Akvod said:
Our economy is not in the situation it is in now, because we have a lack of supply in carpenters, cleaners, and whatever fucking jobs Mike Rowe covers. If that was the source of the problem, Jesus, they must have huge influence on the global economy. So IDK. I guess I'm just confused. You're trying to make this some kind of philisophical argument about what "value" and "work" is (again, you're starting to sound socialist, that try to equate value as labor), or trying to make the economy as a function of the nation's "character" (oh, it's because everyone wants to get rich and do no work).
The problem with all those arguments (aside from the fact that they're wrong), is that they're too easy. In a way, it's kind of like that with Japan. By tying everything as a matter of "national character" (BTW, now it's a bit remincent of fascism) or something like that, you sort of doom yourself (in the case of Japan), or make it sound like you can solve EVERYTHING by fixing the nation's "character". And making that fix involves making some huge, radical changes like cutting all the government agencies and dismantling all social welfare (and I'm terrified of what the OWS folks are going to propose, once they become more organized). America's "character" or Japan's "character" have nothing to do it with it. We don't need sweeping radical changes to our society. We need technocratic solutions that have worked pretty consistently and well for the past few decades. Not ideology. |
You really just don't get it ...
I'm not talking about some grand economic problem, I'm talking about someone being able to find a satisfying job that pays the bills and gives them an adequate lifestyle. There are enough morons in this world who believe that (somehow) studying English Literature will prepare them to make meaningful contributions to the economy of tomorow, or are simply too lazy to do manual labour for a living, that there will be an ever growing shortage of people in the skilled trades to do the work that needs to be done; and this basically means that you will be ensured a stable upper middle class lifestyle if you go this route.
To put it another way, there are so many people graduating from worthless degree fields that law school and business school enrollment has skyrocketed over the past decade. What were once (almost) guaranteed ways to get a job and receive a 6 figure income are now very difficult fields to break into, and most people getting jobs are receiving very average incomes. Essentially, people are spending 6 to 8 years of their lives and building up $100,000+ in student loan debt to graduate with a degree where new grads have a high unemployment rate (after 1 year) and those that are employeed have are lucky to earn $50,000 to $60,000 per year.
