We Americans focus so very very often on how we disagree rather than how we agree. If you look at both parties, they broadly agree on so many things. Instead we focus on unimportant social issues, shaving a couple percent off government spending, and so on.
The educational system we have now is largely a scam, it promises that if you spend tens of thousands (or more) dollars on a 4 year degree, you'd have a good job waiting on the other side, and its largely BS. We need vocational training, we need training for non white collar career options, and no one is really working on it. I make a salary of that of a skilled professional - with no formal education beyond high school - it's been a long fight to get here though, perhaps it could have been easier otherwise. The other problem with the current college education program is a lack of correlation between cost and outcome, it's something that needs to be looked into.
He also hits on a point - the government doesnt create jobs, so it doesnt matter what congress does, or what the president does, its the job of the government to create a stable environment (regulatory and otherwise) so the economy can go and create jobs. I believe our government is largely failing at this.
On to the skills gap - I disagree with him on one point, companies are largely unwilling to train - there are jobs for which I'm broadly qualified for, but can't get because I'm missing one specialized skill or another for. If companies were willing to train, they would be able to fill most of those unfilled jobs.
I kind of choked on his message of tolerance. We says we should stop talking about how we disagree, then he goes on a tirade against all the lazy, spoiled, stupid people. "We shouldn't disagree on party, but, if you don't agree with me and the GOP, you're a stupid, lazy slob!"
He writes very well, but he's still spouting right-wing, pseudo-libertarian nonsense.
The pseudo-libertarian nonsense is unpleasant for me, too, but I see great value in cheer leading for blue collar work.
I don't know of anyone else saying "Blue collar work is an honorable thing to do, and you're a fool to judge someone for doing it." At least no one with as high a profile as MR.
Some people do seem to genuinely look down on 'blue collar' work.
Last week, my sisters friends went for a meal out to celebrate her birthday. Her boyfriend drives freight trains, and seems to get some strange attitude from her friends. They are mostly working for free while trying to break into film, or journalism. A few are teachers, which the others seem to see as 'giving up'. Yes, they are hipsters.
I loved this conversation:
Sophie - 'so taking this as an axiom... sorry, have you heard that word before'
Sisters Boyfriend - 'Well, a long time ago my masters was in philosophy ...'
Sophie (double takes) - '... but... why are you driving trains? Surely you could find something better?'
Sisters Boyfriend - 'Well, why are you working as a receptionist for free?'
I both farm and write software professionally. I find the differences in reactions that I get, depending on which career I claim to have, to be quite amazing.
edit: Plus, driving trains doesn't seem like a bad job to me. I had a friend who drove freights in the 90's, and he really enjoyed it. Also, your sister's friend is a clueless hipster: driving freight trains was one of the dream jobs of those original hipsters, the beatniks.
I don't see him as touting anything right-wing, IMO - he is touting the 'Don't demonize the opposition' idea, a worthy one at that. He also advocates market solutions, which in many cases solve problems with a whole lot less effort and in a 'cleaner' (read less complex) way - for example, the CAFE standards versus just raising the taxes on gas, both would accomplish the same goals of increasing fuel economy for cars sold. One does it with a bunch of complex regulation, the other does it thru a market mechanism.
Sometimes market mechanisms are really hard to apply, things like roads, healthcare, public safety, and so on. But when you can use a market based mechanism in a market economy its almost always the least complex and most efficient way to solve problems.
Yeah, I'm with you. I just wish it wasn't portrayed as such a partisan, negative thing. Which is frustrating because that's how he leads.
I wish he could have just said "we have an untapped well of jobs which sit between unskilled jobs and highly skilled tech jobs. Someone has to run all these new computers. If you go to a trade school, you can get a good job in less time and with no debt."
Heck, liberals and Democrats should be psyched for this message. Because:
1) people who graduate from trade schools join unions
2) green energy production needs these skills more than older oil companies do. Sun doesn't turn itself into electricity.
3) this sort of training is usually close to urban centers, which means more business for blue-leaning cities
I don't believe in unions as the ideal situation for workers or employers, I believe strongly when a company ends up with a union, it's because they did something stupid.
Didn't pay enough, treated employees unfairly, poor working environment, any number of things, but generally something that could have been mitigated by 'doing the right thing' in the first place.
To be fair, the bigger unions aren't tied to their employers. There are, for sure, large companies with their own unions, or that might ought to have their own unions (e.g., Wal-Mart), but most of the larger unions arise from historical conditions that may or may not pertain to a given employer.
I've been a union member in the past, but I don't generally see the need for unions to exist in anywhere near the capacity that they do -- that said, for a counterpoint that justifies their existence, check out Harlan County, USA[1]. It's a documentary that illustrates how bad exploitative employers can be in the US.
And of course, the other counter to anti-union sentiment is that unions are just people. Employers have, like it or not, economic power over their employers, which could (or could not) be leveraged for abuse. Employee collusion is the fairly obvious counter to that advantage.
In short, my opinion of unions has evolved from unions are the worst -- to unions are great, in theory, but often bad in practice.
Exactly. One thing that always gets me annoyed about immigration debates is about how there exist so many jobs that Americans are "unwilling to do". Why? Why is there a stigma against certain jobs? If it is a question of a living wage, surely, those immigrants who are taking up those jobs are making a "living" with those wages.
One reason why is because Americans are more atomised culturally than people from, say, Mexico or Guatamala. Americans believe that you should live independently after you graduate from HS (or else go to college) and don't generally want to live in a home with multiple families or even the same family consisting of multiple generations under a single roof.
>If it is a question of a living wage, surely, those immigrants who are taking up those jobs are making a "living" with those wages.
Well no, they're not. They are not making what Americans consider a living. You might say Americans have spoiled, overly-high standards, but hey, it's America, so Americans have a right to set their own standards.
Fun story- lettuce picking used to be relatively high skilled and high paying, and the lettuce pickers were the backbone of Cesar Chavez's unionizing. This made them expensive enough that it was worth automating their jobs away. Today, a guy with an extremely fancy tractor does it.
I read the article, I didn't see any of what you describe. Can you provide an example or two?
He is railing against the modern notion that everyone should go to college and that a degree is the only path to success. This is prevalent and I grew up being told the same thing. It's not all explicit, but when the high school -> college -> white collar career is all you are pushed toward, all that is emphasized, other paths (skilled trades namely) are implicitly marginalized. Many people my age and younger view a job such as an electrician or a tool and die maker as a failure and it is unfortunate.
> The educational system we have now is largely a scam, it promises that if you spend tens of thousands (or more) dollars on a 4 year degree, you'd have a good job waiting on the other side, and its largely BS.
So I didn't grow up in the United States so I am not aware of what high school counsellors teach kids, but are there people really selling the idea that if you go to Podunk university and study Asian comparative literature, you will end up with a good job?
The other thing that surprises me about blanket statements like this is why is personal responsibility missing? Especially in a country with such vast free flow of information? I am not knocking on the idea of going to college learn in a structured way anything you like. However, surely complaining you can't get a job at the end because the market can hire only so many English majors or Philosophy majors is rather silly?
> So I didn't grow up in the United States so I am not aware of what high school counsellors teach kids, but are there people really selling the idea that if you go to Podunk university and study Asian comparative literature, you will end up with a good job?
Yes. And it wasn't just HS guidance councilors pushing this - parents were saying the same thing.
That's because as the white collar workforce in the US expanded in the 1960s through the early 80s, many positions just asked for a 4-year degree. The idea was a college degree showed you were teachable in advanced subjects and you'd do most of your learning on the job. Since then (US) employers have shifted away from job training and prefer candidates who can "hit the ground running." -- either by job experience or relevant degree or both.
Unfortunately, many schools and parents did not pick up on this change for whatever reason.
Just to demonstrate the answer to your question: I'm currently a junior in HS and am going through the process of learning about colleges. Last week, our guidance counselors gave us pamphlets. They were blatantly telling us to pursue liberal arts degrees (such as art or music) even with low job prospects. They were reassuring us that we should follow our passions no matter what. Lots of kids saw right through the promises of success and threw out the pamphlets right away. They really try and convince you that a four year university is the only option.
(I go to a very affluent, competitive HS. I think that the counselors want to maintain their college placement rates even if it means sending kids to college if they are failing high school classes. The system is completely broken or just plain ignorant, but that's just my opinion.)
" I think that the counselors want to maintain their college placement rates"
Not "want" but are paid to. When you get older you'll see a push toward metrics in a corporate world. The counselor trying to sell you a liberal arts degree is evaluated and paid based on some metric like "% of students after 5 years with a 4-year degree" and so forth.
> but are there people really selling the idea that if you go to Podunk university and study Asian comparative literature, you will end up with a good job?
Largely yes. It's the message I was given in High School - I graduated in 2001. We we're also expected to know what we wanted to do (ideally) for the rest of our lives.
I'm not from the USA either, and while I remember counsellors proposing community college/trades, the societal view was that you would be doomed to work in a mediocre job with mediocre pay for life with that kind of education. Worse, if you didn't attend post-secondary education at all, you'd be lucky if McDonalds would hire you to flip burgers. Only those with university educations were going to make anything of themselves.
In hindsight it was pretty ridiculous that anyone actually spread that message, having no basis in reality, but when you are not even/barely a legal adult and have spent the vast majority of your life in school, it is difficult to see what the real world is actually has in store.
>if you go to Podunk university and study Asian comparative literature, you will end up with a good job?
This appears to be just my experience, but absolutely not. I graduated high school in 2004 and had a very strong sense of choosing between more marketable majors and majors that are less marketable but may be more personally satisfying. Everyone that I talked to: teachers, guidance staff, parents, and friends all urged me to consider (as one of many factors) what career a particular degree might lead to. I ended up getting a major in a field with jobs (CS) and a minor in an area with fewer job prospects (religious studies).
It's also worth pointing out that even degrees that are generally considered dead ends can work out quite well if you plan correctly. My friend who went into history is working on becoming a librarian (using an apprentice-like process) and his SO has been making a living doing freelance editing for a few years now. They both figured out paths that worked for them in a relatively weak jobs market.
I can't say about High School, as I went from there into the military, but later in life, after several years of factory/warehouse type jobs, I got fed up and went to college.
I initially went to a community college, and the guidance councillor there tried talking me out of going a Physical Therapy degree route (switched several times and ended up going CS) into a Trade direction instead. The only thing keeping me from regretting the decision is the fact that I'd never had met my current wife if I hadn't gone to university.
This is not even wrong. Of course the government itself employs people. It has work that needs doing. The question is what roles you assign to the government and how much labor they require, and of what kinds.
re: training - are your skills white collar or blue collar? He seems to be talking about physical labor jobs where employers are willing to train. I don't see that much on the IT side of employment, for example.
We Americans focus so very very often on how we disagree rather than how we agree. If you look at both parties, they broadly agree on so many things. Instead we focus on unimportant social issues, shaving a couple percent off government spending, and so on.
The educational system we have now is largely a scam, it promises that if you spend tens of thousands (or more) dollars on a 4 year degree, you'd have a good job waiting on the other side, and its largely BS. We need vocational training, we need training for non white collar career options, and no one is really working on it. I make a salary of that of a skilled professional - with no formal education beyond high school - it's been a long fight to get here though, perhaps it could have been easier otherwise. The other problem with the current college education program is a lack of correlation between cost and outcome, it's something that needs to be looked into.
He also hits on a point - the government doesnt create jobs, so it doesnt matter what congress does, or what the president does, its the job of the government to create a stable environment (regulatory and otherwise) so the economy can go and create jobs. I believe our government is largely failing at this.
On to the skills gap - I disagree with him on one point, companies are largely unwilling to train - there are jobs for which I'm broadly qualified for, but can't get because I'm missing one specialized skill or another for. If companies were willing to train, they would be able to fill most of those unfilled jobs.