
Creator of "Dirty Jobs" Mike Rowe testifies to Congress - goldins
http://dsc.discovery.com/fansites/dirtyjobs/mike-rowe-senate-testimony.html
======
edw519
I could have written the bit about my grandfather.

He passed away 36 years ago this week and I was already thinking about him
quite a bit.

He was the most amazing person I ever met. He came to the U.S. alone when he
was 11 years old and lived with strangers until he met my grandmother at a
picnic. They were married 3 weeks later. He spoke 5 languages fluently, played
6 musical instruments, never went to school a single day in his life, and he
could fix anything.

Like OP, one of my most favorite days of my childhood was when I was 12 and my
grandfather took me to work with him. I remember helping him carry his tools
down the back steps and load them into the trunk of his Ford Galaxie 500. He
taught me my all time favorite cuss word when he said, "Move all that shitcrap
out of the way."

Just the other day, I drove right past that spot, stopped, and sat for a
while, remembering the good old days. Today, just like OP, I just call someone
to get something fixed. I've almost forgotten the joy of getting things done
with my hands with the gentle guidance of a master.

Thanks for the memories, Mike Rowe and goldins.

~~~
AlexMuir
These making skills are going to come back over the next few years - they
aren't 'taught', they're learnt. And people are having to learn them RIGHT
NOW, because they can't afford to call someone out to change their fuse / fix
their washer. If you aren't working, you've got time to fiddle around for a
while and get something fixed. Do it a few times and you start to get good at
it and more confident. I'm really hopeful that it will be a positive outcome
from the recession.

~~~
pragmatic
> Where did Mike Rowe's grandfather learn to be a jack-of-all-trades?

Some place I did. I picked it up. I kept trying. I read books, I did it. I was
also raised on a farm and took wood shop and engine shop, drafting and auto-
cad (and physics, chemistry, etc).

Maybe some people just have a knack for this stuff?

(Can't reply directly to this comment)

~~~
goldins
> Maybe some people just have a knack for this stuff?

True, but IMO that knack has to be fostered for it to develop. If you were
raised on a farm, I assume you had some guidance. I doubt that a lot of kids
whose parents are software developers would go into woodworking.

~~~
aliguori
You would be surprised at how many software developers have hobbies that
involve working with their hands. I spend much of my free time doing wood
working and am sure it's something that I would introduce my children to at a
young age (as my father did with me).

~~~
shade
You know, my dad was a very skilled woodworker and home handyman, but he
passed away before he had a chance to really start teaching me very much of
it.

I've always kind of wanted to get into woodworking (although it's hard right
now since I have an apartment, not a house), but I'm not sure how to best
start. Do you know of any good resources you could recommend for an adult who
wants to get into that kind of thing?

Thanks! :)

~~~
localtalent
Depends on where you live - here in NYC there's things like Makeville where
you can take classes, would assume there are similar in most urban centers.

If there aren't any, it's the same as learning programming - pick a small
project and look for how-tos (like this breadbox, for example: <http://www.am-
wood.com/nov97/bread.html>) and have at it. Work your way up to more
complicated things once you've got some skills and tools under your belt.

------
ChuckMcM
Touches on a symptom. The issue is surprisingly complex.

My sister has done workman's compensation insurance and remarked that all the
welders were out of work. (or a large number of them). I mentioned that there
was a welder shortage in California and she suggested I mention that on some
of the forums where they hang out. What I discovered was that there was a
number of vocal proponents who argued they wouldn't work in California for the
shit rate that was being offered. Instead they would _rather be out of work_
than devalue their time.

So its a fair point, if enough skilled people stay out of the workforce then
the economic demand will cause prices to rise to meet the market price. In
California its interesting that the tax payers take on that burden and the
shortfall threatens the teachers who then jump on to TV ads with their
persistent message of non-support.

The question of illegal immigrants came up too but if you look you will find
that a skilled welder / carpenter / mason has opportunity in Mexico that they
don't need to emigrate for, so its not the issue one might suspect.

You get substitution effects, people substituting unskilled or lightly skilled
labor instead. This results in problems later but some of those people will go
on to become more skilled which will increase the pool.

A couple of people have mentioned the 'status' question, but from an economic
standpoint the pricing of wages should be based on the ability of the
population to supply qualified labor not on how 'important' they perceive the
job to be. Its not always done that way but it does take personal bias out of
the valuation question.

Mike's comment that we need more people in the trades is also tempered by
manufacturers who would rather 'fix by replacement' than 'fix by repair' their
items. They see someone with a broken washing machine as a motivated buyer,
not someone with a problem they can fix. It would be helpful if congress
mandated that the information to fix things was made available for free.
(think service manuals) While it would burden the manufacturer to write such
manuals it would enable repairs and a 'green' industry of keeping equipment
running rather than in the dump.

I was hoping that one of the things that would come out of the Auto-melt-down
would have been a vehicle that was bare bones, dead simple to repair, and
inexpensive. There is demand for such a vehicle but no one is looking to meet
it yet.

So "we need more skilled tradesman" as a call to arms has a number of things
that it carries with it. I didn't see that the complexity or at least the
interconnectivity of it all has been well represented to Congress.

~~~
georgieporgie
_...a vehicle that was bare bones, dead simple to repair, and inexpensive..._

That vehicle is anything built before the ~1970s. They're plentiful, and not
many people want them. :-)

(I don't believe that there's a demand for a modern, bare-bones car. There's a
demand for ever cheaper, air conditioned cars with power windows, intermittent
wipers, power steering, etc. though)

~~~
lsc
I still don't understand why people seem to think that modern cars are so
difficult to work on compared to old junk. The onboard diagnostics is
standardized and pretty good on most cars; that makes obvious many of your
computer problems, timing problems and fuel/air problems.

I mean, most of my experience is working on fuel-injected stuff... but have
you ever tried to rebuild a carb? it's damn difficult to get right, and
there's no computer telling you when it's correct; you have to essentially
guess.

~~~
cagey
I've recently had occasion to work on

1986 and 1990 Honda Civics: a PITA: just no space to turn a wrench in the
engine compartment. Replacing a radiator took an absurd amount of time (and oh
my aching back!)

1998 Toyota Sienna: replacing the radiator (w/engine cold) took 30 minutes the
first time, 15 the second and third. My 13yo son displayed some interest so we
did it an extra time :-). Changing the rear-cyl-bank O2 sensor (wedged against
the firewall and crossmember) was a PITA.

1995 Camry w/same V6 engine as above Sienna: changing the same rear-bank O2
sensor was a breeze (bigger engine compartment).

Access is the key.

BTW I own two 1973 Toyota trucks, bought because they're simple to work on and
exempt from CA smog testing (points ignition might survive the anticipated
solar EMP!). And I agree that working with carbs is a black art with minimal
feedback available, and EFI (real-time feedback!) is a major advance. Maybe
EFI engines will "find their way" into these trucks :-)

~~~
lsc
my experience has been that the ease with which mechanical work can be done is
directly proportional to the quality of your manual.

During the first .com, I owned a '92 bmw 325is. Fun car, but don't take it to
a mechanic. I mean, parts weren't /that/ much more expensive, but mechanic
time and parts markup was, I assume for the "well, if you can afford a bmw,
you can help pay for my kid's braces" effect.

First I got the Chilton's brand "book of lies" and yeah, figuring out how to
do even simple mechanical things was pretty difficult. I ended up wiring a
bunch of stuff in with 24awg wire.

Later I bought the 'bently publishing' manual for the thing, and god damn.
everything was really simple, and it all fit perfectly.

------
asmithmd1
I don't think the people in skilled trades really want congress to fix the
skill gap problem. Just about every state sets incredibly high bars to be
licensed. To be a licensed plumber in Massachusetts you have to pass a test
(with only 70% correct!) and then work for 4 years before you can apply for a
license. Plumbers around Boston get $100/hr and are hard to find. If Congress
wants to allow more people to do skilled work they could mandate lower
requirements. Kansas and Pennsylvania, for example, do not require plumbing
licenses and I can personally vouch that toilets in those states do in fact
work.

~~~
ShabbyDoo
A few years ago, we had some remodeling work done on our house. A union
plumber came in on a Saturday to do the plumbing portion for cash. He told me
that his most recent union-sponsored continuing education class was a call-to-
action on the shortage of young plumbers. The union was worried that it could
not find enough young people interested in the trade! I had always regarded
the unions as exclusionary, but they're now worried about their own survival
due to attrition (well, at least the Cleveland-area plumbers union).

This same guy noted that the real concern wasn't residential plumbing. This
work is fairly low-skilled. The issue is that large commercial buildings
require much skill and experience. Perhaps a solution would be to stratify the
definition of "plumber" to allow those with a lower-level license to do easy
work. Those with the upper-level licenses could do the more complicated stuff.

~~~
asmithmd1
The union is worried about the flux on new plumbers but your individual
plumber would be happy to be the last plumber alive in Cleveland as he could
name whatever rate he wanted.

I think you are exactly right about the need for two tiers in the trades. The
wiring in a house is vastly different from even the local supermarket that has
three phase power to the lights controlled by contactors.

Maybe by adding a category of "professional" plumbers and electricians you
could solve the prestige problem. Currently, if someone says they are a
plumber you don't know if they clean out drains or maintain a hospital's
systems.

~~~
chez17
> The union is worried about the flux on new plumbers but your individual
> plumber would be happy to be the last plumber alive in Cleveland as he could
> name whatever rate he wanted.

This is one of those classic economics/free market sayings that shows who
wrong the theory can be. That's like saying I would be happy if I was the only
guitarist or only web developer in the world, which is patently untrue. Maybe
the plumber enjoys what he does, finds value in it, and wants to teach others
how to do it. Maybe, god forbid, he doesn't want to make as much money as
possible at the expense of others. Crazy, right? I'm glad there are other
musicians and web developers, not only is the world better for it, I am better
at both for it. Looking at things your way leaves so much out of the equation
and ultimately leads to a conclusion that is bizarre, detached from reality,
and incorrect.

~~~
daniel-cussen
>That's like saying I would be happy if I was the only guitarist or only web
developer in the world, which is patently untrue.

I actually think yo would be pretty happy. You would automatically be a rock
star. Sure, some needs would be unfulfilled, but overall the benefit of being
the only one is incredible.

~~~
jdminhbg
Maybe. Or if you were the only one, maybe the world would decide to listen to
something other than rock music and you'd have nothing.

Similarly, if the number of plumbers drops too low, people will concentrate on
buying cheap/disposable/replaceable substitutes for what they fix.

~~~
daniel-cussen
True. I'm assuming other things are equal.

------
sanj
One of my luckier breaks was going to a highschool specializing in voc-ed.
"Vocational Education" was the euphemism used to describe skills that you
didn't learn in white collar jobs or in college/university.

While there I got to take classes in drafting, machining, and electronics
(real electronics -- we etched our own boards!). I regret that I didn't spend
any time in the auto shop. The students that excelled there did routine
maintenance on all of the teachers' cars!

Years later I was an intern at Orbital Sciences, building a satellite
([http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/SEASTAR/SPACECRAFT.h...](http://oceancolor.gsfc.nasa.gov/SeaWiFS/SEASTAR/SPACECRAFT.html)).

One day I was chatting with my mentor/boss about building a testing harness. A
physical one with dangly bits and wires. I don't remember the details of the
conversation, but I remember a compliment he gave me -- to this day, one of my
most cherished:

"I _know_ you'll do fine: you've burnt yourself on soldering irons."

At least among those rocket scientists, the ability to actually build stuff is
held in high regard.

~~~
krschultz
I took drafting classes in high school voc-ed and learned far more than in my
college mechanical engineering drafting class. That has served me quite well
as an engineer. Equally useful were the metals class in middle school (where
we learned to weld at age 13! you bet your ass they don't do that anymore, too
"dangerous") and stagecraft in high school. It's too bad those kind of 'blue
collar' classes are getting phased out, becuase they drove me into engineering
far more than science or math ever did.

~~~
andrewvc
It's not just the technical side of trade classes, it's breaking out of the
abstractness of most education that's also valuable.

I went to a high school with a remarkably well funded theater and stagecraft
department thanks to a very generous alum. We worked under professional
supervision (pro sound, lights, etc.) on professional equipment (250k sound
system). I was in charge of sound for most of my years there.

That class taught me all about responsibility and professionalism. You have to
be on the ball and super-prepared for a live show to work. When crises happen
in the middle, you have to keep calm, make other people feel secure, and
handle them professionally, and quickly.

That skill's come in handy post-high school. When I was starting out in
software, in charge of a website that made a bunch of cash that needed to run
24/7, the nerves I learned back in school helped me stay calm and in control.

------
tokenadult
I read through the other comments before commenting here. There is an
interesting issue regarding the distinction between status of an occupation
and the pay of an occupation (which has much to do with schoolteacher pay, as
it happens). But as to pay, currently job classifications involving related
work have higher pay if they require higher education degrees as a barrier to
entry than if they don't. One example that is familiar to industrial
psychologists and individual differences psychologists is the pay of engineers
and technicians in the same industrial category. AT EVERY LEVEL OF TESTABLE
INDIVIDUAL ABILITY, the economic return from becoming an engineer is better
than the economic return from becoming technician. Even if what the engineer
does on the job is decide that a key technician has to accomplish a task (that
is, even if the technician is essential to the process in real-world terms),
the engineer will be paid more. This is why there is demand for degrees from
second-tier and third-tier engineering programs that look little better
academically than glorified high schools, and appear to offer less hands-on
technical training than a well designed technical certificate program. Where a
worker can fit in the division of labor in a company makes a difference in the
worker's pay, and people pursuing education or training look for what will
help them make the most pay.

Mike Rowe's thought-provoking testimony to Congress submitted here identifies
a problem, but it's not clear that the solution he suggests will work as well
as simply reforming immigration laws in the United States in the direction of
opening up work-related immigrant visas for skilled trades workers. Perhaps
the workers who can best improve their own lot in life as tradesmen in the
United States economy are those who have already invested in learning a trade
in another country, and who perhaps are learners of English as a second
language who might have particular difficulty pursuing a postsecondary
academic degree in the United States. That may be the way to fill the skilled
trade gap in the United States.

~~~
steve_b
I'm curious how schoolteacher salaries affect salaries in other occupations.
Could you explain what you mean by that?

~~~
tokenadult
Thanks for asking the follow-up question. What I mean is that what status
people perceive from being in one occupation rather than another is one of
several factors that enter into how much pay is necessary to induce people to
seek entry into that occupation. A typical online discussion of why one
occupation has a higher average rate of pay than another occupation will omit
any mention of at least three or four of the factors already identified way
back when by Adam Smith.

[http://books.google.com/books?id=dDDUAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA216&#...</a><p>1. Wages
will vary with the ease or hardship, the cleanliness or dirtiness, the
honorableness, or dishonorableness of the employment. 2\. Wages will vary with
the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expense of learning a trade.
3\. Wages in different occuptions will vary with the regularity or
irregularity of employment. 4\. Wages will vary with the degree of trust
reposed in an occupation. 5\. Wages will vary according to the probability of
success in the occupation.<p>One paradox under the "honorableness" factor that
schoolteachers encounter is seeking societal respect (which I would certainly
agree an effective teacher well deserves), because if societal respect for
teachers goes up, then relative to all other occupations pay for
schoolteaching is likely to go down. The "probability of success in the
occupation" criterion has some interesting interactions with both
honorableness and pay, because managerial policies regarding schoolteachers
can either set up lockstep promotion schemes based on years of teaching, with
tenure, a high degree of job security, or classic "at will" employment (rarely
encountered among public schoolteachers after they have taught for a few
years). Management being able to distinguish effective teachers from less
effective teachers, reducing the job security of ineffective teachers, should
result in higher pay for teachers, other things being equal. Current policies
in most states of the United States strongly emphasize job security for public
schoolteachers over distinguishing the most and least effective
teachers.<p>P.S. This madness<p><a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-
me-0513-tobar-20110513,0,3002882.column"
rel="nofollow">http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-
me-0513-tobar-20110513,...</a><p>I was just reading via Google News is one
reason I despair when I think about current school district management
practices. Work rules designed to protect job security on the basis of
seniority, and qualifications for jobs in schools based on higher education
credentials rather than on performance, hurt everyone in the system--including
teachers.

------
sp332
The video is on YouTube, <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3h_pp8CHEQ0> I think
it's a little more meaningful for this kind of content, and the jokes are
funnier :)

~~~
goldins
Thanks for the link!

------
pstack
It's interesting that our solution to "nobody wants to do physical labor" is
to outsource it to other countries and our solution to "nobody wants to do
professional knowledge work . . . for cheap" is to outsource it to other
countries and supplement with H1Bs as much as possible. What I find odd is the
difference in response to each.

If you're a professional that works with knowledge, you're told "hey, that's
the world market, baby -- if you can't compete on a fifth of your salary, then
to hell with you".

If you're a professional that works in labor/manual work, we involve unions
and national programs to re-invigorate interest in the field of welding or
laying pipes or wiring homes and treat it like news that the national flag has
just been replaced.

I find both a concern, yet am bothered by the seeming double-standard.

As a personal anecdote: My grandfather was a pacifist who none-the-less served
his country when called during WWII. He was an engineer who was responsible
for a lot of stuff in Anchorage during the time. (He had an amazing panoramic
photo set he took of Valdeze back when it was whole). He was a pianist. He was
a chemist. He touch mathematics in college. He threw discus in college track
and field. His home was filled with books on chemistry, math, history,
physics, geography. I grew up surrounded by stacks of OMNI, National
Geographic, Discovery, Popular Science, Popular Mechanics and plenty of other
great reads. And for a living, he chose to build houses. He became a general
contractor who didn't really contract out that much work. He did almost
everything himself, except pour foundations and wire the homes. He built
beautiful homes that often took two to four years and cost a few million
dollars (and some people hired him more than once to build their homes over
the decades as their tastes evolved). He just loved building stuff and working
outside and he did it his entire life. I was also fortunate to spend many
years of my childhood going onto his job-site with him day after day and
goofing around, helping, watching. There's a lot to be said for loving your
job and doing it excellently.

~~~
pragmatic
It's about status. Americans want to be VP's, lawyers, doctors, etc.

And parents want their kids to be these things. What parent wants to see their
kid working 12 hours a day for peanuts and low prestige.

See: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door>

~~~
matwood
Actually _skilled_ blue collar type workers make a lot of money. If they also
have business/management skills they can make tons of money. I have a friend
who was in CS in undergrad until he realized that he can't sit inside all day.
So, he dropped out of college and learned concrete (did go back and get a
civil engineering degree). He's now next in line to own the concrete business
he's a part of when the current own retires. Sometimes he works 12 hour days
and he usually comes home dirty, but he and his family also have more money
than they know what to do with.

BTW, he's also that kind of person who can fix/build anything as mentioned in
the original article.

~~~
sidek
Similarly, my father was a fix-anything type, but also knew how to manage and
do public relations. He got much more money than my mother, with masters in
education and psychology.

~~~
rawsyntax
As far as I know, masters in psych or education, doesn't necessarily get you
much in the way of pay.

------
pragmatic
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>. 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
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Millionaire_Next_Door>

The Millionaire Next Store is a good book about status vs wealth.

~~~
raganwald
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.

------
quanticle
>In high schools, the vocational arts have all but vanished. We've elevated
the importance of "higher education" to such a lofty perch that all other
forms of knowledge are now labeled "alternative." Millions of parents and kids
see apprenticeships and on-the-job-training opportunities as "vocational
consolation prizes," best suited for those not cut out for a four-year degree.
And still, we talk about millions of "shovel ready" jobs for a society that
doesn't encourage people to pick up a shovel.

The reason for that is because the huge manufacturing automation and
outsourcing wave that swept the nation in the 70s, 80s and 90s destroyed the
association between skilled labor and a "good job". Its hard to make a living
building things when a robot or a Chinese peasant can build the same thing for
a tenth of the cost. Its hard to make a living fixing things when its cheaper
to order a replacement.

~~~
LargeWu
What you are referring to is mostly unskilled labor. Mr. Rowe was specifically
talking about work that cannot be outsourced - welders, plumbers,
electricians, carpenters.

~~~
ams6110
Cannot be outsourced... yet. Do you really think it will be very long before
small welding robots scale and weld steel on new high-rise construction? A
robot that can scale an I-beam doesn't seem too farfetched... and no worker's
comp, no danger of people falling off the building, no overtime wages...

Same with plumbing and wiring. I would bet that within a few decades we will
see massive use of robots in construction.

Now, for ad-hoc repairs you may still need a skilled human being, but for new
assemblies I think the robots are going to take over there sooner or later as
well.

~~~
bch
I was talking to a boiler-maker friend the other day when he described an
automated device that he places at the joint of two pipes to be joined, gets
it aligned, and (it sounded like) presses a "Start" button and the unit moves
around the diameter of the pipes, welding them together. No "by hand"
required. It's not surprising, in a way, but when I stop to think about it,
it's another case where people are being replaced by robots. I'm concerned for
the future of human work.

~~~
thematt
_I'm concerned for the future of human work._

I'm not. Afterall, somebody has to build the robots. It just means those
welders will need to move on to more gainful employment.

It will be painful in the short-term perhaps, but I liken it to the situation
with farming. A couple hundred years ago people spent most of their time just
trying to feed themselves, but then we slowly automated a lot of that and
people moved on to more productive means of employment. The current situation
will only be tough for the people not willing to embrace change.

~~~
Jach
> It just means those welders will need to move on to more gainful employment.

Easier said than done. Not everyone can be a programmer, and robots can easily
build other robots. There will be some room left for human work, but there
won't be enough to cover 300 million people. The social danger I see is an
incredibly high portion of the work force out of work and out of money (with
no government support structure), if people become desperate for their basic
survival needs that they're used to now things can get very ugly.

And if we expand the term 'robot' to include simulated human minds, we get
into a worse position with "normal human" jobs.

<http://hanson.gmu.edu/IEEESpectrum-6-08.pdf>

"Would robots be slaves? Laws could conceivably ban robots or only allow
robots “born” with enough wealth to afford a life of leisure. But without
global and draconian enforcement of such laws, the vast wealth that cheap
robots offer would quickly induce a sprawling, unruly black market.
Realistically, since modest enforcement could maintain only modest
restrictions, huge numbers of cheap (and thus poor) robots would probably
exist; only their legal status would be in question. Depending on local
politics, cheap robots could be “undocumented” illegals, legal slaves of their
creators or owners, “free” minds renting their bodies and services and subject
to “eviction” for nonpayment, or free minds saddled with debts and subject to
“repossession” for nonpayment. The following conclusions do not much depend on
which of these cases is more common."

------
samlevine
Making a pencil by yourself is hard. Expecting everyone to make their own
pencils is silly.

You don't get more and better food by becoming a better farmer, you get some
other guy to be better at farming, and some other guy to be better at making
farming equipment, and some other to be better at making software that runs
the equipment, and some other guy to be better at making the satellite that
gives weather data to the software, and so on and so forth.

Yes, we need people in skilled trades. It might even be a good idea to start
retraining idle workers in skilled trades. But specialization isn't just for
ants. There is no need to feel bad about the fact that you don't know how to
fix your toilet, or computer, or car if you're an otherwise productive adult
that happen to know some specialized set of remunerative skills that the
plumber/technician/mechanic does not.

------
josefresco
I thought Mike was just some "TV guy" they hired to do that show. This puts a
whole new perspective on things. Good for Mike, hopefully someone will listen
and act.

~~~
showerst
Then you _need_ to see his ted talk:
[http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.htm...](http://www.ted.com/talks/mike_rowe_celebrates_dirty_jobs.html)

Mike has some really deep insights into American culture and work, every time
he's interviewed or speaks it's a treat.

~~~
goldins
Wow. Thanks for the link.

------
jinushaun
I agree that there is a perception problem in this country involving skilled
non-degree jobs. On one hand we're complaining that immigrants are taking all
of our "jerbs", but on the other hand, we say we're too good for a job that
doesn't require a bachelors degree.

We have to break this perception. I don't know what the solution is, but I do
know in Germany students can decide whether to take a university route (high
school) or take a skilled trade route (vocational high school).

Of course, that system has its own problems, because students are separated by
social class by the end of 4th grade, which is incredibly early to tell a
young person that they can or can't get a university education.

------
AlexMuir
One of my most striking memories is groups of men sitting on kerbs in Cairo
with a couple of battered stone chisels and a hammer. They just sat there
every day with their tools, waiting for someone to give them work chipping
concrete BY HAND for a day.

They were skilled guys (at bashing concrete and holding a hammer all day), and
willing to work hard. But in a fucked economy they couldn't contribute
anything except cheap labour. Non-manufacturing trades don't support an
economy. It's nice to think about an army of new handimen rebuilding America,
but the reality is that an army of Amazon drones is what will be coming.

------
mrcharles
Canada has had a "Trades" ad campaign going for some years now, and as a
result, a lot of trades jobs can be hard to find. I have a friend who recently
decided to get in to trades as a welder, after a string of poor life decisions
left him without a serious education or career.

The sad part is that he's having a bitch of a time finding a job up here...
which I assume is due to revitalization of trades from the government ad
campaign.

Definitely something to support. And hey, maybe my friend can go work in the
US.

~~~
pragmatic
Try North Dakota (close to Canada) and desperately in need of skilled labor
b/c of the oil boom.

~~~
protomyth
To add to pragmatic's point, they are hiring huge numbers of people to the
point the oil companies are buying out hotels.

------
mmaunder
On indeed.com job search for Seattle most welders seem to earn around $30k per
year. Denver seems to be closer to $20K/anum. Not exactly indicative of a
shortage driving the price up.

[http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=welder&l=seattle%2C+WA](http://www.indeed.com/jobs?q=welder&l=seattle%2C+WA)

Plumbers are around the same:

<http://www.indeed.com/q-Plumber-l-Seattle,-WA-jobs.html>

It's a cool story and ole Mike sure has a purty smile. But this strikes me as
a bit of PR for Dirty Jobs.

~~~
astrofinch
It's still possible that though there are many plumbers, they're getting older
and we're going to see a lot of them retire in the next 10-20 years.

------
hnal943
_A few years from now, an hour with a good plumber - if you can find one - is
going to cost more than an hour with a good psychiatrist. At which point we'll
all be in need of both._

Mr Rowe: this fact, if you really believe it, will ensure the problem is
fixed. No need to testify to congress about it.

------
nazgulnarsil
I don't buy that Dirty Jobs and their like help to reform the image of skilled
labor. For everyone I know that watches those shows its more like Intervention
where the show just makes you feel better about your life.

------
elptacek
The welding program has all but completely shut down at my local community
college. They auctioned off all of their machining equipment for fractions of
pennies on the dollar about two years ago. If I want to complete any AWS
certifications, I will have to drive a ~40mi round trip to Moraine Valley to
complete the necessary training. There is literally no place closer, and I
live a big city.

So, for my own selfish reasons, I would also like to see a push to increase
the numbers of skilled laborers. :-)

~~~
alnayyir
You'll make more money if you tough it out and your skills are rarefied.

------
pnathan
This is something I've thought about in the last year or two as well. We have
a culture of "buy", not "fix". In part, this is because we've had a very rich
60 years. In part, this is because things are cheap. In part, because
factories design things that are not designed for repair by customers.

The reality is, we can't fix a busted capacitor, a scratched CD, or a damaged
microchip. Nor do we have the equipment and spare materials ready to hand to
weld cracked plastic. Super Glue is it, and not a very good it.

Whereas, we can fix wood, and with some work, manage metal. Earth can be
munged around.

Cars are designed to be maintained, unlike computer hardware (especially our
Macs :-( ).

So in a culture where by the nature of the things we use, we can not trivially
repair them - we leave off the ideas of repair, and prefer the idea of
replace.

This is a problem, because we are more than consumers, more than robots being
pipe-fed from the wells of other people's industry.

H.G. Wells' conception of the time traveller always hangs around in my head
when this sort of discussion arises.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Time_Machine>

------
swalkergibson
Thank you Mike Rowe for putting this on the record!

The trend away from skill-based learning to the ivory tower is contributing to
a deterioration in both. University education is moving towards the average at
an alarming rate. The value of an undergraduate degree is diminishing by the
day, which is further exacerbated by the skyrocketing cost of education. It
seems to me that high schools should promote vocational education just as much
as they promote four year universities. The current system of trying to get
every high schooler into college is asinine, not everyone is cut out for it.
It seems to me that students, parents, teachers, and guidance counselors
should work better together to identify the strengths and weaknesses of a
given individual to determine what that student finds most interesting, and
foster that feeling. Instead, schools receive more prestige for graduating
more students into university and universities receive more funding for
accepting more students. Ridiculous.

------
shawnee_
_It occurred to me that I had become disconnected from a lot of things that
used to fascinate me. I no longer thought about where my food came from, or
how my electricity worked, or who fixed my pipes, or who made my clothes.
There was no reason to. I had become less interested in how things got made,
and more interested in how things got bought._

Can a modern civilization really be considered "civilized" when things like
these salt-of-the-Earth basics are so far removed from the general population?

 _In Alabama, a third of all skilled tradesmen are over 55. They're retiring
fast, and no one is there to replace them._

Indeed, this is another thing. My dad was a construction worker -- he hung
drywall for a subcontractor, so you can imagine what his benefits were: zilch.
And he worked until about 3 months before he passed away at age 53. These jobs
aren't the kinds of jobs people can do until they hit what the rest of society
considers a respectable retirement age.

------
jgorham
While I appreciate Mike Rowe's sentiments and general argument, this speech
reminds of politicians who lament the loss of manufacturing jobs as America's
backbone. Economists have regularly pointed out that as a country becomes
wealthier and more educated, the share of the economy devoted to manufacturing
falls. This isn't really a good or a bad thing, its just a reflection of how
that country's resources fit into the global economy. This loss of
manufacturing is only a problem when people are losing these jobs in a "race
to the bottom" situation, much like Mexico and Asian countries during the
1990's.

However, I do acknowledge that the current education system frowns upon
pursuing vocation degrees, when many of my friends would have excelled in
these programs during high school if given the opportunity. The important
distinction here is that we want jobs that are "skilled," not jobs that are
manufacturing per se.

~~~
hugh3
_This isn't really a good or a bad thing, its just a reflection of how that
country's resources fit into the global economy._

Yes and no. The fact is that some people are dumb. Half the population has a
two-digit IQ. As we transition from an economy full of easy jobs (guy who puts
things together on a construction line) to hard jobs (guy in charge of a
hundred robots which put things together on a construction line) we run out of
things which these sorts of people can actually do.

------
conradev
This article really hit home, it describes the situation today quite
accurately. I live in a large town in which 90% of the kids at my high school
go on to college after graduation, anything besides college is looked down
upon.

Our county also runs a smaller technical high school specifically for this
stuff, but unfortunately it isn't a very nice school, as there is a lot of
violence.

I, personally, would not take an occupation involving this kind of work, being
as I have a future somewhere in Computer Science, but I definitely value these
skills, and hope to learn a lot of them in the future. Maybe one summer I'll
work odd jobs, or fix up my house.

------
webXL
Here's a thought: let's subsidize trade schools by not subsidizing colleges!

------
swishercutter
I believe that the main problem is we have spent the last 20 years "training
our replacements" (i.e. selling off semiconductor tech, outsourcing) and not
enough time training our children. Maybe if we spent a bit more time teaching
our children instead of depending on the schools to do it for us things might
be better.

Make time to make things with your children. Life is about more than money,
your grandfather knew that.

------
montagg
He should've pulled out the "sheep's balls on my chin" story from his TED
talk. That would've been way more convincing. ;-)

------
amgine
I'm not gay but I have a serious crush on Mike. I've always respected people
who could fix things regardless of what it is. Mike Rowe's show is pretty much
my dream job. "Go do" a bunch of stuff others think is gross, and get dirty.
Work with my hands.

Too bad i'm in IT with mouths to feed. Hey, at least it's hardware support

------
afterburner
"I believe we need a national PR Campaign for Skilled Labor."

We had this in Canada a few years back. Or it might have been Ontario only,
but in any case, there were lots of TV ads and financial incentives for
getting the appropriate education in skilled labour.

------
StuffMaster
Around here they're trying to increase the college graduation rate at all
costs, education and merit be damned. It's a symptom of the same "everyone
must be degreed" mentality.

------
dagski
well spoken. I'm glad he provided a balanced approach to the trades. he hit
the nail on the head... and to think.. I used to kinda think we was a douche.

------
mahrain
I think he could run for president!

~~~
SoftwareMaven
He's far too reasonable to make a presidential candidate. You have to be
somewhat extreme to attract dollars because too few middle-ground people give
too few dollars (and there is no media drama involved).

~~~
webXL
Why do you need a lot of money? To get your message out there, right? Well,
this guy has been getting his message out for a while and has good name
recognition, so he doesn't need as much money as someone on the fringe.

I'd give him money over your typical "say anything to get elected" (d-bag)
candidate.

------
strebel
frickin lov this guy. My own father is a craftsmen and soon to retire. Dirt is
cool

------
georgieporgie
I was really annoyed in high school that there was no way to fit in wood &
metal shop _and_ programming classes. I even took 'early bird' classes and
took PE at the local community college, but still couldn't fit in metal
working. It was disappointing to be restricted to a particular skill path at
such a young age.

------
gubatron
If most of the readers here are like myself then we can't really do anything
about that issue, I can't fix or do anything very well with my hands, takes me
forever and ends up doing like a 5 year old did it. I'm great with logic
abstractions but I suck in the physical world.

I find it funny this post is #1 on hacker news today.

~~~
tlb
Good tradesmen are hackers. They hack on 50-200 year-old technology, but it's
hacking none the less.

------
latch
Put farmers in the same category.

Not sure what, but I sniff an opportunity for tech to get involved here.

~~~
pragmatic
Farming is high tech. Tractors drive themselves (what google is only now doing
with cars).

The tractor, the planter, everything is gps and sensor based. You can tell how
much seed is coming out at each planter point (can't remember the term for
this). Each one needs to be calibrated. Also they shut off if you cross over a
planted area so you don't waste seed, fertilizer, etc.

Farmers aren't waiting for you to come along and "get tech involved". They've
(the smart succesful ones) always have the latest tech. From satelite internet
(way back when) to spreadsheets to highly sophisticated computerized machines.

Inputs (fuel, seed, fertilizer) are ridiculously expensive (b/c our dollar is
worth less and less and the fed prints money like toilet paper) and at least
fuel and fertilizer have many foreign components. So automation and gps, etc
can be really cost savers (also better for the environment, incidentally)

~~~
dagw
Yup, a friend of mine works for a company that develops software used by
farmers (among other things). He says that all the farmers he meets are
surprisingly tech savvy and always on top of the latest computer and tech
trends.

~~~
defrost
In Western Australia the "Shear Magic" sheep shearing robot was developed
during the early eighties - a working robot that dealt in real time with
shearing a live sheep. Elsewhere, the state of the art was spray painting a
regular shaped car on an assembly line.

Various other bits of "cool tech" range from stump jumpers to laser optic wool
classing.

