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Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

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Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#61

Post by posguy »

stvswn wrote: post #38
posguy wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For plumbers, electricians and a few other trades you can become a journeyman apprentice in the US, and after a few years you can earn high 5 digits to low 6 digits with healthcare usually. That being said, its a mature industry and not highly regarded in the US as it is a "blue collar" job. Stigmatizing & devaluing an honest days work is ridiculous to me, but that is what our society has done to these jobs.

The skilled trades are very highly regarded among many, many people -- just not the same people who go to four year research universities. I was an officer and platoon leader in the Army, the endgame for a lot of my soldiers was to use their GI Bill benefits to get to trade school and then become an apprentice in a union. They considered making it in one of the sought-after trades really "making it." If you've ever h…

The skilled trades are shrinking though in major urban centers, and your average plumber or electrician isn't unionized. That being said, restricted supply is good for those who are skilled today as they will earn more!

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#62

Post by gdulli »

wonderwonder wrote: post #21

A four year degree is no longer an advantage but rather a base which allows you to have even a hope of competing. Not having a degree is of course a disadvantage. As automation and outsourcing continues, the issue will only worsen. On top of that we are constantly bombarded with images of the life we should be living via advertising and television. Not meeting these media driven standards leads to further depression…

It's a shame that the party that's in favor of subsidizing education didn't do better in the election. Education decreases fear and prejudice, so there's a catch-22 where we can't get people more educated and fix that without convincing them first that the problem isn't immigrants seizing a large amount of resources in a zero-sum game.

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#63

Post by gerbilly »

> “He just saw his life as not what he wanted it to be, and he didn’t know how to get it there,” said Sue Johnson, who lay next to her son’s corpse for an hour.

It made my heart sink to read this sentence.

Edit: Highlighted the part that made me sad. You never get over the death of a child.

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#64

Post by anigbrowl »

emodendroket wrote: post #29
sbardle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I went to a school where a number of friends were not academic in the slightest. They left as soon as they could often with no qualifications but gradually learnt trades. Many now have their own businesses (one is a plasterer, another a builder) and they earn good money, own their own homes, and have no student debt. The reason? They had supportive parents. Many of the people who are falling into despair tragically c…

I'm guessing the successful people you're describing do not have severe learning disabilities. And I find it at least questionable that parenting has gotten markedly less supportive in the past few decades.

He didn't say that parenting had got less supportive, he said that many people with severe structural disadvantages come from badly broken families.

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#65

Post by andrewmcwatters »

cmahler7 wrote: post #35

We're at the point where the United State can either become utopia or dystopia. Automation can either allow everyone to do whatever they want with almost unlimited leisure, or continue as it has destroying the middle class and consolidating wealth for the elite. I used to be hardcore capitalism but if something isn't done to spread the wealth we are going to have our own French revolution with the plebes rising up ag…

lol, yeah like large corporations and investors (which includes many of us here) want to give away free cash or inflate wages without cause

the answers to these problems are rarely simple

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#66

Post by fav_collector »

ChrisLTD wrote: post #43
temp246810 wrote: post #12

The sad thing that I've observed is that any mention that this gets in the media or any earnest attempt to address this gets met with: "Oh now that it's white people dealing with drugs, it's a crisis. America is so racist". That's a load of crap on so many levels. I hope we figure out our next chapter here as a society.

Why is it a load of crap on so many levels? To take one example, the media and politicians have put a huge spotlight on the plight of coal and manufacturing job losses, while only recently did we learn that in fact we're losing even more retail jobs. https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2017/04/the-sil... Want to guess at the racial and gender makeup of those manufacturing jobs vs. retail?

You're sort of proving his point.

Manufacturing and coal towns are isolated. Manufacturing and coal are sometimes literally the only fields with jobs available in those towns.

Retail is generally located in places with many opportunities

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#67

Post by stinkytaco »

pc86 wrote: post #40
stinkytaco wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You also likely can't work into your 60s doing work like this. Some people move into management, assessment, inspection, etc, but not everyone can do that. There's more going on here than stigmatization (which I rarely see in real life), these jobs have a different set of concerns that we aren't good at dealing with socially.

Barring accidents, injury, or bad luck (e.g. a car crash or something), you can absolutely save enough to retire as a plumber before your body starts to break down. Especially if you assume SS will still be around for a new plumber's retirement, which may or may not be the case. Even without, it's doable. I know two plumbers socially and both are in their late 40's. One owns a plumbing business so mainly does office/…

Which brings up another issue: manual jobs involve non-trivial amounts of physical risk. Not only does getting injured negativly affect your life you will always do better working than on disability. And I agree that it's possible for some people to own a business or or do office work, but not everyone who is a plumber today will be able to do that. There are fewer owners than workers.

I don't think we should discourage trades, but we can't sugar coat them either. I used to work as a mechanic and never met one that was 65 (the SS retirement age). The safety nets in place are optimized for people who work office jobs, not manual jobs.

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#68

Post by AnimalMuppet »

posguy wrote: post #55
throwanem wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not highly regarded by some in the US.

True true, and we should ignore the worthless opinion of those stuck up people. Who can't value a day of labor?

"The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water." - John W. Gardner

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#69

Post by rfrank »

heavyheavy wrote: post #47
temp246810 wrote: post #12

The sad thing that I've observed is that any mention that this gets in the media or any earnest attempt to address this gets met with: "Oh now that it's white people dealing with drugs, it's a crisis. America is so racist". That's a load of crap on so many levels. I hope we figure out our next chapter here as a society.

In my perspective, it IS racist that American cares so much about rehabilitation and empathy for the white drug problem while the black drug issue was dealt with with violence and tearing apart famalies. Is it wrong to want white drug users to go to jail just like black ones were?

> Is it wrong to want white drug users to go to jail just like black ones were?

Yes, if you're of the "drugs should be legal" perspective. Revenge isn't justice.

Re: Young White America Is Haunted by a Crisis of Despair

#70

Post by simonsarris »

cmahler7 wrote: post #35

We're at the point where the United State can either become utopia or dystopia. Automation can either allow everyone to do whatever they want with almost unlimited leisure, or continue as it has destroying the middle class and consolidating wealth for the elite. I used to be hardcore capitalism but if something isn't done to spread the wealth we are going to have our own French revolution with the plebes rising up ag…

Minor point but the French Revolution was the bourgeoisie (middle class, lawyers, landowners, tradesmen, local officials, "tax payers" of the increasingly onerous taxes at the time) rising up against the nobility & clergy, not quite the plebes.
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