we choose our profile, which assigns us to extended classes - i.e, Maths/English/Physics, Maths/Biology/Chemistry, Polish/Geography/History and so on, but then we don't get to choose anything after.)
A tradesman I knew said find a career that doesn't destroy your body. Some tradesmen I've met say it's best to become an inspector or move into management.
For example we have a high school with a culinary program, another with an auto program, another with a guitar building program, another with a music/theater arts program. These are all academic, public schools in the same district. You are assigned the school near* to your home, but you can petition for a different school.
*there is gerrymandering here too
The US doesn't really differentiate between Lyceums/Gymnasiums, Vocational High Schools, and Technikum.
All tracks tend to be offered at the same school, but with students given the option to opt into vocational tracks.
Furthermore, a lot of skilled trades/"blue collar" (I hate that term) jobs have become increasingly specialized, so you anyhow have to attend a Community College or even a normal College to get the skills needed to land a job.
At the end of the day, a 3-course sequence in a CTE pathway (which is the CA requirements for a high school CTE certificate in California) doesn't prepare you for a career in the same way as being in journalism class prepares you to be a journalist or being in theater prepares you to be an actor. Students will most likely need to pursue some form of post-secondary training (either through a community college or on-the-job) to become somewhat competent in their field.
Specifically, offering a track similar to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_school
College is still a gate for higher paid trades because advanced manufacturing wants educated workers that can do math and/or programming g-code and/or know advanced metallurgy
I know someone who went to welding school, and he was basically practice welding 40 hours a week after class because he was working on some very advanced welds that actually required some decent chunk of engineering knowledge
Edit: can't reply below, but all of those vocations listed are offered at community colleges now and linked with an AS/AAS degree, as apprenticeships are often coordinated with CCs.
$24 an hour for a fabricator out of high school is easily 20-30% higher the salary for a similar role in Germany.
US manufacturing remains competitive industries where a $20-40 an hour salary can be reasonably offered WITHOUT union guarantees. Otherwise the options were offshoring or automation. And for the kind of manufacturing roles that can afford to pay a relatively high salary, a college education is expected.
Skilled Trades increasingly require a college education, because understanding classical mechanics with calculus, being able to script in domain-specific CAD tooling, or understanding how to synthesize a compound does require at least an AP level education.
At some level I think that's true in a lot of places. I'm not sure, in the US, if you really know what kind of engineering (or whatever) you want to go into. High school pretty much didn't give you a good sense of that in a lot of cases. Perhaps, on this board, there is a disproportionate number of people who always knew they wanted to program. But sure wasn't the case for me growing up. And would probably have done something different than mechanical engineering but--whatever--didn't really matter.
Many people I know changed paths mid-college career. Many also changed careers post college. The US is relatively forgiving in that regard (as are many countries).
It’s the systems that shunt people into specific paths in high school that are challenging.
I mean, we could. Maybe a mandatory year or two of service as seen in other countries, then let them work in low credential jobs for 5-10, and only then go back and seek further education. Could be interesting. It would interrupt progression on complex topics though, expect to have a lot of trouble getting back into Calculus.
It would probably be really helpful for some people, especially those that end up dropping out of college after acruing several terms of debt. Otoh, delaying graduation for those who would have graduated 'on time' is probably a negative.
I did sort of switch as I realized I didn't like college level organic chemistry so just switched to straight Mechanical Engineering from sort of a Biomech thing.
There's still a lot that I would improve if I were dumb enough to become president. Free daycare, free preschool, free after school programs - I think it's the best thing we could do for income inequity but there's not enough people to champion it so it will never happen.
That criticism might be directed at the separation at age 10, where some kids get to go to Gymnasium (basically, the highest level) and then there are several other (lesser?) school types. That's often criticized for the reasons you mentioned. Trade schools and dual education start around age 15 and they're generally considered a success story afaik.
In the trades, if you are slightly smarter than average, have a good work ethic and an inkling of entrepreneurial drive, you will be very successful.
In the last 25 years, I've built 3 houses and remodeled half a dozen others. Worked very closely with these guys across the entire spectrum. From the unskilled, trying to cheat their way, to the 75 year old 50yr Journeyman who will never retire because he loves it.
The trades were decimated by immigration and the race for cheaper labor, higher margins. What were once solid middle class jobs, were undercut by unskilled labor masquerading as skilled. Over time, the market raised the rate of the unskilled and lowered the rate of the skilled. Prices rose to meet the market but quality declined. Unskilled were charging the same rates as skilled.
Today there are very few Journeyman tradesmen left. They were forced out. Which is why the market is crying for these skills and awarding them with high wages.
Looking forward, the entire nation is lined up to build. Those who mange this growth and bring the skills, will become wealthy.
If there's good money in the trades, what's to stop them from similarly consolidating into national mega corps like every other field? Especially once we start encouraging former tech bros and VCs in, bringing with them their former mindsets?
I am now working as a “programmer” for CNC systems. (That means I draw shapes in CAD, lay them out on steel plates, and post those to the machines doing the work.) We have torch, plasma, and laser cutters, metal forming (really just bending), and a programmable drill.
The tasks involved in completing the processing after my work are: fetch the metal plate (warehouse crane, forklift), place the plate (must be aligned and at the correct origin), collect the cut parts onto pallets (organized by customer), operate forming machines, and/or feed beams into the drill.
Those tasks don’t exactly require skill. Because I’m a software guy, I’m always looking for opportunities for automation. We’re about as close to fully automated as you can get without advanced robots (requiring dexterity, observation, etc.)
I guess my point is that there’s little room for former tech bro/VC “innovation” in my particular industry. I can see how it’s similar in many trades. They don’t necessarily require “skills” because anyone can learn quickly how to do them. Anyone but today’s robots.
Now these industries should only be treated as a hobby or something that is expected already like knowing English language for writing corporate emails.
I'm happier working for Big Corp in an air-conditioned office.
It can't happen for everyone, which is why all wages need to rise to make living affordable and then some. Capitalists love these competitive filters while disregarding all of the people that failed, but still promote it as viable without disclosing success/failure rates (and as anecdotes often do).
A lack of awareness about the realities of starting a business - and the consequences of not succeeding - is repeatedly the dumbest thing I see espoused about going into the trades and is the equivalent of advertising some kid's anomalous yearly salary that includes overtime.
Skilled trade jobs value paying your dues. Its more about that than aptitude it seems to me.
Sorry high schoolers, $70k a year is not happening - this kid is privileged as fuck.
Yes, paying dues, both in the sense of putting in the time to learn the trade well, and very likely for a good paying career in the trade, paying union dues. People have been doing this since the rise of professional guilds in the middle ages.
Today's kids can show aptitude, capability, and interest by doing well in shop class. An employer can take that interested teen or tween on at an entry level, add to their skill level, and make a profit on their labor. The worker can protect their labor value through a union, and probably should if only for the side benefits apart from negotiating contract labor rates.
Should they just go to college instead? Sure, if they have that interest, and can get out without a student loan debt bigger than some mortgages.
A union is supposed to provide for workers in the same way that a software company makes software. If either of them don't, there's something fundamentally corrupt about each org, not with the concept.
One thing I like about being closer to market oriented trades (or directly trading) is that your compensating is immediately based in the utility you provide. Like in financial services if you provide a service is based on the volume and your toll on that volume.
But yes if you dint have opportunities, like the knowledge, capital and flexibility to leverage it, then there’s entry level grunt work remaining.
Call it whatever you will, but you're only getting the experience by spending a large amount of time and cycles.
Signed, son of a carpenter than did 30+ years and then taught it to underprivileged youth.
It becomes wasteful when advancement depends less on experience or intelligence and more on seniority or politics.
My oldest son is 17 years old and graduated one semester early from high school.
He now works full-time as a welder and heavy equipment mechanic with a base rate of $25/hour and will get many, many hours of overtime this summer.
He will easily gross > 70k this year.
Granted, this is in the Bay Area (so add some inflation there) and he has certain physical and interpersonal attributes[1] that make him special ... but this is, indeed, happening and my impression is that it would be repeatable for others like him.
FWIW, he's very proud of himself and we're very proud of him but ... we're also trying to impress upon him that wages - however high - are not a path to wealth and security. Owning things is[2].
[1] He's a big strong guy, projects as aged 20+ and is very outgoing and charismatic.
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_in_the_Twenty-First_Ce...
You're describing someone hustling very hard. Which is great. But a little different?
[0] https://www.bls.gov/emp/chart-unemployment-earnings-educatio...
Some engineering programs make sure students are learning specialized practical skills, others make sure they get a solid grounding in basics so they have an easier time in picking whatever engineering discipline strikes their fancy.
There are pros and cons for both.
Interesting comparison. You’re right. The primary difference I can think of is the training to quickly become an expert in a different topic.
I know plenty of PhD students accepting jobs in unrelated fields and quickly becoming the local expert in that topic.
While possible, it’s far more difficult for a machinist to suddenly become an expert car mechanic like this.
Kids (kid being someone from 16 to 30 without children of their own, ideally also without substance abuse problem and a home they can sleep in without fear of being assaulted) have nearly infinite energy, capacity to absorb (physical) abuse, and often the focus to learn esoteric subjects, if they're interested in the subject.
So I would fully expect a large fraction of bored kids to potentially become expert car mechanics, or tree pruners, algebraic geometers, hadoop experts, air conditioning duct builders, etc, if given access, mentorship, opportunity, recognition, and compensation.
You seem to have missed my point though, it was about switching tracks to become an expert in a new thing. A random physics PhD grad might not have a burning passion for fintech, for example but still becomes an expert after three months in the job because of the sheer amount of rigorous training.
Now, how much of this is actual expertise and how much wealth extraction, I really don't know.
Of course people pursuing higher education are often doing it for personal growth reasons as well.
High wages provide the discretionary income required to invest though. So I'd say, they're not the goal, but if the word path is to be used, I'd say they are part of the path. As far as owning things...investments specifically (not two motorcycles and a hummer), the usual advice is a well balanced portfolio. Could be equities, maybe some real estate, maybe even some crypto, all at different ratios depending on your risk profile.
My concern is that we are in a unique time period where all of that is coming to an end and there will be no wealth appreciation even for disciplined investors.
Everyone always fears the future when their portfolio is down.
The best hedge is to also "invest" in something that has value to you. Like bricks / house.
I think there is indeed a strong possibility that we may see very poor inflation-adjusted growth from an otherwise reasonable and diverse investment portfolio.
Ultimately, the recipe for growth will just not be so simple in a world economy with a dwindling population. Thats a VERY unique situation so a lot of historical wisdom regarding investments I think may not bear fruit like it did in the past.
My approach to mitigate this is two-fold, first I'm trying to be even MORE diversified. I have investments spread out over domestic and international ETF's, real estate, and I work a public sector job with a public pension. In addition, while aggregate growth may become lackluster, certain industries will still do well. Ive run businesses before and I'm looking to start another business in a very well-targeted industry to add an additional potential revenue stream well into the future. And the second prong of my approach is to increase my savings rate much higher than historically safe targets.
I think there is good reason to be concerned about this and it has very little to do with the current market turmoil. (Although there are some indicators of trouble in that too)
I'm hoping for something inbetween the apocalyptic possibilities.
That makes intuitive sense, but quickly falls apart when you do any rigorous analysis. Buying a house might cover your shelter needs, but you still need to eat, and you can't eat bricks. Moreover if the fear is your portfolio losing value, buying a house doesn't really mitigate that. Sure, you might still have a house at the end of the day, but that's cold comfort if you paid $2M for a bay area house that subsequently saw its value tank (eg. something like Detroit). Even in some sort of apocalypse scenario a house isn't obviously better than stocks, because the whole concept of owning a house relies on some sort of functioning legal system.
On the other hand there are very real problems with investing in "bricks / house". It has historical under-performed stocks. Moreover a single house provides poor diversification compared to a basket of stocks and its performance is tied to the economic health of your local area. If you lose your job, there's a good chance that your house won't fetch a high price. All of this makes for a poor risk adjusted return, and it's unclear how "has value to you" counters this.
This analysis relies on someone to have a mortgage that takes 100% of their salary every month. The general rule was don't buy a house over 3x your annual pre-tax salary. I think it's moved up past that in most places though. Either way, don't buy so much house you can't afford food. I would think that goes without saying.
>Moreover if the fear is your portfolio losing value, buying a house doesn't really mitigate that. Sure, you might still have a house at the end of the day, but that's cold comfort if you paid $2M for a bay area house that subsequently saw its value tank (eg. something like Detroit).
This analysis is an edge case and in no way represents the norm. I'm not sure of any area that has gone from Bay Area prices to Detroit prices in a single lifetime.
>Even in some sort of apocalypse scenario a house isn't obviously better than stocks, because the whole concept of owning a house relies on some sort of functioning legal system.
Another crazy edge case. It's saying don't buy a house because an asteroid might hit. I'm pretty sure that newly non-functioning legal system wouldn't protect your stock portfolio either. If it comes to that, best to invest in bullets and whiskey.
>On the other hand there are very real problems with investing in "bricks / house". It has historical under-performed stocks.
Include paying rent in your analysis comparing it with stocks, particularly after you pay it off. You're sinking $X into a rental property with zero return and zero equity gained. I don't have to pay $2000 to the mortgage ever again and I have an asset that has more than doubled in 20 years, and a place to live that is essentially rent/mortgage free for life. That's a lot of dividends comparatively. Also, rents go up, mortgage payments typically don't, so factor inflation in your rent analysis.
>Moreover a single house provides poor diversification compared to a basket of stocks and its performance is tied to the economic health of your local area.
You shouldn't ever put all your money in stocks. Putting money in real estate, bonds, CDs, cash, etc. is the definition of diversification.
>If you lose your job, there's a good chance that your house won't fetch a high price.
Housing prices are unrelated to an individual losing their job. If you lose your job and haven't saved up enough runway, you could default on your mortgage. You could also not pay your rent. You get kicked out either way, but the bank should cut you a check for the equity you have remaining, minus whatever fees they conjure up.
>All of this makes for a poor risk adjusted return, and it's unclear how "has value to you" counters this.
All of your points were based on invalid assumptions, edge cases, or are irrelevant when compared to paying rent. Buying a house is a long game.
The problem is that in much of the anglosphere, housing is so scarce that you have to ignore such rules of thumb, or live in the middle of nowhere.
>This analysis is an edge case
>Another crazy edge case
If you ignore edge cases, then you're left with just the median case, and that says that at current price levels, houses aren't worth investing in because they have historically worse returns than stocks, and provide poor diversification.
>Include paying rent in your analysis comparing it with stocks, particularly after you pay it off. You're sinking $X into a rental property with zero return and zero equity gained. I don't have to pay $2000 to the mortgage ever again and I have an asset that has more than doubled in 20 years, and a place to live that is essentially rent/mortgage free for life. That's a lot of dividends comparatively. Also, rents go up, mortgage payments typically don't, so factor inflation in your rent analysis.
This calculator[1] factors everything you listed, and the math doesn't work out for the hottest housing markets. It might work out for Miami or Huston, but not San Francisco or even Albuquerque. Using default assumptions implies a break-even price-to-rent ratio of 14, but most US metros are far above that[2].
The nice thing about the calculator is that if you don't agree with the assumptions, you can plug in your own numbers. I'd like to see what numbers you come up with to make to make the math work out in favor of buying in the top US cities.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/upshot/buy-rent-cal...
[2] https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/price-to-rent-ratio-in-50...
>Housing prices are unrelated to an individual losing their job.
The point isn't that a Bay Area housing market will crash because Google Employee #68908 lost his job, it's that if there was an AI winter/tech crash, that will result in Bay Area housing prices dropping, along with layoffs.
This is a bit circular, supply-and-demand-wise. Especially in the US - why is demand in some areas so high that people will bid houses in San Jose up to 2M+? Why aren't they buying the same thing for 450k in Dallas?
Why aren't the companies based in those crazy expensive areas and paying million-plus total comp to large sections of their workforce being eaten alive by ones with lower labor costs in other regions?
Housing is scarce in the areas that are already the most densely populated, which itself is a bit of yogi-berra moment.
Too much discussion about housing in the US focuses only on the supply side and ignores the geographic concentration of demand that has happened over the last few decades. Is that centralization good for the country in the long-run regardless? Obviously that centralization goes back way longer in many European countries, so was the distribution and the number of growing populaces in cheap, not-yet-established areas part of the secret sauce for the 20th century US? Could you start the companies that made the Bay Area what it is today in today's Bay Area? Could you even start them in somewhere cheaper today, or would you not be able to get the talent to join you there? We're five years into remote work being way more common than it ever was before, and it hasn't broken that stranglehold of concentration yet.
That's a great calculator; I remember using it like a decade ago. And while it includes all factors they listed there are a few it doesn't:
1. If interest rates go down, you can refinance, but if they go up, the inflation and appreciation values likely will as well, but your rate is fixed, for (up to) 30 yrs (!!)
2. It's relatively easy to make improvements while you live there (and capture increased value when you leave)
3. The calculator assumes that the down payment and cost difference vs renting would be invested, which is fine but ignores psychological realities that prevent this more often than not
Also:
> The best hedge is to also "invest" in something that has value to you. Like bricks / house.
The suggestion was mentioned as a 'hedge'. The point being: you don't know what the values entered into the calculator will really end up being. Having some costs locked in can help with concerns around cash flow (and shelter costs are usually a significant percentage of costs overall). It's an "also 'invest'" strategy, so there's a whole lot not included in the calculator here as well
Owning a home too far from amenities isn't worth much. Same with living too far from where the weather is hospitable, food is available, or the people with skills I need have settled.
[1] Bankrate
[2] BLS
Omaha is cheaper but you can’t go mountain hiking or surfing or skiing on your day off.
Most 17 year olds do.
Is the Bay area perfect? For me, no. I don’t live there. I live somewhere better that’s within driving day trip distance. But if I was young, it would be a different story.
2,000 hours / year (straight time, 10 paid days PTO), $35/hour is $70k base.
P.S. Union Journeyman Welder, Bay Area median salary is $26 ~ $36.82 = $52,000 to $72,400.
"The median household income in the Bay Area was $128,151 in 2022, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. This represents a slight decrease from $132,586 in 2019. " So.. 56% of median household income? If him, and his gf worked, then they would collectively make 112% of median household income.
This isn’t to take anything away from your son’s achievements and congrats to him and you all should of course be proud of his accomplishments. I think though it’s useful to compare and contrast blue collar and white collar wages in terms of effort per dollar earned as well when discussing options to kids. There’s nothing wrong with working harder for that amount, especially when you love the work because then you get even more pride out of it, but some kids may want to work harder in the “short” term via a professional education for the long term easier path or have better job stability even in the face of physical ailments.
[1] I did not say some people don’t enjoy physical work but do physical work anyway.
[2] I did not say there is anything wrong with a preference for office jobs.
He's a special case sure, but if you have business sense you don't have to top out at the high end of the hourly scale.
In software there's widespread "age discrimination". Mostly it's companies not really valuing experience in software much, so they'd rather hire a younger guy for much less. But the outcome is the same - software is a relatively shortlived occupation for most people, and that's after spending another 4+ years in university, then spending however much time paying off your debts, and then finally seeing your full salary.
By contrast working in the trades until retirement is entirely possible. And it's undoubtedly better for your body as well. Our bodies are meant for doing things - not idle sitting and staring at screens. I did software and CS, but will not be recommending it to my children. At this point I think the best future proofing is some sort of field where computer science is applied, rather than the occupation itself, like electrical engineering.
Amazing words for everybody to consider.
I'm not a parent, so I'm a little hesitant to disagree, but this seems like the dumbest thing I've heard in my life.
Wages are exactly the path to wealth and security -- the matter is what you do with those wages. You can't own things without receiving wages unless you inherit your wealth.
If what you were trying to say is that the best path to being wealthy is to already be wealthy, then I definitely agree, but for those born missing their silver spoon wages are the only way.
Your kid had his silver spoon (no offense intended here), and it seems like he's going to be a balanced person because he'll probably be able to see and appreciate different worlds, so congrats on that. I find it hard to believe someone can go into a field like welding (knowing tech exists, and having the aptitude).
I am curious to hear though -- what is your plan? In my own pre-parent mind it seems like this is a chance to teach him about as much of the world and the people around him/society above and below him as you can before settles into his life (clearly there's a ton of time left to change, etc). The struggles of the average blue collar worker are very different from that of the white collar worker -- but the right advice about the various big things in life I'd imagine would make a world of difference.
With regard to owning things, knowing things like "banks giving out mortgages are playing a trust game -- and they trust you a lot more if you have 50 working years left". It's possible of course to get a bad mortgage, but the first rung of the ladder is more about projections more than anything for young people. In the Bay Area I'm sure that... isn't reasonable advice though since your housing market is absolutely insane.
Also, is he going into welding with some sort add-on skills? Like welding with a little bit of CS/robotics? Welding with a passion for cooking? etc. The (currently) secondary skill tree can completely change careers.
It’s a secured asset, so if you turn 65 and need to go into a nursing home for some , or die, they’re confident they can recoup the balance of the loan from the house when it is auctioned off or sold to another family member.
Thanks for noting this, this was definitely a possibility I hadn't weighed enough, though I'm not sure it's always another family member (I assume you meant another family member or any random bidder)
> Banks do not engage in age discrimination in giving mortgages. You can get one at age 20 or age 60, all else being equal.
I find it hard to believe the suggestion here that as far as 30y loan repayment goes, all else equal, a 60 year old earning 70k a year is similarly risky to a 20 year old earning the same rate? From first principles, this clearly doesn't hold.
Now, I assume you were referring to the illegality of considering age in loans -- it is illegal to consider age, but in this case the "age discrimination" is baked in -- because it's built into credit scores[0][1]. The common sense take prevails here, I think.
Actual results on the ground often differ from what is and isn't legal/right, as anyone who is in an underrepresented class will attest to (I do not mean this in the preachy liberal sense, it's just the best way I can find to say it), I think this might be one of those cases (guess I'll find out when I'm 60?).
[0]: https://www.aarp.org/money/personal-finance/mortgage-rejecti...
[1]: https://www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/frbp/assets/working-...
The philadelphia fed link notes that older people who apply for loans are being denied more often, but there's lots of potential reasons for that. Aggregate economic stats, other than credit score, in the table at the end look worse to my eye near the top age brackets (but maybe not at the same levels that rejection started climbing).
It's not clear to me when it says age discrimination is prohibited, but mortality expectations are allowed. Seems like the same thing to me.
The paper suggests there may be an element of selection, which resonates with me. Looking at my parents and their siblings, most all of them would have had a mortgage 30 years ago and likely be in these statistics; now, those with higher retirment incomes also seem to be the ones that paid off their mortgages and aren't interested in a new one.
Wages are exactly the path to wealth and security -- the matter is what you do with those wages.
But not everyone who became wealthy did so by selling their time to an employer (definition of wage).
No, you can also build things to achieve wealth – for example, you can build a company and achieve wealth this way. This doesn't necessarily have to be a pump&dump startup, lots of entrepreneurs became wealthy by founding a sustainable business.
Don't waiters in the Bay Area make almost that much? This is not a middle class wage in that region.
Edit: Yes waiters make that much https://www.reddit.com/r/sanfrancisco/s/JlymaN4MPK
I think the biggest misconception with any of the trades jobs is that yes, you can make 70K+, even 100K+, but that involves lots of overtime.
We also just know that, blue or white, there is no raise structure in society anymore. You can't just do honest work or even be loyal and expect it to pay off financially.
What's loyalty got to do with this? I'm not "loyal" to my employer and I don't know anyone who is. If I find a job that pays better, and offers better conditions, I'll take it. Why would anyone do anything else, and why would anyone put any value on that?
For example someone might like their co-workers, enjoy the projects they work on, and want to see the current product (that they have invested so many time into) succeed. But at the same time, they might not care about company itself at all. If the project got closed and co-workers left, they will move to a new company with no hesitation.
But that is the point of the GP. Ostensibly, employers once paid for loyalty by offering consistent raises. That is done now.
There are salaried employees making less who also work 60 hours a week and don't even get overtime (granted, their jobs are likely less physically demanding).
Scoffing at $75k for a kid's first job out of high school is so completely out of touch with reality.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_income_in_the_United_...
Both jobs drained my will to live though. The mailman job was actually much nicer, just the pay was total ass.
https://breathefreely.org.uk/guidance-on-exposure-to-mangene...
>The WEL for Manganese (since 2018) in the UK for those small particles that reach the deep lung (known as respirable particles) is 0.05mg/m3 (8hr TWA), a tenth of the previous WEL.
This change is significant as much of the manganese in the fume will be respirable. It is likely that the respirable limit will be exceeded during many welding activities unless effective controls are introduced and used properly.
If you can do that successfully, you can get FAANG money.
https://www.bls.gov/oes/current/oes472152.htm https://www.ibisworld.com/industry-statistics/number-of-busi...
Yes, white collar jobs can require overtime but not all and not always but that is kinda besides the point. Why are we promoting work that requires 50-60+ hours a week to get by?
At the end of the day, people need to discover themselves and find what they excel at. Who am I to tell people that they’ll enjoy my job and be as good at it as I am. No one should tell me to start a career in chemistry or playing an instrument. I’ve already tried it.
If your son can avoid having to buy into the Bay Area housing market (by living on property you own/pay for), he can make good money and probably will have little trouble finding work for years to come.
For trades, thousands of people apply to be apprentices, for a few spots
Granted, this is in the Bay Area
Working 40 hours at $20/hr = 800/week.
Work 40 hours at $25 and 20 at $37.5 = $1750 which is enough to live in the Bay Area.
Yes! I learned this from the infamous "Poor dad, rich dad" book. Being an asset owner is probably the best way to become "free".
The quality of work though is extremely poor if I compare what one would expect in e.g. Germany. I guess that's the advantage of the German apprenticeship system where tradespeople get proper training and not take a couple month course at a tafe and then start their own business.
I remember countless stories like this circulating when I was in high school. Someone who wasn’t going to college was instead going off to do some obscure thing like work on oil rigs or do welding in hazardous locations.
The hook was always that they heard a friend of a friend brag about some extreme hourly rate they made one time a few years ago and assumed that’s just what the job always paid.
Then they went out and did it, learned that the job was terrible, and discovered that the average pay was a lot less than the all-time highest number that people would quote.
Plumbers and electricians in Australia both do four year apprenticeships, with some time at TAFE and the rest training on the job.
The quality problems you see are generally less about training, and more the result of financially-motivated corner cutting.
Why? Sounds like IT is a better fit for her?
Good welding requires intense focus/nondistractions, which some people on the spectrum really enjoy.
I also own Bump It Offroad in Windsor, CO. We do some CNC (plasma table) as well. I pay welders about $70k/year plus benefits, to start. They’re both college drop-outs, but smart and willing to learn.
Though I grew up in the trades, it’s not about “dues” for me, but more work ethic and willingness to learn.
It seems like around here it's definitely some interest in some of those skills. I gather the Bugatti guy has some need of them.
edit: (I've got a 100 series, so I'll keep an eye on BIO)
FRCC only offers machining in Boulder Co. Welding (only mentioned because that’s what this tread is about) is offered in Larimer though.
I know of several job opportunities today in the northern part of the Front Range that need toolpath programming.
The kid built a CNC router for his HS FRC/FTC club as an Eagle Scout project, then ended up at Mines.
p.s. We have 100 series product now.
https://www.seattletimes.com/pacific-nw-magazine/as-tech-job...
It was a great program. It was offered in connection with local state and community colleges. You could get credit for some of your high school work if you continued on in the field. The local employers knew about it so they would stop by often to see what students were learning and to suggest new directions for the entire class.
Never seen anything like it before or since which was the 1990s. It was a way to start paying your dues before you even left high school. You wouldn't command an awesome salary right out of school but you could easily insert yourself into the trades with almost no down time.
Part of the small business trades success narrative is built upon trust, trust that in youth, doing good work will create a reputation within your community that will be remembered, and form the foundation for a brand (your name) that can attract the next generation of youth to be developed, trained, etc.
If successful small businesses only exist to get acquired, so that both workers and customers suffer, that foundation of trust will struggle to persist.
So, if you live in a poorer community and serve a poorer community, you likely make more than most in the poorer community, and likely gain respect if you do a good job.
if I'm understanding that correctly, I have to giggle, because there are plenty of ways for institutional money to have lower taxes than ordinary income tax rates. waaaay lower than the carried interest "loophole".
also, to me, loopholes are unintended things that no one person in government or branch of government noticed. like a couple of private letter rulings from the IRS combined with an accounting tweak in a budget appropriations bill. carried interest isn't one of those to me when it was directly passed by congress explicitly and deliberately affirmed multiple times in subsequent legislation.
but I could be misunderstanding your post entirely.
The average small business does not exist to get acquired. Only a very small number of small businesses are even interesting to private equity.
I fear we will get ( because we need them ) many thousands more skilled workers in the trades to build more again but they’ll also be too easily bamboozled by charlatans like Trump and vote in policies that will screw us all
Those who want education on subjects taught in high school (whatever their value is) will get it themselves. Those who don't want it won't get it even if you send them to high school.
Between American states rolling back child labor laws, and the current federal administration's promising vision of factory and coal jobs for children and their future generations, there will be enough jobs that don't require useless high school diplomas.
Eliminating income tax and increasing tariffs to gorillion percent is just part of the equation. Rolling back of high school education is critical to truly achieve the dream of the "good old days."
This is probably also true. High school standards have been lowered so much that everybody with a pulse can graduate so the degree is meaningless in terms of educational achievement. Basically just a filter now that says "I am at least one tiny step above a total retard or a complete 100% screw up."
I worked jobs part time as young as 14. Child labor laws are mainly about keeping kids in school rather than protecting them from anything bad because with our society defined around credentials, failing to obtain them is bad for that child's future. But that's just a rule we made up. There's absolutely no reason that a 14 year old who has finished 8th grade and knows how to read and do basic math couldn't go off and apprentice to a trade and be successful. In 1910 only 10% of Americans had finished high school and we still had a perfectly well functioning society. And at that time only 2 % had college degrees and still we were in an era of rapid scientific progress and economic growth.
I'm going to guess the kids that are inherently interested in this will research it themselves. The ones who are not, won't. I'm one of the former.
Most people will still be going through education with specific career goals in mind, however lamentable that is. And then they will claim they also learned critical thinking.
A broad educational basis may have virtues but it is very unlikely the only path towards it. Even putting aside how 'holistic' critical thinking tends to be held as diametrically opposed to the practical. Often straw-manning the practical as robotic or inhuman. The idea that the practical is opposed to a holistic understanding is simply not true at all. Ask anybody who took and understood Calculus for one.
The concept of the practical as intrinsically bad is a stupidity of considerable vintage, dating back to at least Ancient Greece for reasons which is of course totally unrelated to the intellectuals of the day being funded by slave owners trying to purchase self-justification from those trying to avoid physical labor. That was sarcasm by the way, just to be clear. That same diseased thought of the practical as unworthy should have been put to bed by the Industrial Revolution at least.
Related is a certain actor, clearly following his passions, preaching the same nonsense: "give up on your dreams! go into skilled trade and wreck your body for okay pay!"
Part of the "follow your dreams" advice that a lot of people seemed to miss is that "following your dreams" doesn't mean "major in that subject and try to not get Cs", it means obsess over that thing and work so hard at it you're always in the top 1% or higher for that craft. The reason you should chase your dreams is they're the only thing you can reasonably hope to obsess over enough for long enough to have a competitive advantage.
While not all of them are "rich", everyone I know who sincerely followed their passion to the point that other people thought they were a bit crazy are all able to survive, often pretty well, doing something they love.
Neither path is necessarily the correct one for everybody, but the proportion of people going for degrees instead of other paths is too high.
This is like those people that thought smartphones were a fad.
I found this in a few seconds of searching: https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/ai-replacing-artists-heres-p...
Anyway that's off topic. It doesn't need to completely replace people to not be a fad.
I feel like there's a modern dark-comedy film in there where a guy in the 90's gets a journalism degree only to find the industry collapsing with the internet — so he trains to switch careers to taxi driver....
They (three daughters) have no problem with 2), some struggle though even with 1).
My secretary, single mom pushed my sister to go to college so we would be happier than she was raising two kids and working at more or less minimum wage. (It turned out my degree, Education, didn't figure into my ultimate career as a programmer at Apple but it did allow me to buy a Mac Plus while in college with a student loan and at half the non-educational price — so I tought myself to program, wrote some games. It also introduced me to peers that were unhappy with the otherwise-prospect of playing D&D and working at Walmart for their foreseeable future.)
I guess my point is that when "messaging" our kids, we are reacting of course to what we disliked about the path we took as well as what we liked.
They'll do what they want, live their own lives ... regardless of what I tell them though. I accepted that a long time ago.
I realized a long time ago that there are a lot of people that absolutely will not function if they cannot do a job with their hands where they can feel like they did something at the end of each day. (In fact I might almost be one of those people.) Keeping some manufacturing as well as good (union?) trade jobs is a smart move for a country/society.
>I remember earning nearly exactly that wage back in the early 2000s, and barely making ends meet in a cheap rental
I made $10/hr my first job after college while living in a studio by myself in 2011 (and that was with student loan payments!), and I was barely able to get by, so how were you barely able to get by then on almost $70k a year?
[0] https://www.sofi.com/learn/content/average-salary-in-us/
The average rent nationally is $1860. In the Bay Area it’s $2650.
That’s not to say it’s bad. But the numbers are meaningless without some localized pricing or cost adjustment.
If there aren’t enough homes to go around, home prices will rise to a level that only the wealthier can afford.
It had both good and bad traits.
It was very structured and rigorous. When you graduated, you were ready to go directly into full-time work at almost any organization (the NSA and CIA used to recruit from our school).
It stressed practicum, over theory, though, so you came out more as a "doer," than a "thinker." All of my theoretical stuff, I learned on my own, after getting my first job. I did OK with that, as I was fairly quickly promoted into engineering (and was introduced to "exempt" pay).
uproot from what, though?
It's not like people disrupt their investment banking careers to become plumbers.
The alternative (perhaps a pointless college degree with debt + barista job + realtor license) is worse.
Every day he works in the shop, sweating through long shifts, but somehow still has the energy at night to tell us stories—about the machine he fixed, or how he spotted a tiny issue just by the sound it made.
That feeling of solving something and seeing the result immediately. I’ve never felt that in a year of sitting at a desk.
Sometimes I wonder if being truly respectable isn’t about how much you earn, but whether you feel proud of what you do.
Most programmers think too highly of themselves.
Software projects have the exact same problems as construction jobs, with the main difference liability.
I mostly agree but dimensionality is also a huge one. Being constrained to 3 dimensions and standard building materials really limits the problem space. It's why you can probably figure out how to build a structure where all the entrances lock but you definitely shouldn't roll your own crypto.
I'm not clear what you mean by that. Most of the library code I deal with is far from ideal (IMO). Even most of the things I implement aren't ideal because either I'm interacting with the real world or even if not I don't want to spend unlimited time fully generalizing it.
As a concrete example, absolutely nothing that touches floating point arithmetic is "ideal" in any sense of the word.
That’s kind of hard with a foundation, or other materials
No git, version control, copy paste.
You need to a bigger crane? Ouch.
Rainy season causes some delay? Welcome to the domino effect.
Supply chain issues? Oh well.. you better have good contracts.
Most applications are a 2D problem space: carthesian products.
I don't immediately see an analogy to supply chain issues but then I hadn't intended this as a pissing contest to begin with.
It's interesting to me that I'm getting defensive replies when all I pointed out was the increased dimensionality of the problem space when writing code versus assembling a physical product. I don't think that observation can realistically be contested.
Yes.
I'm not sure this is a serious question, but the two have nothing at all in common. Anyone who says otherwise either has never welded or never used a computer.
One goes "commit to nothing, you can always change it later, hundreds of convenient tools at hand, move super quick but you don't 'finish' it, you just 'abandon' it".
The other is "commit early, make the best you can since changing anything is expensive, not too many tools, slap the roof and proclaim it good enough, ship it".
The difference is mostly due to destructive vs non-destructive workflows.
I'm not really saying one is better than the other, or even that the difficulty is different... but process-wise those things are miles apart.
When i was a kid, i'm always fascinated with toys that my best toys is the screwdriver that i used to take apart other toys.
Now, seeing a line of code somehow make the machine break in flames still very amusing to me.
This requires that I know what's going on mechanically _and_ at what expected behavior of the embedded systems should be (PLCs, device firmware/software packages, network security, etc).
Like you, I was pushed to go to college after high school, only to find out later that college is an industry, not an institution, so the rhetoric about not being able to get a good job without a degree was really just a sales pitch to get my lower-class parents to take out loans they could not afford so me, a veritable child at the time, could make a major decision that would set the tone for the rest of my life. It's a lot of systemically flawed Capitalistic nonsense.
In my field, we _desperately_ need people who understand (at the very least) basic electronics and mechanics, but also the software side of things. The amount of techs from other companies, companies with a much larger and more public reputation than my employers mind you, that do not seem to have a grasp on the basics is astounding and alarming. But even the competent electromechanical techs are weak on how the software or firmware functions, which is often a big key to the "wtf is wrong" puzzle.
I'm not even a coder/programmer, but I know enough to get by and make effort to learn something about programming embedded systems or software for Controls every day, and while I am still an amateur, my god, it gives me quite the edge over a lot of the other guys.
You don't have to be trapped at a desk. Mechanical aptitude can be developed, but it starts by not being afraid to take the screws out and seeing what you can just figure out. The pride you mention comes from that, but you also touched on something else; tangible results. Believe me, I have respect for devs who can create a piece of software from start to finish, but when I manage to bring a slag-crusted horrifyingly-neglected machine back to live after a catastrophic failure that had Automaker X sweating $10000 bullets, it is a real thrill, one that infuses me with great energy for days, sometimes weeks. That's why your friend likes sharing those stories!
Your friend seems to have a certain type of intelligence, while you and your other friends have a different type of intelligence.
Part of the current political situation is in part due to the traditionally intelligent people looking down on the rest of society.
For a functioning society we need all types of intelligence, and we need to value them all. Equally.
Well, everyone has this energy at 18. Can you do this "sweating through long manual labor shifts" for 10, 20, 30 years?
If you get hurt or just your body gives up (back pain, neck pain, arthritis or what else), you're in a much worse position as a "trade worker" than an office worker.
Not mentioning how much they'd love to replace you with machines, immigrants or younger workers. This is true in an office setting also but bureaucracy somehow finds a way to survive.
techpineapple•19h ago
I sort of have two theories. One is that you probably have to be relatively smart to go into the trades. I remember listening to a podcast recently on military recruitment and they said because the military is so modern, they have to do most of their recruiting in middle class neighborhoods with good schools.
Which means that maybe somewhat unintuitively, there are no separate paths — college for good students, trade school and military for I dunno, “non-academic/street smarts or whatever you wan to call it. — trade schools, the military and colleges are actually all competing for the same students.
The second theory is tied to the first one, but for all the marketing on how great these jobs are, there are structural / practical problems with them. From how they pay, to lack of job security to the havoc they can wreak on your body.
WillAdams•18h ago
Cut my teeth on texts such as:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7326227-steel-square
and have bought (and given away) more copies of:
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30685840-practical-shop-...
and
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/54328381-construction-ge...
than I'd care to count.
Current project has me working through: the _Make: Geometry/Trigonometry/Calculus_ books (and looking for a good book on conic sections which has optimized formulae to speed up/simplify what are currently a series of chained trigonometric functions...).
mmooss•18h ago
The conservative / GOP tactics are usually the same, and everyone else has, at conservative urging, disarmed themselves - they've abandoned postmodern understanding of communication, which the conservatives strategically embrace:
They reframe issues: College is reframed - it was that knowledge was power, the key to life, citzenship, work, and sharpening your mind, your critical thinking, with the best thinkers and ideas in history was the most powerful tool. Now college is reframed as a training in employment skills for corporations. Life was about dreams and opportunity, fulfilling your potential and your dreams; now it's about making enough to survive. They refame America: It was the land of opportunity, where by working hard anyone had the opportunity to accomplish anything, not a class-based oppressive system like Europe and elsewhere; now you stay in your socioeconomic lane, take any job you can get, and (again) survive - what does a poor kid need college for?
How you frame issues can determine the outcome of the discussion. 'Should we murder unborn babies?', 'Should we let undocumented criminals into the country?' - obviously, the answer is in how the question is framed (and often the framing is much more subtle than these easy examples). That doesn't mean there aren't merits to both sides but framing is a way to prevent discussion of the merits.
They also demonize: Everything must include a criticism of 'liberals'. Almost as a display of bona fides, you'll see that commentary must always include an attack on liberals, even if it's a critique of something the GOP/conservatives is doing. Similarly they blame 'liberals' for every problem, no matter how absurd. They blame liberals for immigration, health care, lack of green energy, etc. etc. If you read the transcripts of the leaked Signal chats, you'll see their agreed-upon talking points included, without discussion, 'blame Biden'. Biden isn't even in office and will never run again, but that's a must.
And why wouldn't they do these things? They work and nobody puts up any resistance; nobody even tries to understand their tactics or why they work and dominate the public debate. The Democrats play helpless - not a winning strategy and IMHO the reason they lose; who votes for helpless? And many liberals now embrace victimhood -- helplessness + persecution = a lack of personal responsibility for anything -- another winning strategy.
fallingknife•14h ago
jltsiren•13h ago
One way to look at this is through different motivations to studying: internal (you want to learn things), external (you want to be successful at whatever is being measured), and pragmatic (you want to pass the classes, get the degree, and move on). Universities prefer internally motivated students – those who study to learn rather than for jobs and career success. They can try to educate people with other motivations, but what those students want is inherently in conflict with what the professors want.
mmooss•12h ago
> Universities are the main gatekeepers of the class based oppressive system you complain about.
How so? Before Republicans cut funding, universities were widely available, especially public ones. Many like NYC's city colleges were free. Once you got a degree, you were in a different socioeconomic class, but degrees were available to those who could get them. The number of people with degrees grew considerably, including through programs like the GI Bill. That's substantial opportunity and class mobility.
Now whether you get into college depends, most of all, on the class you're born into. US social mobility has dropped significantly.
fallingknife•11h ago
> Once you got a degree, you were in a different socioeconomic class,
Yeah, maybe in 1960 when 8% of Americans had a degree, but not today when 40% do: https://educationdata.org/education-attainment-statistics
A degree can either be a ticket to a high status job or common. It can't be both. As a society we have resolved this contradiction by making a tiered system where people nominally have the same degree, but actually only the ones from exclusive, high status schools count. And somehow the low status degrees cost almost as much as the high status ones even though they have a fraction of the value. But apparently a lot of people didn't get the memo and still think their low status degree is a ticket to a high status job.
> but degrees were available to those who could get them
So you are saying that degrees are less available now even though the number of people who have them has gone up 5x since 1960? Citation needed, because that fundamentally makes no sense.
> Now whether you get into college depends, most of all, on the class you're born into.
So you are telling me that in 1960 when 8% of people had a college degree, those 8% were a meritocratic sampling of all classes of society, but today when 40% of people have a degree, that 40% is somehow only the upper middle class? Again, citation needed, because that fundamentally makes no sense.
mmooss•6h ago
It becomes meaningless. You just rewrote history - the GOP was apparently liberal all that time. Who knew? The actual liberals sure didn't; they despised Nixon and Reagan. You're just saying that the modern rightward lurch is somehow the reality of the century before it happened.
> A degree can either be a ticket to a high status job or common.
You still are framing it around jobs.
> only the ones from exclusive, high status schools count
The overall average income for people with college degrees is much higher. That can't be because of the few who went to elite schools.
> So you are telling me that in 1960 when 8% of people had a college degree, those 8% were a meritocratic sampling of all classes of society, but today when 40% of people have a degree, that 40% is somehow only the upper middle class?
The leading predictor of college education now is your parents' income.
mindslight•18h ago
I've got to wonder if a deeper dynamic is that you now have to be relatively "smart" to go into the trades because perhaps the teaching/curricula is lacking, making it so that more base general intelligence / self starting on abstract concepts is required to actually learn in the first place. Trade classes should be an opportunity for people who missed the verbal-communication-of-abstract-topics meta-intelligence to develop their intelligence focused around a narrower topic that they taking a liking to. But if the teacher is really uninspired, and the curriculum shies away from actually creating larger cool things or playing with different techniques, (or becomes about following the manual for procedures for poorly-documented poorly-written throwaway proprietary software) I can see it coming off as yet another "when are we going to need this" high school class.
techpineapple•18h ago
But if you try to design a curriculum for say “math you need to be an electrician for people who failed math class”. You’re mostly going to get people who just don’t have the whatever they need to be good enough at math to be an electrician.
mindslight•15h ago
And I'm just wondering if the safety-and-HR-uber-alles dynamic has stamped out a lot a of that physical-skills-first in favor of like, dry lessons trying to tell people all about wiring before they actually get to play with wires. Thus making it so the same people who succeed here are the traditionally "smart" ones that can take abstract knowledge and store it for later, before having something tangible to apply it to.
(electrician might not be the best example for this because the differences between good/unsafe/unpowered wiring are still pretty abstract, but hopefully you can see the point regardless)
SoftTalker•18h ago
yupitsme123•10h ago
__turbobrew__•5h ago
AngryData•4m ago
kmeisthax•18h ago
The reality is, of course, that their kids weren't nearly as conservative as the parents thought. But that doesn't stop the salient myth of liberal indoctrination in colleges.
Trade schools come into play mainly as a totem to hold up against liberal colleges. They are being played up as a sort of bastion of conservative thought, mainly because they don't have those pesky general ed requirements that might accidentally tell people how to fight against the elites running the system.
There's a kernel of truth in all of this, in that there's some trades that shouldn't have been left out of the STEM paths that colleges like to push as an obvious moneymaker. The culture war is ultimately one of mottes and baileys, where you take some truth and ride it as one's political hobby-horse. Hell, just to explain why this happens I've already had to do the same thing.
[0] In the same way that some people think tech companies can "hack our dopamine loops" or whatever
techpineapple•18h ago
repeekad•18h ago
On net I agree with what you’re saying, but know that the culture war isn’t total bs one sided, and my unremarkable school had plenty of bad examples like this. Evergreen university in 2017 barring white people from attending class for a day was particularly embarrassing.
whatshisface•17h ago
repeekad•17h ago
kmeisthax•15h ago
If SBU had an indoctrination ray, they certainly had it on the wrong setting[1]. I'd already been firmly radicalized by Ron Paul revoLution warriors on Reddit into mainlining LvMI blog posts about Austrian economics and anarcho-capitalism by the end of my first year. It wasn't until I was leaving school when my political positions shifted away from that.
[0] To be clear, SBU notoriously had a heterodox economics professor who was unabashedly a Marxist. I never met him, I only heard about the professor from one of the school newspapers.
[1] Which, given everything else managed by the state of New York, would be totally on-brand for them.
const_cast•11h ago
lurk2•16h ago
It isn’t a myth.
> mainly because they don't have those pesky general ed requirements that might accidentally tell people how to fight against the elites running the system.
There is value in a varied education, but a substantial number of Gen Ed requirements are used as a soap box by professors who would really rather be teaching something else. Social sciences and the arts tend to be the worst for it: Communications, English, Sociology, and Anthropology. Students want to get rid of these Gen Ed requirements primarily because the course content is treated as ancillary to Foucault, Adorno, and other dead-end thinkers.
https://www.nas.org/academic-questions/31/2/homogenous_the_p...
fallingknife•14h ago
There is no group of people I have encountered in my life that I have as much contempt for as the professors and administrators at the $60K tuition (I went for free) private university that pretended like they were fighting against the elites that run the system when they are, if fact, those elites. The level of delusion in the non hard science parts of academia is absolutely mind blowing.
aspenmayer•9h ago
And you hold this contempt because you believe that these teachers are actually elites in disguise trying to hoodwink our kids?
Have you considered the possibility that you’re wrong about them being elites, or at least to what degree and in what context and sphere of influence? Who benefits from misdirecting legitimate ire away from wealthy elite society and toward middle class intellectual elite society?
fallingknife•7h ago
aspenmayer•7h ago
I’m not sure who you’re arguing got such a great deal here, as I can definitely identify a few benefitting parties, but it isn’t the teachers, or the middle or lower class folks.
Finger pointing won’t solve the problem, and individuals have unique circumstances and abilities to pay. I’m not sure if you have to work for a living that it is even reasonable to use the word “wealth” in the same way that those who make money from returns on capital use the word.
fallingknife•3h ago
Make $150K and you're in the top 10% of the US and top 1% of the world. But go right ahead and waste your golden ticket complaining about how unfair it is that you aren't in that top 0.1%. And if they were, then they would be bitter about that 0.01% because if you make over $100K and can't be happy with it, your problem isn't financial.
aspenmayer•3h ago
I’m not trying to change the subject, I’m presenting my point of view related to my understanding of the thread and the OP to you, in order to help you understand how I see the world, so that I might understand you and the world and myself more fully. I happen to be situated in a context so I can’t really step outside myself and be truly objective but I’m trying to engage with the conversation in good faith and assume you are as well so I’m not sure what specifically you found to be a diversion about my remarks in whole or in part.
“Six figure profs” are topped out as far as income growth. The ones working over the summer may never reach six figures. There are working class, middle class, and upper class teachers, professors, and instructors. To make six figures as one, you’re going to have to be doing it for a while at a high level, at a good school, in a field that makes money for the institution.
I would continue, but I don’t want to “change the subject” so I’ll await your reply.
lr4444lr•12h ago
TMWNN•18h ago
This has been the case for a long time. For almost the entirety of the post-1973 end of US military conscription, a high school diploma has been required to enlist. From a 2008 study <http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2008/08/who-serves-...>: "Members of the all-volunteer [American] military are significantly more likely to come from high-income neighborhoods than from low-income neighborhoods." Also, "American soldiers are more educated than their peers. A little more than 1 percent of enlisted personnel lack a high school degree, compared to 21 percent of men 18-24 years old, and 95 percent of officer accessions have at least a bachelor's degree ... Contrary to conventional wisdom, minorities are not overrepresented in military service."
nradov•18h ago
intermerda•13h ago