Posted on 10/13/2024 8:41:14 AM PDT by DUMBGRUNT
Aaron Rice has two logos tattooed on his left leg: one from the plumbing business he co-founded more than a decade ago, and another from the private-equity-backed company that recently bought it.
“The trades are hard work. A lot of today’s society, picking up a shovel is foreign to them,”
The wave of investment is minting a new class of millionaires across the country, one that small-business owners say is helping add more shine to working with a tool belt.
Rice continues to work as a sewer department manager at Rite Way, and plans to stay with the company until he retires in seven years at age 50—something he’s looking forward to. His co-founder has remained with the company, too.
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
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This is right out of a South Park episode a while back where the trades folks arrived for work in a Rolls, and the lawyers and bureaucrats were begging for jobs.
And, when one needs true work done, are you gonna call a DemocRAT?
Wsj just discovering this?
I taught at an urban high school. Our school had an awesome carpentry program. Other schools in the district had similar trades programs.
George W. Bush destroyed them all with his idiotic “No Child Left Behind” law. NCLB tested for academic knowledge but not for trades knowledge. And woe to the district that had poor NCLB scores.
So as a matter of self-preservation, many districts dropped their trades programs and shoved the trades students into classes they neither needed nor wanted (into advanced algebra, for example).
I’m retired now. I’m told that the trades programs are slowly coming back. That’s good news. But we shouldn’t forget how W’s stupidity wrecked the field for a good 15 years.
Community colleges. There are about a hundred of them here in Ca. Trump takes office in January and demands non-stop trade school programs with no summers off. Give them until September to set them up. Openly call for the turning away of useless degree programs where 18 year-olds park their behinds for 4-6 years on someone else’s dime. Then there’s the retirement plans to offset SSI that won’t be there.
Should Mike Rowe have a prominent role in this?
“Should Mike Rowe have a prominent role in this?”
Good idea.
I didn’t come in off the drifter road until my 40s and at some point I decided that I need some sort of permanent work so I started a little plumbing business since I had picked up the service plumbing trade at some point.
Plumbing service work is fun and lucrative if you are good at it, unfortunately for me I had started so late in life that old injuries and new medical problems interrupted any long term plans but I it was great work when I could do it.
In my case I charged top dollar for top work and customer care, was very picky and selective about who I accepted as customers, I worked a glamorous part of the coast, and I could live my personal life while only working a few days a month and scheduling calls from 11am to 2pm which suited me fine although sometimes I would be so engrossed in my reading and living that when a plumbing call came in I would have to take a moment to remember that the interruption was because I had a plumbing business.
The medical stuff cut short my money growth and I ended up drained financially but I had paid cash for a small house during that time and that was a cool thing to come out of it with for basically a parttime job that I liked and having never put my nose to the grind stone.
“Wsj just discovering this?”
No.
The WSJ a while back had an article comparing the total cost of four years of college to other options including an apprenticeship.
More than a few articles mention apprenticeships.
A million dollars isn’t what it used to be. A million dollars in 1960 is the equivalent of $10,761,126 today.
—”and having never put my nose to the grind stone.”
As I was reading along... here it comes...HE NEVER PICKS HIS NOSE OR CHEWS HIS NAILS!
Punchline for a plumber joke.
Those who can be in the electrician, plumbing, construction, and craft fields (i.e. woodworking) will never want for work or for money.
As for those who went to college and racked up a hundred thousand dollars in student loans for gender studies, well, sorry, you are condemned to a life of poverty unless you have a trust fund from mommy and daddy.
Soon robots will take over all the menial jobs that most college kids are stuck with such as taking orders at a drive-in, making lattes at Starbucks, or flipping burgers at McDonalds. But if you can make custom-ordered furniture in your garage workshop or repair a faulty HVAC unit, your future is assured.
That was Bush’s got his big “reach across the aisle” with Teddy Kennedy. More like a reach around.
My little brother, a couple of my half brothers are millionaires from simple blue collar stuff and buying houses with the money, whether roofing or moving trailers, remodeling or whatever, when you make some extra money by being self employed and buying little fixer uppers, the wealth accumulates, most millionaires drive pickups.
For most people the path by my various in laws is best, a good office/professional career, nice suburban or urban life and not dealing with tenants, great retirement with good knees and a good back, the point is that anyone can have some degree of wealth in America, but of course mass immigration kills a lot of the blue collar route, or at least makes it far more grubbier and unpleasant.
The Millionaire Next Door was mostly made up of interviews of blue collar business owners. The book came out in the mid 90’s.
Hilarious and true. South Park was right on.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6kf1PXIJII
I read it not long after it was published...and even remember some of it!
Out in what used to be the sticks, where we live the addresses are seldom what one would expect.
Guessing the old guys selected a number they liked.
Opening the mail from our broker, I noticed simular holdings but the quantities are much larger, a computer glitch?
On the face sheet a different name!
Yes, the multi-millionaire down the lane.
It was for a neighbor about a mile down; the address is only one number different! The old houses have a similar appearance and delivery services have a difficult time.
Early one morning I was headed out for a bike ride and there were thousands of plastic forks sticking up from my lawn!
They have two kids a bit older than ours and with MANY friends.
WE HAD BEEN FORKED!
The mower bagged the forks quickly.
“And, when one needs true work done, are you gonna call a DemocRAT?”
I saw an ad by the IBEW on TV yesterday advertising for workers. I’ve never seen an ad like that before, not from the high paying trades. That to me is a sign that people don’t want to work anymore.
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