211–220 of 297 posts
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They are, in most regards. In most places in the US the cost of reroofing a house has doubled or tripled in the last decade.
Because the industry basically milks the insurance companies, the customer doesn't actually pay (much).
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Exactly this. There is a lot of unmet demand in trade labor in even "low rent" places like Las Vegas.
I don't know why you're getting downvoted. There's a lot of demand for the blue collar equivalent of CRUD apps that isn't met because there are no "cheap" blue collar professionals around. A lot of people would be willing to pay a plumber to fix their sink, an electrician to replace a light fixture with a ceiling fan or a welder to build hand railings if there were more options for those services that fell between "l…
That said, its really hard to find reliable trades people there. Plumbers, electricians, carpenters, Etc. My typical experience is that if I manage to find one, after a short while they are over booked with demand. And Vegas has a fairly low cost of living (low rents and house prices) so it would seem that folks who are getting all the work they can handle are doing well.
I wish I'd taken my step-dad up on his offer and done an chippy apprenticeship when I was 17. Instead I flailed around, did some c programming, some web development, never went to uni. I even managed to get myself that first job as a software dev, slowly trading upwards, but it always worked against me that I was a high school drop out and had no degree. Later in life, I looked upon the lack of degree as an asset, I…
I come from a blue collar family. I was the first person in my family to graduate college. But that wasn't my plan initially. During summers in high school I worked installing HVAC systems. After graduating high school I started a plumbing apprenticeship. It was what I discovered during that apprenticeship that made me decide to go to college instead (during college I had a job doing carpentry as well). I'm not sayin…
The main difference is that I am from France, and as such my family enjoyed all of the socialist government policies like weekly hour limits, centralized healthcare, plenty of paid time off, etc.
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Where do you get the idea that we admit a significant number of penniless legal immigrants?
There are published numbers for immigrant income levels, for those interested in a little research: https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v68n1/68n1p31.html
The minimums aren't high, but the sponsor has to make enough to support them, specifically so that they don't require government assistance.
https://the1a.org/shows/2017-06-12/how-to-earn-six-figures-w...
Remove the social stigma of not going to college. Hardly any tv shows that show young non college grads as positive.
Improve the quality of average public high schools so that a high school diploma is a guarantee of basic literacy, science knowledge, basic schools, etc.
College degrees are eventually going to suffer the same fate as the high school diploma due to all the pressure on people to go to college. And eventually, there will be political pressure in the US to make the government pay for universal college the same way it pays for K-12 education. Eventually, we’ll be encouraging extremely marginal students to spend eight years getting a bachelor’s degree and however long it takes such a student to get a master’s degree, and Social Security will collapse since no one will actually be working.
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One thing that has really opened my mind on this is Amazon Home Services. Basically, if you're incorporated, insured, and can provide a few references proving you do decent work, Amazon will shovel business your way. And you can limit the services you provide. For example, one of the services you can buy on Amazon Home Services is "Door knob replacement." This is a VERY low level skill that requires only the most bas…
What's amazing to me is that there are people who don't feel like they're capable of changing their own doorknob. (I get it; there are some people who would rather just pay, but surely some of these people just don't feel like they could manage this task. That's wild.)
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One thing that has really opened my mind on this is Amazon Home Services. Basically, if you're incorporated, insured, and can provide a few references proving you do decent work, Amazon will shovel business your way. And you can limit the services you provide. For example, one of the services you can buy on Amazon Home Services is "Door knob replacement." This is a VERY low level skill that requires only the most bas…
What's amazing to me is that there are people who don't feel like they're capable of changing their own doorknob. (I get it; there are some people who would rather just pay, but surely some of these people just don't feel like they could manage this task. That's wild.)
When I was installing my blinds when I first moved in, a group of neighbors from down the street were walking by and asked me (through the open window) if I was the hired help (guess cus I looked too young to be the owner and too not-hispanic to be the usual hired help in the area, and god forbid anyone do their own manual labor). That was awkward.
Yea I don't get it either, but I know exactly what you're talking about. It's like when you see the meme/trope about Ikea furniture being hard to assemble. Really? What?
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One obvious market is elderly folks who aren't getting around well anymore.
I think the more likely market is those elderly folks' children, who'd rather pay on Amazon than take the time to visit their parents.
Though you're right, that's probably common too, particularly when the children live far away.
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I think people argue past one another a lot about this because both facts can be simultaneously true: the US really is a land where a hard-working, smart, and motivated person (with a big pinch of luck) can work their way up from the top, and yet it's also a place where most people at the bottom aren't simultaneously hard-working, smart, motivated, and lucky. If they were, they would've moved up the rungs already. I…
You've arrived at the unthinkable thought. Why indeed, in a very rich country, do any poor people at all exist? Why is this crime not remedied immediately? The only possible explanation in a democratic society, is that somehow the upper classes have rigged the system via political machinations, voter suppression, dividing the intermediate classes against each other, and propaganda. It's a sobering thought. We might a…
There's an inherent tension between low-wage immigration levels and building a strong social state.
The stronger your social welfare protections, the stronger incentive there is for economic migrants to come (as Europe is also finding out), and the more voters perceive income and wealth transfers as mostly benefiting outsiders versus members of their own society.
This is part of what is creating the reaction from the right in the US and elsewhere.
All the 'solutions' for this have their own issues:
1. Don't allow recent immigrants the benefit of social welfare payments: this literally gives migrants second-class status and directly causes inequality.
Some countries do this though under temporary worker programs. The Gulf states come to mind -- generous benefits for citizens, almost nothing for cheap migrant labor.
2. Only allow well-off or well-educated immigrants: This only works if your country can attract educated labor. Properly executed, you get an immigrant class that is skilled and productive. Poorly done, and your system resembles a 'buy a citizenship' program. Also, your own educated elite may not welcome the new competition.
Canada looks a bit like this -- relatively high levels of immigration, but much of it is skilled. Some of it is just rich people HK buying houses in B.C. though. This directly hurts wage earners who live there by making housing unaffordable for them.
3. Get rid of your welfare state entirely (or don't build it). The US is sort of vacillating between this and option 1, unfortunately. Also the left has vehemently complained about option 2, which is Trump's points reform proposal.
Not sure what the best solution is, but I wish people would admit that there is a tradeoff involved and talk through them rationally.