7 ms·

Summary: entry-level jobs dried up, so people are going to law school instead. Also political motivations. Editorial: More lawyers make the country more compli

by jl2718 5y ago

Summary: entry-level jobs dried up, so people are going to law school instead. Also political motivations. Editorial: More lawyers make the country more complicated and less competitive. We need more and better people going into industrial and medical skilled trades. Think CAD/CAM, not plumber. On the other hand, I think basic legal education would probably have been more relevant than almost anything I’ve ever learned in a classroom, and law school might have been worth it just for my own purposes. Minus the political activism of course, which I guess is center stage now.

otterley 5y ago
> Think CAD/CAM, not plumber. Have you tried to hire a skilled plumber, landscaper, carpenter, or mason in a major city lately? There's a massive tradesperson shortage.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- qeternity 5y ago
  You can thank the unlimited backstop of federal student loans for people to study at any subpar school in any number of useless degrees. This has siphoned off the historical supply of labor in trade schools.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
    You can also blame society for undervaluing tradesmen. If the pandemic has taught us anything it is that even though we are able to recognize how essential a lot of jobs are, we will still refuse to respect or properly compensate the people who work them.
    - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
      > If the pandemic has taught us anything it is that even though we are able to recognize how essential a lot of jobs are, we will still refuse to respect or properly compensate the people who work them. Maybe for some types of frontline workers, but certainly not for skilled tradesman, who are making bank right now and have for at least the past 20 years since I've lived in my current city. And in terms of "refuse to respect", honestly I think it's the opposite: supply has been so high for skilled tradesmen in my area that it is customers who have consistently been disrespected. I can't tell you the number of times I've hired a plumber, AC guy or other worker, confirmed a time, and then that person just doesn't show up, or at best you get a call 15 minutes before saying they're canceling. It always baffled me how these businesses could give such poor service (I mean, a lot of this type of work is referral based), but it's because demand is just so high they can do that. Of course it's not everyone, and once I found a good, reliable plumber I hung on for dear life, but the lesson I've learned is that workers follow same incentives of supply and demand as employers do.
      - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
        Ask yourself this though: why aren't people going to trade schools more often? If it's such a high demand career, with such reasonable pay, then surely it should attract talent; especially when one considers the extreme affordability of trade school in comparison to university education. But we don't see this, why? I posit that it is because people who work trades are looked down on socially. People point at the mechanic, or plumber, or HVAC technician and say to their kids "you have to go college so you don't end up like that guy".
        NonContro 5y ago
        One of the major advantages of being a small businessperson is rarely talked about: the ability to minimise taxes. You can live in your workplace, have a company car, company utilities, company equipment. Some customers will pay you cash. You can easily allocate business income to your spouse or children (if you live in a country without combined income taxes). You can buy products at wholesale rates. When you're just an employee, you usually have very few of these tax optimisation opportunities. The other factor is that the education system is dominated by people with university degrees (ie. teachers), who consciously or not direct their students to pursue the same lifestyle and career values as them.
        lizknope 5y ago
        People I know look at restaurant workers and retail store employees as the people you say "You go to college so you don't end up like them." I would never say that about mechanics, plumbers, and HVAC technicians. They have skills that I respect and value. I often ask them what was wrong and their analytic and problem solving skills often impress me. I got a new HVAC system with a 2 stage compressor. Everything was working fine until the summer when it would shut off cooling just when it got hot even when the thermostat was saying it was cooling. The technician determined that the system worked fine in "low" mode and when the thermostat went into "high" mode the enter system shut off. He traced the thermostat wire through the crawl space and found a splice. 20 years earlier when the house was built someone spliced the cable and only spliced together a few wires that were needed for that simple system. He connected all of them and now the 2 stage compressor works great. It took him an hour of debug going back and forth measuring stuff with a multimeter inside and outside. I was impressed.
    - JohnWhigham 5y ago
      This one's massive, and probably the biggest culprit. I was fortunate enough to be in an area where you could choose the default high school (college prep), or be bussed to the regional vocational school where you alternate doing one week of academic work and one week of your trade. And of course, those that went to the vocational school were looked down on as being dumber. And once you're in the college prep high school, it's just always looming over you: what colleges you looking at? What major do you want to study? What are your safety schools and reach schools?? You are looking at colleges right now while you're only 15 and a freshman and have no idea what the fuck you want to do for the rest of your life right??? And then that's how you land up with the only 25% of kids that enter college actually graduating. So many kids who aren't sure what they want to do (or just straight up aren't cut out for that kind of work) are shoved into college, rack up debt, drop out with nothing to show for it, and don't know where to go next.
      - jl2718 5y ago
        There was only one kid in my middle school that went to the regional tech school. His parents were both PhDs and he got into MIT. That’s probably an outlier, because many if not most of his classmates were only there because they got expelled from their local school. Regardless, he said it was awesome.
- jl2718 5y ago
  I hired a plumber who took a sledgehammer to my bathroom and the demanded 10x the money to fix it. I’ve hired contractors that ripped out all the copper and left. I lived in a house where the owner had hired a landscaper that got paid but didn’t show up for a year. Nobody needs more than a month of training and a YouTube account to do these jobs. The problem is not skill; it’s trust. Low skill jobs unfortunately attract a lot of unsavory characters, and push out good people.
bississippi 5y ago
Where I live plumbers make more than an average software engineer. Owner operator plumbers make close to half a million a year. And don’t get me started on Plumbers operating a min of 5 trucks they make atleast a million and half. I know this because my brother law is a plumber.
- onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
  What's a plumber do with 5 trucks?? You can't drive more than one, right?!
  - jessewmc 5y ago
    A plumber with five trucks isn't so much a plumber anymore as a business owner employing five other plumbers.
    - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
      And the reality of that is almost certainly not as rosy as you are being led to believe.
- phamilton 5y ago
  I'm in California and I had a water leak on the property that cost me $500 on my water bill. My water provider offered a credit for the overage if I can prove that I fixed it. A local plumber charged me $400, provided me with the exact paperwork to send in, and I got a $500 credit. What a wild economy. I have no complaints, I understand why it works that way. And all my plumber had to do was smile, provide a bit of customer service, and repair one pipe.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- llimos 5y ago
  Plumbers produce real value, i.e. the total value of the world is higher after they finish their work. This cannot be said for lawyers.
BeFlatXIII 5y ago
A folksy saying to compliment your editorial: the only lawyer in town drives a Prius; once a competitor moves in, they both drive Bentleys.
cblconfederate 5y ago
You can import CAD/CAM people on the cheap, but lawyers is pretty hard.
- lizknope 5y ago
  I know a few companies that are outsourcing legal stuff. The internet makes it easy.

by jl2718 5y ago

otterley 5y ago

> Think CAD/CAM, not plumber. Have you tried to hire a skilled plumber, landscaper, carpenter, or mason in a major city lately? There's a massive tradesperson shortage.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
qeternity 5y ago
You can thank the unlimited backstop of federal student loans for people to study at any subpar school in any number of useless degrees. This has siphoned off the historical supply of labor in trade schools.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
  You can also blame society for undervaluing tradesmen. If the pandemic has taught us anything it is that even though we are able to recognize how essential a lot of jobs are, we will still refuse to respect or properly compensate the people who work them.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    > If the pandemic has taught us anything it is that even though we are able to recognize how essential a lot of jobs are, we will still refuse to respect or properly compensate the people who work them. Maybe for some types of frontline workers, but certainly not for skilled tradesman, who are making bank right now and have for at least the past 20 years since I've lived in my current city. And in terms of "refuse to respect", honestly I think it's the opposite: supply has been so high for skilled tradesmen in my area that it is customers who have consistently been disrespected. I can't tell you the number of times I've hired a plumber, AC guy or other worker, confirmed a time, and then that person just doesn't show up, or at best you get a call 15 minutes before saying they're canceling. It always baffled me how these businesses could give such poor service (I mean, a lot of this type of work is referral based), but it's because demand is just so high they can do that. Of course it's not everyone, and once I found a good, reliable plumber I hung on for dear life, but the lesson I've learned is that workers follow same incentives of supply and demand as employers do.
    - AnIdiotOnTheNet 5y ago
      Ask yourself this though: why aren't people going to trade schools more often? If it's such a high demand career, with such reasonable pay, then surely it should attract talent; especially when one considers the extreme affordability of trade school in comparison to university education. But we don't see this, why? I posit that it is because people who work trades are looked down on socially. People point at the mechanic, or plumber, or HVAC technician and say to their kids "you have to go college so you don't end up like that guy".
      - NonContro 5y ago
        One of the major advantages of being a small businessperson is rarely talked about: the ability to minimise taxes. You can live in your workplace, have a company car, company utilities, company equipment. Some customers will pay you cash. You can easily allocate business income to your spouse or children (if you live in a country without combined income taxes). You can buy products at wholesale rates. When you're just an employee, you usually have very few of these tax optimisation opportunities. The other factor is that the education system is dominated by people with university degrees (ie. teachers), who consciously or not direct their students to pursue the same lifestyle and career values as them.
      - lizknope 5y ago
        People I know look at restaurant workers and retail store employees as the people you say "You go to college so you don't end up like them." I would never say that about mechanics, plumbers, and HVAC technicians. They have skills that I respect and value. I often ask them what was wrong and their analytic and problem solving skills often impress me. I got a new HVAC system with a 2 stage compressor. Everything was working fine until the summer when it would shut off cooling just when it got hot even when the thermostat was saying it was cooling. The technician determined that the system worked fine in "low" mode and when the thermostat went into "high" mode the enter system shut off. He traced the thermostat wire through the crawl space and found a splice. 20 years earlier when the house was built someone spliced the cable and only spliced together a few wires that were needed for that simple system. He connected all of them and now the 2 stage compressor works great. It took him an hour of debug going back and forth measuring stuff with a multimeter inside and outside. I was impressed.
  - JohnWhigham 5y ago
    This one's massive, and probably the biggest culprit. I was fortunate enough to be in an area where you could choose the default high school (college prep), or be bussed to the regional vocational school where you alternate doing one week of academic work and one week of your trade. And of course, those that went to the vocational school were looked down on as being dumber. And once you're in the college prep high school, it's just always looming over you: what colleges you looking at? What major do you want to study? What are your safety schools and reach schools?? You are looking at colleges right now while you're only 15 and a freshman and have no idea what the fuck you want to do for the rest of your life right??? And then that's how you land up with the only 25% of kids that enter college actually graduating. So many kids who aren't sure what they want to do (or just straight up aren't cut out for that kind of work) are shoved into college, rack up debt, drop out with nothing to show for it, and don't know where to go next.
    - jl2718 5y ago
      There was only one kid in my middle school that went to the regional tech school. His parents were both PhDs and he got into MIT. That’s probably an outlier, because many if not most of his classmates were only there because they got expelled from their local school. Regardless, he said it was awesome.
jl2718 5y ago
I hired a plumber who took a sledgehammer to my bathroom and the demanded 10x the money to fix it. I’ve hired contractors that ripped out all the copper and left. I lived in a house where the owner had hired a landscaper that got paid but didn’t show up for a year. Nobody needs more than a month of training and a YouTube account to do these jobs. The problem is not skill; it’s trust. Low skill jobs unfortunately attract a lot of unsavory characters, and push out good people.

bississippi 5y ago

Where I live plumbers make more than an average software engineer. Owner operator plumbers make close to half a million a year. And don’t get me started on Plumbers operating a min of 5 trucks they make atleast a million and half. I know this because my brother law is a plumber.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
What's a plumber do with 5 trucks?? You can't drive more than one, right?!
- jessewmc 5y ago
  A plumber with five trucks isn't so much a plumber anymore as a business owner employing five other plumbers.
  - tonyedgecombe 5y ago
    And the reality of that is almost certainly not as rosy as you are being led to believe.
phamilton 5y ago
I'm in California and I had a water leak on the property that cost me $500 on my water bill. My water provider offered a credit for the overage if I can prove that I fixed it. A local plumber charged me $400, provided me with the exact paperwork to send in, and I got a $500 credit. What a wild economy. I have no complaints, I understand why it works that way. And all my plumber had to do was smile, provide a bit of customer service, and repair one pipe.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
llimos 5y ago
Plumbers produce real value, i.e. the total value of the world is higher after they finish their work. This cannot be said for lawyers.

BeFlatXIII 5y ago

A folksy saying to compliment your editorial: the only lawyer in town drives a Prius; once a competitor moves in, they both drive Bentleys.

cblconfederate 5y ago

You can import CAD/CAM people on the cheap, but lawyers is pretty hard.

lizknope 5y ago
I know a few companies that are outsourcing legal stuff. The internet makes it easy.