We need skilled labor

[Ms Tree]

Pretty interesting speech.

I have always liked working with m hands. Anything I think I can do around the house I try and do. I laid 800 sq ft of tile in my rental house as well as 3 rooms of laminate flooring. I riped a bathroom down to studs, rewired it for betting lighting, moved plumbing to accommodate the pedestal sinks I bought. Put up dry wall and texture coated it (with the help of my brother in law). I have redone wiring, hung ceiling fans, installed and repaired sprinkler systems. I have also replaced glow plugs, tie rods, suspension control arms to name a few. The times when I hire someone I am always out watching them work. One to make sure they are earning their money but also because I want to learn so that next time I don't have to call them. I have been told by many of them that they rarely have people come out and over see them.

I have always admired skilled manual labor. Something I always wanted to learn/do was auto body and paint. I watch shows like OCC Chopper and Over Haul'n and I admire someone who can lay down a coat of pain on a car and have it come out looking like a work of art.

Mike Rowe before congress

For most of his life, my grandfather woke up clean and came home dirty. In between, he accomplished things that were nothing short of miraculous. Some days he might re-shingle a roof. Or rebuild a motor. Or maybe run electricity out to our barn. He helped build the church I went to as a kid, and the farmhouse my brothers and I grew up in. He could fix or build anything, but to my knowledge he never once read the directions. He just knew how stuff worked.

 

[dapoes]

Rental house? How shameless and capatalistic of you! Surely you are not actually asking them to pay rent. That would be very anti socialist of you to make a (shudder) profit!

So how's it being a slum lord and taking advantage of people?

 

[delldude]

Pretty interesting speech.

I have always liked working with m hands. Anything I think I can do around the house I try and do. I laid 800 sq ft of tile in my rental house as well as 3 rooms of laminate flooring. I riped a bathroom down to studs, rewired it for betting lighting, moved plumbing to accommodate the pedestal sinks I bought. Put up dry wall and texture coated it (with the help of my brother in law). I have redone wiring, hung ceiling fans, installed and repaired sprinkler systems. I have also replaced glow plugs, tie rods, suspension control arms to name a few. The times when I hire someone I am always out watching them work. One to make sure they are earning their money but also because I want to learn so that next time I don't have to call them. I have been told by many of them that they rarely have people come out and over see them.

I have always admired skilled manual labor. Something I always wanted to learn/do was auto body and paint. I watch shows like OCC Chopper and Over Haul'n and I admire someone who can lay down a coat of pain on a car and have it come out looking like a work of art.

Mike Rowe before congress

That's great and I am like you in watching what I'm paying for.
But I must ask, as with the Obama administration.......does it have to be union skilled labor?

 

[Ms Tree]

Does anyone here watch Dirty Jobs? There are things that he does that there is no way in hell I would try. I am glad there are people who are willing to do it but I'd be hard pressed to do some of them. There are some things that you look at and just do not realize that it would need doing. There are a lot of things in this country that the average person does not even think about.

I tip my hat to all those out there who help keep this country moving along, as dysfunctional as it is.

 

[SparrowHawk]

I admire and respect everyone out there who makes a living by the sweat of their brow. I started out as a Printing Tradesman before it went digital, back when it actually was a craft. The jobs I did like Dot Etcher, Stripper, Camera Man, Pressman, Bindery have mostly been automated out of existence. So for me it was off to the white collar world of sales and training.

As I read Mr Rowe's compelling testimony it occurred to me to ask why are we losing our electricians, plumbers, etc? For me the answer is GOVERNMENT!!!! Ever since I was in High School the government run schools preached "Go to College, get a degree". I chose a Vo-Tech education and back then only the "Slow" kids or trouble makers were encouraged to go to tech school. It went so far as having a school guidance counselor call my Mom and question her parenting skills for allowing me to go to Vo-Tech. Even at the ripe old age of 15 I had the independent spirit of a Libertarian and I ripped that Guidance Counselor a new ass. Damn lucky I didn't end up expelled or in jail since I told him that if he ever interfered with my family again I'd beat him to death with a tire iron.

What we have today is a direct result of Government run education and social engineering by them. So now we have a bunch of in debt College Grads, many of whom can't find Lincoln, Nebraska much less Afghanistan on a map. Without Mexicans precious little Dry Wall would get hung in some areas of our country. If you read the book Iacocca, there is a person in there name Charlie Beecham who was Lee's early mentor at Ford. I think it's on page 90 where Mr Beecham speaks about the relative value of a college education. I'm paraphrasing now. "A College education is great, but it he doesn't know a dip of horseshit from a dip of vanilla ice cream it doesn't matter, hell a horse is stronger and a dog is friendlier". Our schools often deliver degreed people who do not have the ability to add to a company's bottom line directly or otherwise. WHY?? To many who derive their income under the current education system the answer is highly complex. To me it's quite simple. Look around and tell me what's different? Lack of competition pure and simple. Costs have ballooned due to a virtual monopoly by government schools. Don't even begin to tell me we have "Private Schools" as we don't. In order to be accredited they must teach a government approved course of study. So no private schools exist in the US. Privately funded? Yes, but not truly private as they have no control over what is taught. Kind of like a modern day Hitler Youth if you think about it.

The Government has the uncanny ability to make the mundane complex. Take the Stimulus packages, allegedly designed to elp the working stiff. So what happens? 8,000 and counting earmarks, Bailouts at GM, AIG and others.

Clearly it would have been easier to look at federal revenues and say "OK we want to goose the economy by putting $800 Billion into it. OK let's take the federal withholding and eliminate it for X number of months until the $800Billion is gone". Simple solution. For me that would have been about $11,000 annually that I would have been able to pump into a consumer driven economy times however many people have income withheld. Problem with that is nobody who contributed gets a payday at the Middle classes expense. So that didn't happen.

Want to create a few million jobs to tide people over? Prohibit Self Serve gasoline. Two states currently do not allow self serve and in NJ where I used to live we have 500,000 more jobs and the price of gas is the lowest in the tri-state area. Granted a $10/hour job isn't going to get you rich but it will keep you from being homeless.

 

[leprechaun]

I think the sick chick would throw out a socialism remark at that one.

 

[dapoes]

I think the sick chick would throw out a socialism remark at that one.

Feeling irrelevant again?

 

[Kev3188]

There is a sea of difference between education and accreditation. We as a country seem to have lost sight of the difference.

 

[SparrowHawk]

There is a sea of difference between education and accreditation. We as a country seem to have lost sight of the difference.

If you can tell us what a CPFM is then you've proved your point!!

Give up? It's a Certified Parking Facility Manager and I swear to sweet baby Jesus I'm not making this up.