Dave Hall wrote:


There is a big difference between a highly skilled tradesman, and an
unskilled laborer. In a free market economy, your wages should be in
proportion to your demand in society. Skilled tradesmen are in high
demand, therfore they should be paid accordingly.

Well, Dave, you should be a fan of the unionized construction industry,
because it is a true representative of a free market economy. At
contract negotiations time, representatives of both sides sit down and
work out a deal for wages, hours, welfare and working conditions. While
strikes and lockouts occur, they are rare in the construction industry.
The more skilled trades have hourly rates that are substantially higher
than those in the less-skilled trades.


Where the unions are a problem is when they elevate the wages of un- or
underskilled laborers on the coattails of the skilled tradesmen. While a
heavy equipment operator, for example, should be paid well for his job,
the guy waving the flags, is a dime a dozen commodity, and should not
be.


A unionized heavy equipment operator typically is a member of the
Operating Engineers union. A flagman typically is a member of the
Laborers union. The unions do not negotiate together, and the flagman's
package is not a percentage of the engineer's package. Further, that
laborer may only be the flagman for a couple of days -after all, someone
has to be the flagman- and then go back to far more strenuous work.

The Laborers union, by the way, is running a substantial number of
training schools for its members, and many of its skills have been
recognized as ones that can be taught through a typical union
apprenticeship program. Most pollution abatement work, for example, is
performed by unionized laborers who receive many months of specialized
training before they don their gear to remove asbestos, hazardous waste,
and suchlike.

Tell me, Dave, a man who goes into an old building and removes
asbestos...what do you think he should be paid an hour? More than you
make, one hopes, eh? I mean, what are you? A software pussy?



I don't have a lot of sympathy for the folks that claim - "I have a college
degree but the only job I can get is flipping burgers." Many college degrees
are useless;

Like liberal arts.

A "liberal arts" degree provides you with the courses you need to
understand the world and to think in the abstract. You, obviously, could
have gained some benefit from liberal arts courses, since you are,
without question, the leading "Stepford Conservative" in this newsgroup.

Yes, a bit of time immersed in the trivium and the quadrivium might have
helped you. You might have learned something about grammar, rhetoric,
logic, math, geometry, music and even astronomy. But then, of course,
you'd have a liberal arts degree.

You're really a horse's ass, Dave, and incapable of independent and
original thought.



the trades should get more. Most employers really could care
less if a potential candidate has written a masters thesis on "the
contributions of Mary Shelly" to the transition of modern literature - or
some similar earthshaking accomplishment.

Really? I'm in the preliminary stages of hiring another writer. I'd
enjoy reading a candidate's paper on Mary Shelley and her impact on
modern literature, even though the kind of writing I need done isn't
"literary." But, then, I have two liberal arts degrees. Oh...the
chairman and CEO of one of my major clients, a $7 billion company...he
has a liberal arts degree, too. And a main contact of mine at another
client's headquarters, why, gosharoonie, he was a don at Oxford, and
tutored in Irish lit. I got the account after meeting the fellow at a
social gathering and engaging in a spirited discussion about Brendan Behan.

Here's a great Behan quote that has some relevance for the thug who is
our current attorney general:

"When I came back to Dublin I found I was courtmartialled in my absence
and sentenced to death in my absence, so I said they could shoot me in
my absence."





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