Just a quick one as I write something else on 2020.
I see that Uncle Joe Biden, the "lunch-pail" Democrat, the man who is a blue collar wearing worker at heart, the man who grew up around coal miners, the man who is the Democrats' "moderate" island in a sea of leftist lunacy, etc., has been at it again.
In a recent "debate," Blue Collar Joe said he would be willing to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of blue collar jobs in pursuit of the Green New Deal. Generous of him. What a great "sacrifice" for him. Now he has advice for the coal miners he would put out of work, which is, I kid you not, "learn to code." Maybe he should "learn to code" given how his political fortunes are shaping up . . . but I digress.
It seems to me that these coal miners know a lot about the energy industry, and that perhaps Joe and Hunter could help them get jobs with a Ukrainian energy company . . . the miners seem more qualified than Hunter . . . just saying. "Burisma here they come!" Good campaign slogan for Joe . . .
I would love for some "journalist" or just some average American to ask Joe about that . . . just a suggestion.
There is glue sniffing stupid, paint chip eating stupid and then there is Joe Biden whose stupidity is immeasurable.
ReplyDeleteHaving trained *many* programmers, I find Biden's optimism, despite its dis-ingenuousness, laughable. It's extremely rare for someone with no programming background to become a productive programmer later in life.
ReplyDeleteJust sayin'...
- reader #1482
Your disingenuousness is extremely laughable.
Deletedunno... seems more problematic for someone with no defined ability the program (Biden) to claim that others will learn to do so. Let's see Biden switch careers to "show us how it's done". Heck, it's difficult enough for software developers who've been in the industry 20 years already. How are new similarly-aged converts from 'coal mining' going to make inroads?
DeleteAs someone else said, try a more related pursuit, if Biden permits it.
- reader #1482
"...rare for someone with no programming background to become a productive programmer later in life." 1482-[OU812]
DeleteJust sayin'...
Early last semester my youngest shared an epiphany she had. Said she had asked her Hindi housemate, a grad student in computer programming, for her thoughts on the subject of 'R Functional Genomics'? The sagacious lady swami replied with one word: UGH! almost in a whisper... next the fledgling sought my advice, me her wizard who had tinkered with Fortran, Cobol, and various other iterations in C++'s --, said I, that's what gave me this gray head! March on I said...Boldly she took up the challenge with just a H.S. course in Python... saw her at Christmas, she looks much older and wiser now, as well as 20 pounds lighter with bags under her eyes, poor dear~~~ happily she got her 'A' and continues bravely, if not wiser, along her Bioinformatics minor trail... itsa long long road from which there is no return, say it ain't so Joe!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYzfTdIZoP0
On Watch~~~
"Let's Roll"
OW added, That one was for Joe and all US Boys Town grads, here's the one I meant to post for me and she:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BADDeIQWVQ
The most appropriate career change of coal miners would be into demolition, rock quarry and concrete production. Many of their current skills would transfer over into these areas. Telling these miners to learn to code is telling them to throw away skills that they have developed over the years and consider those skills of no value. Tone deaf to say the least.
ReplyDeleteGiven that I have been seeing media reports of hecklers showing up multiple times at Biden campaign events shows how bad it is for Joe. Republicans for the most part do not show up and heckle a Democrat at their own event. In public, maybe, but to pretend to be a supporter and then heckle, no, not really a Republican thing. These are Democrats heckling Joe, at his events, and yes, they are bringing up Hunter.
ohhhh no... that would *not* work.
DeleteProgressives stand *against* construction of any kind other than their own houses and cities. Bespoil nature! Return Hetch Hetchy to it's *natural* splendor (but don't attempt to do the same with San Francisco, of course, because hip and cool progressives live there!!).
That's the problem, in general, with conservationism. There's no logic for balance. It's all extremism. John Muir had no better logic for preserving whatever it was he wanted than he did for dismantling his own mansion and estates.
Heck, San Francisco itself was named for St. Francis, who was a forerunner of the "Cultural Imperialism" of today, going to Egypt, of all places, in an attempt to convert the Caliph to Christianity. The model of a thousand years of micro-transgressions against "our betters"!
- reader #1482
The coal mining jobs are going away, regardless, because even if we don't reduce fossil fuels, oil and gas are getting cheaper and coal isn't.
ReplyDeleteWhile it may not require the use of their prior skills, training to be nurses and other health-care providers is something I see adults engage in all the time.
Factually true. It is the arrogance of attitude behind what "Blue Collar" Joe Biden said about these people and their work traditions. That attitude stings for a very long time.
DeleteFactually true at the moment, yes.
DeleteBut the same can be said of pretty much any similar market.
They vary. If oil and/or gas become problematic for political or technological reasons, coal will suddenly become "coal's always been cheap and oil has skyrocketed"
The resurgence of 'peak oil' is a regular bogeyman, sometimes helping drive the price of oil up by 10x-50x during more panicky times. Yes, it's whatever other instability starting the drive, but 'the fear' helps make it nuts.
"Everybody better get ready for a barrel to oil to be permanently about $400." <-- many of these prognostications have been made during oil crises.
just like "California better get used to 'the new permanent drought'..."
Where appropriate to national defense, the US government should maintain an interest in energy. It's one of the very few places where government interest in 'diversity' makes sense.
- reader #1482
By the way, doesn't green energy also create blue collar jobs? Someone has to maintain the solar cells sites, wind mill turbines, etc. Do we have a calculation on man-hours per gigawatt between them?
ReplyDeleteI believe you are correct. In fact, I'm pretty sure at least wind requires *much* more blue-collar-hour-dollars. Not only to those maintenance engineers need to be trained in the equivalent of automotive repair, they must be provided hazard pay for working at the top of 50, 80, or 100+ foot towers. Some of this is mitigated by improvements in reliability, but wind farm production maintenance does not scale well with plant size (more windmills, more area, distance between two random towers is more f(number-of-mills) rather than f(sqrt(number-of-mills)) because they're generally spread across a ridge, mostly in a line).
DeleteSolar maintenance is more prone to automated maintenance, as installations typically lie on flat ground in a desert. Remove panel, return to depot, replace panel. All stuff more appropriate to WALL-E than blue-collars, but on the interim, sure.
How much inefficiency is a jobs program worth?
Heck, we could mandate a minimum wage of $500/hr as well. And require all companies to hire employees proportional to revenue. The sky is really the limit for government intervention in markets. :)
- reader #1482
Anybody have opinions about aperture glasses like http://www.seebettershootbetter.com/ ?
ReplyDelete- reader #1482
ANy take on taking out Qassem Soleimani?
ReplyDeleteWhen journalists are confronted with "learn to code" speech it becomes hatespeech and mockery, all others though? Learn to code peasants. What a great time to be alive and watch all the masks get ripped off. Fourth estate or enemy of the people? More popcorn.
ReplyDelete