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Post by arozanski on Nov 13, 2009 13:38:30 GMT -5
I hear similar messages from my neighbors, one is an electrician - no young guys want to do it. Another works for PP&L, our power company. Linemen can start at $40K+ - no one wants to work those kind of hours.
I do not know what happened, unless young people realized there were cleaner and easier ways of making money. And its true, up to a point. That point is getting nearer, though.
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Post by jimschmidt on Nov 13, 2009 13:43:38 GMT -5
My point is that it was never our manufacturing that put us on top. Manufacturing was just a manifestation of our leadership during that era. It has always been our leadership that put us on top.
If we were true to our American character and history, we'd be leading in development of new alternative energy and biotechnology products. Our prosperity in the current era would be coming from creating better windmills, not necessarily from building them.
It's simply wrong to believe that manufacturing is, was or will be the road to prosperity. We do need to have a strong manufacturing base in order to provide success for less educated workers, but we don't need to have a manufacturing base to profit from manufacturing. We just need to own the best products and ideas.
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Post by kitkat on Nov 13, 2009 13:48:19 GMT -5
Eh, my kid, finished with active duty now, took the IBEW tests for apprenticeship, scored well and is now working as such. He was competing against a *lot* of applicants to get into the union apprenticeship program, so i dunno where one gets the "no one wants to do this" biz.... He went for the commercial rather than the powerline/high voltage division of the program not because of the hours but because the average pay is higher in commercial. The apprenticeship program is five years and he says it is hard work. Hereabouts you begin at around 13-14$/hr and it increases every six months or so i guess over the five years. Journeyman wages are in the high 20's/hr he tells me.
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Post by arozanski on Nov 13, 2009 13:54:05 GMT -5
Eh, my kid, finished with active duty now, took the IBEW tests for apprenticeship, scored well and is now working as such. He was competing against a *lot* of applicants to get into the union apprenticeship program, so i dunno where one gets the "no one wants to do this" biz.... He went for the commercial rather than the powerline/high voltage division of the program not because of the hours but because the average pay is higher in commercial. The apprenticeship program is five years and he says it is hard work. Hereabouts you begin at around 13-14$/hr and it increases every six months or so i guess over the five years. Journeyman wages are in the high 20's/hr he tells me. High rates of turnovers and no shows for interviews, based on what I've been told. Just anecdotal, that's all. Obviously, some people are still interested, because the lights are still on.
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Post by kitkat on Nov 13, 2009 14:20:52 GMT -5
It's simply wrong to believe that manufacturing is, was or will be the road to prosperity. We do need to have a strong manufacturing base in order to provide success for less educated workers... I don't suppose you noticed the blatant self-contradiction you made here.... BTW, "less educated" is poli-correct speak for "less educatABLE". IOW, the half the country of just average intelligence or less. This segment of the population functions on a rote level only and no amount of education and training can change that. Keeping these people constructively busy during their working lives is a task that grows (and has grown) as a socio-economic problem in tandem with increasing tech development and a fast shrinking manufacturing sector--which has until recently been loaded to the gills with rote occupations--which always paid more than the service sector, which is its proposed replacement. And this won't work--because as wealth concentrates into a smaller and smaller segment of the population, there simply are not enough jobs in servicing that tiny segment of population to possibly cover non-poverty level employment for all these millions. So they end up being publicly subsidized to do basically either nothing-- or mere soul-eating frivolity. There is much more pride to be derived in the MAKING of things others actually need than there is in being a simple servant or producer of the equivalent of TPS reports. Manufacturing is therefore not only important for the full employment of the nation's working class but for their good mental health as well. Another intesting point, to me at least, is that while construction is manufacturing it is a geographically fixed variation that is dependant upon manufacture of *portable* goods. IOW, it cannot flourish within a service dominated economy--there simply isn't enough money in broad enough circulation to furnish the level of demand necessary--which is also why it had to be artificially stimulated as a stopgap measure--and newsflash, that approach didn't provide a viable longterm solution. The masses have no intellectual property generating potential, no horse in that race at all. They just have their hands and their pride. Both are being increasingly nullified in this "new world order".
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Post by flylooper on Nov 13, 2009 18:45:04 GMT -5
Good post, Kit. I can remember years ago, when I was living along the SF peninsula, when Silicon Valley getting started, the number of manufacturing jobs was enormous: circuit boards, chips, transistors, etc., etc. were all being made there. Lots of defense related work, too, IIRC. The people I knew were doing well, made good money, spent it, bought things. and all the rest. They were really proud of what they did. Now, if you're not an "engineer" of some sort, you can't even afford to live anywhere between San Francisco and San Jose. Half the valley in Indian imports now. Diploma'd electrical engineers need only apply.
Remember when Carly Fiorina appealed to Congress to issue more visas allowing her to import cheap Indian labor into California? And when Congress wouldn't, she moved half of H-P to Asia, and in the process almost killed the company.
Now she's running for the senate against Barbara Boxer. (But I digress!)
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