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This is about money and status. College is higher status than vocational school. A professional job is higher status that a trade. The money is not fantastic

This is about money and status. College is higher status than vocational school. A professional job is higher status that a trade. The money is not fantastic right out of school. You have to apprentice and keep working your way up and taking tests, etc. The job is dirty, you will hurt your back, etc, eventually (more when rather than if). So, if I'm a kid, making a decision about whether to go college or votech, I'm logically going to choose college if I can (higher status, lower chance of injury, probably more money). When thinking about status, imagine a daughter telling her mom about her new fiance. Compare plumber to lawyer. Brick mason to dentist. Programmer to Marketing VP (yes programming is low status, that's why it's called software engineering now, see Domestic Engineering or Sanitation Engineer). If you want to earn a lot in a trade you _must_ start you own business. Depending on the trade you need a large amount of capital. So the _best_ you can do is have your name on the truck. You can make a lot of money. I have a cousin with a succesful electrcial business, of course now he's a real estate developer and drives a lexus (again, see status above). My brother has just gone into business and so I hear a lot of his woes. I can afford a Lexus and my back doesn't hurt and I'm not dirty. So...I like Mike but this seems to be a case of "I don't want to do that job, but someone has to." We'll probably see something like the "Polish Plumber" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Plumber http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Plumber. A lot of immigrants are going into the trades (see drywall and landscaping). So, as immigrants before them (like my ancestors, and as others have mentioned) they go into the trades b/c it's the highest paying work they can get.

pragmatic 15y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door The Millionaire Next Store is a good book about status vs wealth.
- raganwald 15y ago
  One week in Toronto, there was a massive snow storm. I lived in the suburb of Oakville, and when I got to the commuter train station in the morning, I discovered that the service had been canceled. They were running replacement buses, but the buses couldn't carry that many people. It was chaos. I spotted someone I knew from my Financial Modelling days, a LBO entrepreneur I will call "T." T was into buying and selling companies. Unlike the typical cost-cutting LBO types, T was a marketing specialist who thrived on identifying brands where company management were operations focused and had dropped the ball on marketing. T was also a deadhead who once told me that money really does change your life: He and his wife could fly to Grateful Dead concerts instead of driving the VW bus of their college years. T could afford a limo and driver, but his wife drops him at the train station every morning, because they only own one car. Even in a snow emergency, T was not fighting for a cab, he was trying to get on a bus. We linked arms and charged, and wound up in adjacent seats. He was pleased to see I had made it up to home ownership, and that I was reading a book about personal finance, "The Richest Man in Babylon." He told me about a book he said was the best book ever written about money, "The Millionaire Next Door." When we got to Toronto, I decided work could wait. I waded through the snow drifts to a book store and bought it on the spot.

pragmatic 15y ago

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door The Millionaire Next Store is a good book about status vs wealth.

raganwald 15y ago
One week in Toronto, there was a massive snow storm. I lived in the suburb of Oakville, and when I got to the commuter train station in the morning, I discovered that the service had been canceled. They were running replacement buses, but the buses couldn't carry that many people. It was chaos. I spotted someone I knew from my Financial Modelling days, a LBO entrepreneur I will call "T." T was into buying and selling companies. Unlike the typical cost-cutting LBO types, T was a marketing specialist who thrived on identifying brands where company management were operations focused and had dropped the ball on marketing. T was also a deadhead who once told me that money really does change your life: He and his wife could fly to Grateful Dead concerts instead of driving the VW bus of their college years. T could afford a limo and driver, but his wife drops him at the train station every morning, because they only own one car. Even in a snow emergency, T was not fighting for a cab, he was trying to get on a bus. We linked arms and charged, and wound up in adjacent seats. He was pleased to see I had made it up to home ownership, and that I was reading a book about personal finance, "The Richest Man in Babylon." He told me about a book he said was the best book ever written about money, "The Millionaire Next Door." When we got to Toronto, I decided work could wait. I waded through the snow drifts to a book store and bought it on the spot.