tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post5349514044561723619..comments2024-03-27T18:24:19.683-07:00Comments on Steve Sailer: iSteve: "Adventureland"Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-38323958041919419832009-04-02T13:22:00.000-07:002009-04-02T13:22:00.000-07:00anonymous said...You are also right about the unpa...anonymous said...<BR/><BR/><I>You are also right about the unpaid internships...I'm watching a lot of surburban kids whose parents still think they can get a part-time job to pay for their spending money---falling all over themselves for a job in the local Microcenter, who pays THEIR employees $4.00 an hour plus 1.5% of everything they can put their commission sticker on.</I><BR/><BR/>That's amazing. I know Wal-Mart locally starts people at $8/hour, so those kids are getting screwed.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-210002602702811492009-04-02T07:10:00.000-07:002009-04-02T07:10:00.000-07:00I can remember back in the 70's when an working cl...I can remember back in the 70's when an working class kid could get a job in the summer as a construction laborer and make the unheard of sum of $10 or 12. an hour. Which was enough to pay for tuition and books at the local state college, if he lived at home. And a little left over for pocket money during the school year.<BR/><BR/>Now, 40 years later, the hourly wage for a construction laborer is STILL $10-12 an hour, and tuition has gone from $700 per semester to $2000 per semester---or more. And of course, no-one wants to hire a wroking class kid when he has as many adult immmigrants to choose from, who are willing to work ALL year long for the $10-12 an hour.<BR/><BR/>You are also right about the unpaid internships...I'm watching a lot of surburban kids whose parents still think they can get a part-time job to pay for their spending money---falling all over themselves for a job in the local Microcenter, who pays THEIR employees $4.00 an hour plus 1.5% of everything they can put their commission sticker on.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-52674868443050380012009-04-01T21:53:00.000-07:002009-04-01T21:53:00.000-07:00Anonymous said...I'd bet there are huge regional d...Anonymous said...<BR/><BR/><I>I'd bet there are huge regional disparities in how much of that goes on. All the strippers in the Northeast US are immigrants from Brazil or Eastern Europe.</I><BR/><BR/>Are you sure the northeast is part of America? I live in the Phoenix metro area about 200 miles from the Mexican border. It's been a few years since I've been to a strip club here in the Phoenix metro area, but none of the strippers had accents and quite a few were White.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-71257282023857014132009-04-01T20:01:00.000-07:002009-04-01T20:01:00.000-07:00Re: teens & work in film. Compare Fast Times a...Re: teens & work in film. <BR/><BR/>Compare Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) with American Pie (1999). In Fast Times, nearly everyone has a job. The only characters who don't are Spicoli and his slacker buddies and star athlete Charles Jefferson. Jobs are a source of status and identity. <BR/><BR/>In American Pie, if I recall, none of the kids had jobs. All of their afternoons were spent on extracurricular actities (lacrosse, glee club, band). The world of work might as well be in Tierra del Fuego.Darwin's Sh*tlistnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-80073707982553538052009-04-01T16:22:00.000-07:002009-04-01T16:22:00.000-07:00"A friend of mine went to U of A in Tucson Arizona..."A friend of mine went to U of A in Tucson Arizona. She said quite a few of the girls that she knew were stripping to get through college."<BR/><BR/>I'd bet there are huge regional disparities in how much of that goes on. All the strippers in the Northeast US are immigrants from Brazil or Eastern Europe.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-74499447635149304122009-04-01T16:19:00.000-07:002009-04-01T16:19:00.000-07:00I work in the industry and I can assure everyone t...I work in the industry and I can assure everyone that residential construction is now done to extremely low quality standards. Most houses built in the last 10 years will being falling apart shortly.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-16719256082316645552009-04-01T13:01:00.000-07:002009-04-01T13:01:00.000-07:00However, it came back to bite them in the ass in t...<I>However, it came back to bite them in the ass in the end since they couldn't list such an occupation on their resumes.</I><BR/><BR/>Yeah, because no man wants to hire a girl who's willing to strip for money. Right!<BR/><BR/>Top of the list, honey. Do you still have your pole?Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-7363807255065731372009-04-01T12:37:00.000-07:002009-04-01T12:37:00.000-07:00I think Obama might also have had burger-flipping ...I think Obama might also have had burger-flipping type jobs in high school in Hawaii.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-7551180674847768192009-04-01T12:36:00.000-07:002009-04-01T12:36:00.000-07:00Obama had some sort of summer job in construction ...Obama had some sort of summer job in construction in New York City.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-59335141547152731932009-04-01T12:33:00.000-07:002009-04-01T12:33:00.000-07:00Right, Kennywood Park. It was the only well-mainta...Right, Kennywood Park. It was the only well-maintained old amusement park the filmmakers found that hadn't been redone with trademarked cartoon characters.Steve Sailerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11920109042402850214noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-50845283354902117842009-04-01T09:08:00.000-07:002009-04-01T09:08:00.000-07:00Obama for all his talk of a rags to riches bio has...<I>Obama for all his talk of a rags to riches bio hasn't done any manual labor that I'm aware of.</I><BR/><BR/>You've read his books, Steve. Is that true? I strongly suspect it is.<BR/><BR/><I>I too would have traded those opportunities in a heartbeat for an internship at a Mahattan publishing house or a summer in El Salvador building houses.</I><BR/><BR/>I love that: build houses in El Salvador as a "volunteer" - good; build houses in the United States for a job - bad. What's the difference, except that for some idiotic reason the former looks better on the resume than the latter.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-81865240483140088702009-04-01T08:57:00.000-07:002009-04-01T08:57:00.000-07:00Bill said......Waiting tables, for example, makes ...Bill said...<BR/><BR/><I>...Waiting tables, for example, makes good money, but women are better at that (they have better social skills and short-term memory), and restaurants have become totally Mexican in the kitchen.</I><BR/><BR/>A friend of mine went to U of A in Tucson Arizona. She said quite a few of the girls that she knew were stripping to get through college. However, it came back to bite them in the ass in the end since they couldn't list such an occupation on their resumes. She said that when they went to employers they had a black hole on their resumes where they should have had some work experience. <BR/><BR/>Bill again...<BR/><BR/><I>The new construction trends, which emphasize snap-together houses, were developed with these kinds of laborers in mind. This is why a "new" house is probably a poor investment anyway, and even further emphasizes the insanity of the housing bubble.</I><BR/><BR/>My 11th grade English teacher states that her husband, a carpenter, went into a tract house here in the valley that had a room that was supposed to be square and instead had one wall that was 11 inches longer than the opposing wall.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-29693905234978142402009-04-01T08:21:00.000-07:002009-04-01T08:21:00.000-07:00is this movie set in kennywood park in pittsburgh?...is this movie set in kennywood park in pittsburgh?<BR/><BR/>it's one of the best amusements parks in any large city. growing up in pittsburgh, it was odd to live in other, bigger cities and not have an amusement park right in town. i thought it would be normal for every big city to have it's own park, but it turns out it's not.<BR/><BR/>kennywood is very similar to knott's berry farm in LA. except kennywood is a lot better. it's no cedar point, but then again, everybody has to drive hours to get to cedar point, because it's not in a city.jodynoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-9349589769551272792009-04-01T05:28:00.000-07:002009-04-01T05:28:00.000-07:00Bill wrote: "The new construction trends, which em...Bill wrote: "The new construction trends, which emphasize snap-together houses, were developed with these kinds of laborers in mind."<BR/><BR/>That's a great point. If business leaders have contempt for manual laborers, they will design manual jobs so that contemptible people can do them.Aciliushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07785768453427754723noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-30082104625843190082009-04-01T01:31:00.000-07:002009-04-01T01:31:00.000-07:00The sad thing is that getting the instructions rig...The sad thing is that getting the instructions right made a big difference in how well a lot of these currently Mexicanized jobs were done. <BR/><BR/>When working in carpentry, I had to compute angles, make sure every post was <I>absolutely</I> plumb, and lay pipes according to detailed instructions. I also had to make cuts and use tools with both standard and metric measurements (most people don't realize that the standard measurements are foreign to Mexican immigrants, and this is quite important). I also had to use machines that were very dangerous and required reading and/or detailed instruction to avoid serious accidents. If I hadn't had a pro breathing down my neck and telling me in fairly complex English how to do this it simply wouldn't have been done right. <BR/><BR/>Somehow, I doubt that Mexican laborers are so thorough about things. In fact, it is probably beyond their comprehension to carry out a lot of the tasks that were assigned to me. Without the new modular homes, they would have been more expensive due to mistakes than marginally higher paid Anglos. <BR/><BR/>The new construction trends, which emphasize snap-together houses, were developed with these kinds of laborers in mind. This is why a "new" house is probably a poor investment anyway, and even further emphasizes the insanity of the housing bubble.Billhttp://www.welmer.orgnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-32739715394321754742009-04-01T01:12:00.000-07:002009-04-01T01:12:00.000-07:00I am Lugash.You can romanticize menial crap jobs l...I am Lugash.<BR/><BR/><B>You can romanticize menial crap jobs like those all you want, but all those jobs taught me nothing useful other than pity for people who have no choice but to work at jobs like those. Yes, I had to learn "discipline" but I could, and did, get that lesson elsewhere. I too would have traded those opportunities in a heartbeat for an internship at a Mahattan publishing house or a summer in El Salvador building houses.</B><BR/><BR/>Spot on. There are other "less good" reasons as well. What 18-25 year old wants to wake up at 0 dark 30 and do manual labor? The pay sucks, there is no prestige, the work is hard, your bosses are generally uptight guys who expect you to work continuously and you can't meet any girls at a job like that. <BR/><BR/>Better, or easier, to take the internship. But beware the student loan tar pit.<BR/><BR/>I am Lugash.Lugashnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-90672599422441993262009-04-01T00:43:00.000-07:002009-04-01T00:43:00.000-07:00I grew up in a working class home and didn't have ...I grew up in a working class home and didn't have any connections, so from age 15-25 I worked jobs such as: dishwasher, line cook, factory worker, warehouse worker, fast-food worker, pizza delivery, and cab driver. Looking back on it I wouldn't trade those experiences for cushy internships or the like. Those jobs taught me alot about people and human nature. They made me want to work that much harder in school. Even though I've moved on to more "respectable" work, Mickey D's is still the toughest most stressfull job I've ever had. <BR/> The upper-middle class in this country has a lot of disdain for the working poor. This is manifested in the lax attitude toward low skill hispanic immigration since the upper middle class assumes it doesn't affect them. Obama for all his talk of a rags to riches bio hasn't done any manual labor that I'm aware of. The lack of having to work such jobs may explain why the young males of today seem so effeminate.Marvinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03665884399965621607noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-77966189720748286722009-03-31T23:10:00.000-07:002009-03-31T23:10:00.000-07:00Are you going to encourage your son to flip burger...<I>Are you going to encourage your son to flip burgers at Mickey D's Steve?</I><BR/><BR/>If someone would rather work an unpaid internship than at Mickey D's or painting houses or whatever that's fine. But there should at least be an economic trade-off involved. Forcing high school/college students to compete with uneducated immigrants often means that there won't be.<BR/><BR/>We have now made economic decisions in this country that reward people who choose not to work these jobs. Kids/parents who make too much don't qualify for Pell Grants or student aid. Clearly we'd rather they graduate on the taxpayer's dime, heavily in debt, 20 pounds overweight, and without a shred of work experience, especially not the kind knowing what it feels like to be on the other side.<BR/><BR/>Keep in mind that our geniuses in Congress, led by Ted Kennedy and Orrin Hatch, those arbiters of bad ideas, have just determined to spend $6 billion more of your loot to make sure that no aspiring little Mottola's ever have to work such degrading jobs again.Marknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-42072962008313878122009-03-31T22:46:00.000-07:002009-03-31T22:46:00.000-07:00In 1987, a job at Adventureland could easily get ...In 1987, a job at Adventureland could easily get you PUNK ROCK GIRLS. <BR/><BR/>But all this guy could think of doing in Manhattan was an internship? <BR/><BR/>In 1987?<BR/><BR/>There is something seriously wrong with this person.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-28730723568461688172009-03-31T22:29:00.000-07:002009-03-31T22:29:00.000-07:00"Given our druthers, we'd ALL rather be paid to le..."Given our druthers, we'd ALL rather be paid to lecture upper class youth on European history or have a hip, new-collar internship at a large company."<BR/><BR/>No. Some of us would prefer to farm, to do carpentry, or to work on fishing boats, without dealing with the social condescension that comes from SWPL tools working in advertising or journalism, or having the fruits of our labor sucked away by the various financial kings Sailer often posts about. <BR/><BR/>Who will be the "heart" between the "head" and the "hands" – that's what Fritz Lang asked in Metropolis. That same volatile social division was, roughly, what Menenius Agrippa addressed and was trying to remedy in Rome 2,500 years ago. America, however, taking its cue from old Albion, has never truly cared about the base of the pyramid - "If yer so smart, why ain't you rich?" There simply never were university students here rushing en masse to work with their racial brethren in mines and fields as there were in Germany in the 20s - our nearest equivalent is having suburban girls teach in the ghetto. <BR/>Unfortunately, now that some of us have noticed what this all means for the future, it's too late. <BR/><BR/>Benn's line here about "callow insecurity" being a national disease is right on the money. He forgot to mention that it's terminal.Rich Flisgesnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-34663671139303627662009-03-31T21:45:00.000-07:002009-03-31T21:45:00.000-07:00I am afraid that we are producing a generation of ...<I>I am afraid that we are producing a generation of technocratic students that will have only one skill in their tool box in an ever changing world.</I><BR/><BR/>Right. You'll produce Matthew Yglesias.Peternoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-20646431286962962072009-03-31T20:22:00.000-07:002009-03-31T20:22:00.000-07:00Boy am I glad I don't know Peter.Boy am I glad I don't know Peter.rrrrrrogernoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-61934532695882383462009-03-31T20:14:00.000-07:002009-03-31T20:14:00.000-07:00Sometime in the past decade I went with a buddy, n...Sometime in the past decade I went with a buddy, notebook in hand, to some event in L.A. about millionaires - talks from them about how to become one. My sole reason in attending was as sociological observer, and I took copious notes and got a lot of good laughs watching the proles rush forward at every opportunity, credit cards at the ready to buy either software that would enable them to beat the market or some get-rich-quick real estate packages or some CDs that they could play at night to subliminally "train" them to have a "positive attitude".<BR/><BR/>Toward the end of the event, one of the motivational speakers explained how, during his senior year in high school, his father up in Buffalo took him to his job at the steel foundry. See, the speaker had been debating whether or not to go to college post-graduation, and the old man had concocted a plan previously seen only in movies of the week. With dramatic flair the man described to the audience the heat and the sweat and the clanging and the enormous impact it all had on him. So he wisely decided to forego the job path of his dad and went away to some SUNY school, eventually ending up as...a motivational speaker. And I wrote in my notebook, "What does a modern nation need more, steel workers or professional talkers peddling books?" <BR/><BR/>This was around the time of much historical research in my life. When I finally found a single society in modern history that had set out to heal the rift between "hand" and "mind" workers, attempting to enoble the actual act of work itself, I was shocked. Here was a place that had analyzed history and thought things out. Unfortunately, acknowleding anything forward-thinking or admirable about that society made me a hater. So there it ended.Tom Vunoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-53481700046470198392009-03-31T18:55:00.000-07:002009-03-31T18:55:00.000-07:00Peter,Given our druthers, we'd ALL rather be paid ...Peter,<BR/><BR/>Given our druthers, we'd ALL rather be paid to lecture upper class youth on European history or have a hip, new-collar internship at a large company. Nobody's criticising that desire in particular. The point you miss is that a college student taking a menial job is something that is now LOOKED DOWN UPON: an embarassing gaffe, something only schleps with middle-aged failures for fathers have to do. Does that sort of attitude strike you as repulsive? It does me.<BR/><BR/>--Senor DougAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9430835.post-69903583951000946052009-03-31T18:21:00.000-07:002009-03-31T18:21:00.000-07:00StephenT ...[he] expressed shock and indignation a...<B>StephenT</B> <I>...[he] expressed shock and indignation at the fact that even $8 and $10 an hour jobs, the kind he “never would have considered in the past” (too embarrassing) were now nowhere to be found! How could it be? Of course, those kinds of jobs are still there even during a recession, every bit as much as they were for me in 1982, but they are now permanently occupied by Mexican nationals</I><BR/><BR/>Also, $10 in 1982 bought about twice as much food as it does these days.rastnoreply@blogger.com