Posted on 11/11/2015 3:08:41 PM PST by conservativejoy
Rubio: 'We need more welders and less philosophers'
At Fox Business Network's Republican presidential debate, Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) argued that increased vocational training and other measures would be more effective at helping American workers than raising the minimum wage. (Fox Business Network)
During the fourth Republican debate, Marco Rubio picked up a point touched on by Rick Santorum in the undercard debate earlier in the night. 'Welders,' Rubio said, 'make more money than philosophers.' Post Fact Checker Glenn Kessler looked at the idea, but we thought it could use a visual.
Using data from the Web site PayScale, we can look at the introductory and median incomes of both professions. In 2008, philosophy majors started at about $40,000 a year — about the same as what the Bureau of Labor Statistics says first-year welders make.
But over the longer term, philosophy majors make more. Mid-career welders make $22 an hour, according to PayScale, compared with over $80,000 for philosophy majors.
Santorum's point was that there were a lot of welder positions available, which is a very fair point. Philosophy majors may make more — but if you can't get a job, that won't do you much good.
Welders up in North Dakota during the oil boom were well into the six figures.
Got a friend who welds stainless steel for dairies. I inherited (bought an old closed dairy farm once) lots of high quality stainless steel pipes & buckets & cans. I give them to my friend and he gives me back some of it he has turned into boat parts:)
That is it in a nutshell, old goldenarm I bet sits around just for that special weld, the black guy is on the phone somewhere and the philipino is feeding wire stcks on a tig machine so fast it would make your head spin.
Rube-o could have pointed out that the philosophers are stealing money from welders while destroying Christian values (and replacing them with Kantian claptrap, Bertrand Russell gibberish, Peter Singer’s hatred of human life, Andrea Dworkin self-mutilation, etc.).
As a liberal, however, Rube-o wants atheists and lazy people to succeed, and wants useful people to fail.
I love how willfully the forest is being missed for the trees by the MSM. Marco’s point - which resonates with tens of millions of Americans - is that there is more than one track for Amercan kids post high school. Welder was a convenient stand in for all of the assorted trades and technical training available to people, just as philosopher was a stand in for all of the esoteric liberal arts degrees that are high on self importance but low on value (this includes jounalism majors, incidentally).
A kid could go to community college and get a certificate in a trade like plumbing, hvac, or (yes, even) welding, and be able to get a good starting salary with little debt and tons of mobility. If they want to branch out later, that same CC could give him an associates in business or management, which is sufficient to get a foot in the door at 90% of the white collar jobs in this country. He’ll likely be competing with philosophy majors for the very same jobs that most of the latter end up pursuing, with much less debt and baggage.
I get the MSM trashing him, but I’m a bit perplexed why the Trumpistas have decided this is a valid point of attack. Kind of elitist, I think.
Most philosophy majors go into things like finance and management, usually with higher degrees.
The degree shows you can write and think.
I am not a Rubio fan, but his overall point was to call out the stigma that academia and the elitists have made against those who work in the trades. For decades, they have marketed (quite successfully until recently) that every high school senior must go to college and get a white collar job. That is part of the reason why so many illegals are in the construction industry. Where I live, in the suburbs just outside of NYC, I know many people who worked in the trades—plumbers, carpenters, electricians, auto mechanics, etc. Their children never wanted to do menial labor like their fathers did, so they went to college to take up stupid majors like sports management or international studies and have nothing but tens of thousands of dollars in debt for student loans. They then complain that they cannot find a job, but I never saw them throw a lawnmower in the back of a vehicle and go around cutting grass.
The illegal alien invasion problem is partly due to the laziness of the instant gratification generation. I am in no way for illegal immigration as I see first hand the financial impact it has on my state, but there are some illegals who are willing to work those menial jobs that the lazy American youth feel is beneath them.
I myself cleaned toilets in my first job. I hated it, but I liked earning money and busted my ass to put myself through school and get an education so that I would never be stuck cleaning toilets later on in life.
Rubio should think about all the jobs Americans are losing to the illegals he wants to give green cards and eventual citizenship to.
The one I know is selling furniture.
A welder can walk on the rocks without slipping
He won’t because he is bought and paid for by the GOPe. The illegals are driving down wages all across the country. They are flooding our hospitals and putting a ridiculous burden on our law enforcement system. They send billions of dollars to Mexico and everywhere else south of the border that is untaxed. They steal Americans’ identities. They are bringing their third world diseases into our country. They are also bringing their third world nation values of illiteracy, drunkenness, violence, drugs, marxist/leninist political views into our land.
It makes me sick. It is not a surprise at all that Trump resonates so strongly among the fed up American.
“Most philosophy majors go into things like finance and management, usually with higher degrees.”
Most philosophy majors have mommies and daddies who work for Wall Street or have some other high paying job. The good old boy system is alive and well for these kids who can wander around in academia for 4-6 years and then make a phone call or two and get an $80,000 gig.
Try that if you were born in a trailer park in rural Missouri, went to a public high school and got your philosophy degree at a land grant university. Good luck!
Oldplayer
Dole office clerk: “We need welders, electricians, plumbers and pipefitters, heavy equipment operators! What do YOU do!”
Comicus: Stand-up philosopher. “I coalesce the vapors of human experience into a viable and meaningful comprehension”.
Dole Office Clerk: Oh, a *bullshit* artist!
(Borrowed or stolen from THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD PART 1.)
That’s not actually the case at all.
As you likely know, philosophy majors are on average among the very brightest of all college majors. They end up making good money because they are smart and at least reasonably willing to play the game—as evidenced by being college grads.
Only narrow thinking assumes that philosophy majors aren’t successful or “using their degrees” unless they end up as college philosophy professors (who are actually a fairly dysfunctional group).
That ungrammatical phrase summed Rubio up for me. I can’t stand to hear his sing-song Sesame Street-level platitudes, and to pronounce that we need fewer smart and literate graduates of the humanities in such a matter showed us where he’s coming from.
He probably couldn’t write a passable legal, though he is legally trained, if his life depended on it.
“The degree shows you can write and think.”
...and/or your family knows people and/or you are really pretty/handsome and can attract a wealthy mate.
No one in my neighborhood was apparently good looking or smart enough to become a philosopher; we wound up just being lowly engineers and business managers.
Bumper stickers I have seen on welding trucks:
“Welders can fill any crack except the crack of dawn.”
“Welders are like whores, always calling for more heat, more rod, more money.”
And few others I dare not mention in the power plants.
I agree with all you said. We must not let Rubio or Carson win the nomination. Our country will be lost.
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