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A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

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Re: A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

#191

Post by eli_gottlieb »

Aloha wrote: post #43

He's spot on. 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 ha…

>the government doesnt create jobs

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: A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

#192

Post by eli_gottlieb »

drig wrote: post #53
Aloha wrote: post #43

He's spot on. 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 ha…

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.

Wait... Republican-leaning pseudo-libertarian blue collar workers?

Oh for God's sake! Has this idiot no class consciousness whatsoever!?

Re: A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

#193

Post by eli_gottlieb »

eshvk wrote: post #64
bittercynic wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

>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.

Re: A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

#194

Post by eli_gottlieb »

wyclif wrote: post #107
eshvk wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Actually, sometimes American real-estate owners won't even rent a unit to more than N people who are not all blood relatives.

Re: A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

#195

Post by eli_gottlieb »

al2o3cr wrote: post #98

"In the next few years, this company anticipates 15,000 new openings for welders and pipe-fitters in the southeast. And the head of recruitment has absolutely no idea where the workers will come from. That should scare us all." Oh FFS. If the company can't find 15k workers perhaps they should consider raising wages. Mr. Rowe's show has clearly demonstrated that no matter how unpleasant 99% of the world might find a p…

Excuse me, but don't you know that workers demanding compensation is un-American? They should be willing to work for little or nothing, not because they don't have material needs but because the purpose of life is to work. Work makes free, work is free! Workers should not be angry that they make sub-living wages, suffer union-busting management, cannot support families and have a tendency to drop dead or be laid-off before they can retire. They should be honored that it is thus! Praise Work, Work is great, blessed is the Name of Work!

Or, you know, they're refusing to take jobs that don't pay them enough to not die slowly, because they've grown wiser since refusing to take jobs that actually killed them on a regular basis.

Re: A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

#196

Post by Tloewald »

bmelton wrote: post #155
Tloewald wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually when you measure stress it turns out that high-flying jobs are not that stressful. It's having no control over your life that causes stress, and being an underpaid peon is the most stressful situation to be in.

That's an interesting stance. I admit that I was speaking generally, but I've had a high-stress job, and left it, because it was insanely stressful. It was exceedingly high paid, and leaving it was indeed a difficult decision, but I definitely felt the stress. Conversely, I've had a trade skill position, and considered it neither high-stress nor low paid. There are obviously higher paid positions out there, but there…

I've worked in high paying "high stress" jobs (indeed, my current job probably qualifies). The stress of not knowing whether you're going to be promoted or fired is certainly horrible, but you still get to eat good food and sleep in a nice bed.

I can't find the studies right now, but I was simply quoting results from research from memory. Frankly, I call BS on the typical idea that higher paid jobs are more stressful in general. Sure, you can find examples to suit an argument, and I'm sure many of us have had a high paid job that is stressful, but we've also probably had a high paid job that isn't stressful, or isn't stressful most of the time. Being poor and having no control over your day is far worse, and I say this as someone who has only had brief bouts of financial stress.

Re: A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

#197

Post by smoyer »

_delirium wrote: post #45
pnathan wrote: post #38

I hadn't heard about Mike Rowe until he started his program to popularize the trades. It's an interesting perspective, and I don't really have a beef about it. But let me make a few factual points, borne out of my experience and the experience I have in growing up around tradespeople and being related to tradespeople. * The trades are physically hard labor edit: It might not be clear what this entails, as perhaps not…

> The trades do not pay well until/unless you specialize into certain areas. A problem that makes this particularly bad is that many now don't pay at all until you manage to become qualified as a high-skill specialist. A lot of the low-end work has been automated, which has gutted the traditional pipeline where you start with low-skill jobs and move upwards. It's not just that low-skill welding jobs (say) don't pay w…

Why did you limit this learning to PHP? For the motivated individual, mastery of any of the "enterprise frameworks" would do (i.e. Django, Rails, Java EE). I will admit that some job openings (or maybe companies) are much pickier, but when I see postings for a candidate with a BS but MS preferred that ask for a full-stack Java EE expert with 2-3 years of experience, I have to laugh.

Re: A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

#198

Post by VLM »

wrobbins wrote: post #151
eshvk wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 comparati…

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 pro…

" 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.

Re: A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

#199

Post by VLM »

pwthornton wrote: post #171
pnathan wrote: post #161

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A good deal of that is alleviated and managed by care at the job site and personal fitness. Growing up around construction workers, all too many of them did not take care of themselves and the debt was called in later in life. Quite sad, but largely preventable. Of course, this does not protect from non-mitigatable risks, which are non-negligable.

Can you give us an example of how this is preventable? Repeatedly physical stress wears down the body. This is why you see long time weight lifters and runners with worn out joints in middle age.

"long time weight lifters"

Who?

I was into lifting when I was younger. The gossip and locker room wisdom I heard was is if I screwed up a ligament or muscle or joint by doing something really stupid at age 18 I'd heal perhaps three to ten times faster than the old retired guys. Quite a few of the old lifters were damaged goods; because their OT told them to start lifting or get used to being permanently bedridden in the future; they were damaged goods before they started not because of lifting which was medically therapeutic.

So ... doing something stupid has a higher cost for older folks. One interesting solution to that problem, which most HN readers think applies to them, is to apply a high IQ to not doing something stupid. And/or identifying coworkers who are idiots and avoiding working with them.

Anecdotes about individual extreme roid users are not terribly useful unless you're suggesting everyone who gets involved much inherently become an extreme roid user. Amongst the clean rank and file, general health levels were much higher than the general population.

Re: A CNN Viewer Has Questions for Mike Rowe

#200

Post by bmelton »

Tloewald wrote: post #196
bmelton wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an interesting stance. I admit that I was speaking generally, but I've had a high-stress job, and left it, because it was insanely stressful. It was exceedingly high paid, and leaving it was indeed a difficult decision, but I definitely felt the stress. Conversely, I've had a trade skill position, and considered it neither high-stress nor low paid. There are obviously higher paid positions out there, but there…

I've worked in high paying "high stress" jobs (indeed, my current job probably qualifies). The stress of not knowing whether you're going to be promoted or fired is certainly horrible, but you still get to eat good food and sleep in a nice bed. I can't find the studies right now, but I was simply quoting results from research from memory. Frankly, I call BS on the typical idea that higher paid jobs are more stressful…

Oh, agreed. I'm not trying to imply that all high-paying jobs are stressful... not at all.

I'm just saying that there are indeed jobs that are high-stress, and that typically, the trade-off for that stress is in higher pay. There are certainly high paying jobs that aren't inherently stressful, and I'd wager that most of us, as programmers, enjoy them quite a lot. There are also certainly low paying jobs that are extremely stressful -- state level politics, social workers, etc., are likely to fall within those demographics.

Just as certainly though, there do exist high-stress jobs that also are high pay, and that said high stress is a check mark in the con column against it, just as 'physical labor is hard' is a valid check mark in the con column against trade labor.

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