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OK but the South and Midwest, a.k.a. the Rust Belt and Appalachia, are the places where there is the most white generational poverty and where opioid addiction and dependency on government programs is strongest. I don't think they need "political correction" as much as they need low-skill jobs to keep them busy and to give them a sense of worth. And I cannot ignore the coastal cities, where Asians are routinely attacked, sometimes horrifically injured or killed, by idle non-white working class men. All those men and the country would be way better off if low-skill jobs were available.
I've said just about all I have to say on this subject. Thank you and SkyDog77 for the conversation.
Places like the Rust Belt and Appalachia can and should be changed to not be breeding grounds for generational poverty and low-skill labor. There simply won't be enough low-skill jobs (at least ones that pay a living wage with benefits) in the future to let that many live out normal lives, so education and cultural shifts toward understanding and embracing intellectualism and science rather than resenting or distrusting it will be what breaks the cycle. It will raise their education standards, build their sense of worth, and enable more of the US to compete in the 21st century and beyond.
The anti-Asian hate is a very concerning issue, and it also seems disproportionately committed by people who would fit into the same demographics we're talking about in places like the South and Midwest. I see similar solutions to the above also eventually addressing this issue; that is, a better-educated society is the solution to many problems.
If you don't reply, it was nice to have a civil conversation around here for a change. Best of luck.
Okay but building a car, making steel, mining coal were not low-skill jobs.
Some people have it so good that they cant imagine the conditions that others grow up in. They dont understand how hard it is to focus on academics when the family is always in turmoil for one reason or another.
When you are hungry...how many on this thread have ever truly gone hungry?
For many, addictions start as a way to escape pain. Its simply easier to sleep in a cardboard box on the sidewalk if you are medicated with some alcohol or other drug that lets your mind go beyond the fact there is only a piece of cardboard between you and the sidewalk.
If you made the rust belt shiny again, people would have good meaningful work.
If you revitalized coal, or created some other industry in Appalachia, people would have good meaningful work.
If you dont address the real problems you will watch your children stupidly making the same assumptions out of ignorance of an existence that they were fortunate enough not to ever have to understand.
You also have to remember that we are in a capitalist world. As any fool knows, Capitalism was never set up for the bulk of society to be successful. For Capitalism to truly work, the bulk of society has to center on the lower rungs of the ladder.
A degree is not a sign of intelligence. It is not an indication of high skill or superior intelligence. A degree is a sign of opportunity. This is not an equal opportunity world we live in.
Okay but building a car, making steel, mining coal were not low-skill jobs.
Some people have it so good that they cant imagine the conditions that others grow up in. They dont understand how hard it is to focus on academics when the family is always in turmoil for one reason or another.
When you are hungry...how many on this thread have ever truly gone hungry?
For many, addictions start as a way to escape pain. Its simply easier to sleep in a cardboard box on the sidewalk if you are medicated with some alcohol or other drug that lets your mind go beyond the fact there is only a piece of cardboard between you and the sidewalk.
If you made the rust belt shiny again, people would have good meaningful work.
If you revitalized coal, or created some other industry in Appalachia, people would have good meaningful work.
If you dont address the real problems you will watch your children stupidly making the same assumptions out of ignorance of an existence that they were fortunate enough not to ever have to understand.
You also have to remember that we are in a capitalist world. As any fool knows, Capitalism was never set up for the bulk of society to be successful. For Capitalism to truly work, the bulk of society has to center on the lower rungs of the ladder.
A degree is not a sign of intelligence. It is not an indication of high skill or superior intelligence. A degree is a sign of opportunity. This is not an equal opportunity world we live in.
The whole point is that industrial jobs of yore (including coal) -- those jobs where the skillset required involves assembling some component or doing a repetitive manual task -- are becoming obsolete. It's not a matter of don't want to bring those jobs back or would rather not, it's they are gone and not coming back. Think of all of the things we use today that were once made by hand or assembled by hand and are now automated by a machine. Where there were once factories full of people doing the same thing, there are now machines moving along with a couple of maintenance supervisors who ensure nothing's broken or faulty.
What industrial job can we give to Appalachia that can't be automated? With capitalism, if machines can do it cheaper and faster than people, machines will do the work.
Today's white-collar office work that is on the upper-middle rung of the ladder is tomorrow's bulk of society lower-middle rung of the ladder. The imperative to pull people up a few rungs isn't because we want everyone perched on the upper rungs, it's because those lower rungs are being cut off and those who don't climb will fall to their demise.
Okay but building a car, making steel, mining coal were not low-skill jobs.
All those jobs are low-skill.
Sitting on an assembly line running a press is low skill by definition. Operating a furnace is low skill. Shoveling, swinging a pick, etc are low skill.
My nephew makes a lot money sitting on a Ford assembly line assembling parts. He started a couple years after graduating high school. Working an assembly line is low-skill. 99% of the people to ever work on an assembly line are low-skill employees. The skilled trades were the first automated (welding robots, etc).
His dad is a skilled tradesman for Ford making a lot more as a steel foreman (or did before all the plants were closed last year, a lot of Ford is still laid off)
My great-great-great grandpa came here at 19 and went right to work in a Pennsylvanian coal mine. Your telling me a FOB Irish teenager from rural Western Ireland is working a highly-skilled job?
Got this today in my morning email from the NY Times.
"‘What are we going to do?’ Over the past decade, an idea has become popular with mayors and governors, both Democratic and Republican: A K-12 education is no longer enough.
Students should start school earlier than kindergarten, according to this view, both to help families with child care and to provide children with early learning. And students should stay in school beyond high school, because decent-paying jobs in today’s economy typically require either a college degree or vocational training.
In response, many states and cities have expanded education on at least one end of K-12. Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, New York, Vermont and West Virginia have something approaching universal pre-K. Arkansas, Indiana, New Jersey and more than a dozen other states have tuition-free community college. These expansions appeal to liberals’ desire to use government for helping people and conservatives’ preference for expanding the economic pie rather than redistributing wealth.
“The income disparity deal is real in our country,†Bill Haslam, a Republican and the former Tennessee governor who pushed for free community college, told Politico, “and the question is, ‘What are we going to do about it?’†Or as Rahm Emanuel, a Democrat and former mayor of Chicago who expanded pre-K and community-college enrollments, told me: “High school just doesn’t cut it anymore. It was good for the industrial age. For the information age, you’ve got to go to community college.†Emanuel added, “It has bipartisan support.â€
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The big unemployment paycheck and the disproportionate job loss in the restaurant/entertainment sectors are affecting the employment rates of people without college degrees.
If Mary 'age 40, mother of 2, waitress', thinks she's going to run out and get a Mechanical Engineering degree and she's gonna have people knocking down her door to offer her a job in that field, or any other field without experience, she's sadly mistaken.
If she were to get an RN or Social Work degree, a little better maybe, but still easier to find a job within waitressing.
The big unemployment paycheck and the disproportionate job loss in the restaurant/entertainment sectors are affecting the employment rates of people without college degrees.
If Mary 'age 40, mother of 2, waitress', thinks she's going to run out and get a Mechanical Engineering degree and she's gonna have people knocking down her door to offer her a job in that field, or any other field without experience, she's sadly mistaken.
If she were to get an RN or Social Work degree, a little better maybe, but still easier to find a job within waitressing.
None of that helps her right now. Those degrees take 2-4 years to get, and for programs like nursing there are waiting lists. She will also have to go into debt, sine health care related degrees are the most expensive ones. The most fees, highest material costs, etc... She might as well start on a mechanical engineering degree. This assumes she is cut out for college at all, since nursing is not an easy degree.
I learned a lot in college, but it wasn't from classes or teachers or the curriculum. I was a liberal arts student and majored in Political Science and English Literature. A simple test is that I can't remember any of what I learned in the classroom. So what did I learn?
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Originally Posted by SkyDog77
I also did not get a ton out of undergrad that ended up applying to my career. What I did get was time and a piece of paper that qualified me for jobs I would not have otherwise been qualified. Those jobs led to other jobs, which eventually landed me back in school. I got TON out of graduate business school. Well worth the time, effort, and money and my MBA cost over $200,000. It paid for itself almost immediately.
College is like many other things in life: you get out of it what you put into it. The caveat is to make sure you are putting your effort into something useful.
Ditto. College could've been more for me, but overall was good. Some of the studies were relevant, but a lot of it required you to also keep up and ask questions. Did teach you how to think and solve problems (or at least rely on curves to get passing grades). You learn to deal with some great lecturers and professors, but some of them were just awful that you schedule semesters around them.
You live away from your parents, so you learn about doing things yourself, setting budgets. I learned to hunt for bargains, cheap eats, and that spending $200 _per week_ on food is excessive. New social circles, trying to make friends. Dating. I wish I did more of those, but, it's past now.
Yes, even when a degree is not a formal requirement for a job, those with a degree are more likely to be hired. Even with a generic degree such as Liberal Arts, a degree demonstrates discipline, reliability, that the person can stick with challenging tasks and that they have some critical thinking skills. Those without the skills or degree are still out of work because they do not want to work in those jobs for which they are qualified, such as retail and fast food, especially if they can make more on unemployment . . .or disability.
Some more affluent people look down on others whom they mistake for fools.
I sense you don't know anyone who works in retail and fast food and that's why you came to your opinion.
Some more affluent people look down on others whom they mistake for fools.
I sense you don't know anyone who works in retail and fast food and that's why you came to your opinion.
There are college-educated people working in both retail and fast food, usually because there's no work available for them in the field(s) in which they studied and/or they cannot get such jobs for some reason, so it's unfair to unilaterally call all low wage workers fools. However, one could also ask why anyone who is not a fool would choose not to pursue the education/training required for more advanced work and instead choose to work in something like retail or fast food.
There's people who have demonstrated discipline and critical thinking but can't find work for their skillset, and there are those who have never demonstrated discipline and critical thinking but insist they have it. Why would any employer believe the latter when the former exists?
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