Sorry I haven’t been as active as I should have been, occasionally, life intrudes on what we’d like to be doing. But I couldn’t pass up commenting on your post, because (a) I really like Mike Rowe, he seems to be a genuinely good guy, and honestly concerned about the state of our country, and (b) He’s right.

Right now, I work for a major U.S. steelmaker, and it’s probably one of the best-paying blue collar jobs in the state. Been there for almost 20 years, and for most of those years I’ve made, or come close to making a six-figure annual income. Most of the people I work with are HS grads with some technical training (and some of them got it with OJT from our current employer, or from military service) and of the ones that I know of who do have a college diploma, most of them aren’t using it in their current jobs. (I’ve got a degree in Asian Languages. How useful is that when it comes to making steel?)

But then you have people like my step-daughter, who got her Masters degree at the cost of almost 80K in student loans. The first job she got in her chosen field started her at 42K annually, and the benefits suck. So she’s in a job where she will never earn enough money to pay off her student loans. At best, she’s paying the interest on them. (I can’t fault her, she’s doing a tough, thankless job, and doing it really well, but if her husband didn’t have a good, secure job, they’d be in a real jam!)

I wish Mr. Rowe all the luck in the world, and hope his words fall on listening ears, because we’re in a real mess in this country. We’ve taken the kids who could be running assembly lines in big factories, and have them earning degrees in Stupid Shit, with minors in Useless Knowledge. A phrase that some infomercial guru used comes to mind: “Stop the Insanity!”

Oh, well. As Grandpa used to point out, “It’s not a perfect world. If it was, none of us would be in it.”

Have a good 2017!

Retired Spook