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Why can’t I find a job...I went to college!

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Gotta love these ****ing Boomers.

"Do good in school, or you won't be able to go to college and you'll flip burgers for the rest of your life."
"Go to an expensive college, or you won't get a good job, and you'll flip burgers for the rest of your life."
"Here, borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars to afford it-- you don't want to flip burgers for the rest of your life."

And here we are, we did everything they told us, and we're hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and we can't afford to pay them, and what do they say?

"Well, who told you that you were too good to flip burgers, anyway?"

**** you. Have fun paying for your own nursing homes, because you made sure we'd never be able to afford it.

Well now you might understand why the richest and most powerful nation on Earth is supposed to make college affordable to ANYONE who has the grades and the ambition. No, not the elite Ivy League private colleges, but certainly the State Universities and community colleges. No kid with the smarts and the ambition should have to go into massive debt just to better themselves, and it is well worth the cost to all Americans because it represents an investment in our entire future, as these kids are going to inherit the reins of power simply by the process of time itself.
So you want these kids to be smart, capable and compassionate for the old farts.

Simply put, if you think paying for college for American kids is expensive, wait till you get a load of what a generation of ignoramuses costs. And if you think that's bad, a generation of ignoramuses saddled with a lifetime of unpayable debt costs even more. Anybody that tells you otherwise is selling a false bill of goods and trying to cover up their own greed, and they want to stick YOU with THEIR bill while they welch out and walk away scot free of their responsibilities.

In other words, they're selling you a con game.

Healthcare and college aren't "FREE STUFF"...they're an investment in our future security.
You can talk about unfunded liabilities and lock boxes all you want but you cannot buy back enough doctors, physicists, software coders and engineers thirty years from now if you freeze them out today.

The only REAL "unfunded liability" is a decayed and crumbling infrastructure and stalled development in a previously developed nation.
The concept of "intergenerational transfer of debt" is absolute utter bovine excrement.
Money today is spent by people living today. Money tomorrow will be spent by people living tomorrow.
The only REAL "debt" is when we wake up tomorrow and no one is smart enough to run things and no one is able to afford to live.
 
Not at all. I am a plumber and I have been taking college courses as well as factory training for 40 years now. When I first started working on water heaters they had 3 wires on them. A thermocouple for the pilot and 2 safety wires. Today you need to go to college and be certified just to work on them or you may void the warranty. Plus it is nice to have a clue how to actually fix them.

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I recently replaced our water heater. It was as you described in your post, when you began working on them. What in the world is your picture of?
 
Not at all. I am a plumber and I have been taking college courses as well as factory training for 40 years now. When I first started working on water heaters they had 3 wires on them. A thermocouple for the pilot and 2 safety wires. Today you need to go to college and be certified just to work on them or you may void the warranty. Plus it is nice to have a clue how to actually fix them.

View attachment 67255142

That is a tankless job in a tankless world. Tanks for listening. :lamo
 
Why can’t I find a job...I went to college, I spent $225 grand and my nieghbor who’s a grease ball mechanic in the building trades is making three times what I used to make.

Well Boo hoo hoo, suck it up cup cake, you bought into it, go back to night school and pick ya up a wrench, we can’t all sit behind a computer and produce nothing for the Country opting to push money and information around. Wait wait wait!...you can always teach, bwahhaaa

Damned!

What you think you said is not what an educated man heard.
 
I recently replaced our water heater. It was as you described in your post, when you began working on them. What in the world is your picture of?

It's a tankless job in a tankless world.
 
Heating water; who knew it could be so complicated?

Actually it's a simpler concept but today's standards demand more sophisticated quality controls and operational tolerances.
The Euros (well, most of them anyway) were pretty much running tankless as far back as the postwar days.
I had a girlfriend who grew up in semi-rural Belgium and she was surprised by the big tank central water heater arrangements in the USA. She explained that every sink or tub had their own tiny water heaters and that you had to light them with a match if you wanted hot water.

She thought that it was exceedingly wasteful and expensive keeping forty or fifty gallons of water heated up "on standby" all day long, "in case someone might want hot water" when all they had to do was light the heater and run the tap, and then when you shut the tap off, the heater went off.
 
And I for one am truly happy about that, honestly. We need good workers in the world if we’re gonna compete on a global scale.

Sure. But unfortunately we are in frank decline (I mean, the USA). Other smarter nations are taking over (like China for the sheer economy, tiny Singapore for the Sciences - they are small but they have the right priorities). In the USA these days, there are too many "Millennials" who feel entitled and keep blaming others for their own failures. And yes, the "Boomers" raised them with the "participation trophy" concept so my generation is partially to blame. Not me, though. My kids were raised right, which is (partially) why they are so successful.

Let me tell you an interesting story.

My son was in this Upper West Side soccer league in Manhattan. It was deemed "non-competitive." I didn't like the concept but it was the only league around; he loved to play and was really talented as a sweeper, so I enrolled him.

Well, his team was one of the top two. Both top teams destroyed the opposition on their side of the bracket, and won all games by large scores.

So they met in the final. Both undefeated; both very good teams.

The idiotic, politically correct coach, at halftime (my son's team was leading 1-0 in first half, a goal scored by his teammate Peter), said to the kids, "We have this rule that kids rotate as goalies. Peter hasn't played goalie yet this season, so he'll play in second half as the goalie."

All kids screamed in agony, and said, "Coach, don't do this. Peter sucks as goalie. He is our best striker. You take him out of the offense and stick him into the goalie position, they'll score on us, and we won't have Peter to score on them to even it out. We need to win this game. These are our rivals, the other great team, we need to beat them and win the tournament. Just let us go out there, play our best, in the positions we are best skilled at, and let us win. We want this. We want to win."

The coach said, "No, no, no. Winning is not important. It's playing the game that is important."

My son said, at this point: "Coach, that's what people say to losers. We are not losers. We are winners. Let us win."

Well, the coach wouldn't budge. He got Peter as the goalie for the second half.

Result, my son team's lost the game, 2-1. The other team scored two goals on a hapless goalie Peter, and he wasn't there to help the offense.

My son was furious.

He said, "what kind of moron thinks that it's just OK to screw us over like this, after all the hard work we put together in the entire season"??

Sure, sure, my son got a "participation trophy" from that lost final. He appropriately threw it in the garbage.

And he went on in life, with his work ethics, his drive, his commitment, his focus, his healthy competitive spirit, and went to Cornell University for undergrad (achieved the highest GPA in the entire class), and Yale Law School for grad school, where he earned his JD in the best law school in the nation. Now he is a very successful young lawyer, making a ton of money.

I wonder what that coach's kids are doing in life. Poor kids.
 
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Usually finding a job is more about who you know. Best of luck looking for something that works for you.

It's actually about understanding the market. The thing to do is look at skills sought in ads for the kind of work you want to do or are doing then learn those. This needs to be maintained even while you're in a "secure" job. Give the market what it wants and you'll stay employed.
 
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Well now you might understand why the richest and most powerful nation on Earth is supposed to make college affordable to ANYONE who has the grades and the ambition. No, not the elite Ivy League private colleges, but certainly the State Universities and community colleges. No kid with the smarts and the ambition should have to go into massive debt just to better themselves, and it is well worth the cost to all Americans because it represents an investment in our entire future, as these kids are going to inherit the reins of power simply by the process of time itself.
So you want these kids to be smart, capable and compassionate for the old farts.

Simply put, if you think paying for college for American kids is expensive, wait till you get a load of what a generation of ignoramuses costs. And if you think that's bad, a generation of ignoramuses saddled with a lifetime of unpayable debt costs even more. Anybody that tells you otherwise is selling a false bill of goods and trying to cover up their own greed, and they want to stick YOU with THEIR bill while they welch out and walk away scot free of their responsibilities.

In other words, they're selling you a con game.

Healthcare and college aren't "FREE STUFF"...they're an investment in our future security.
You can talk about unfunded liabilities and lock boxes all you want but you cannot buy back enough doctors, physicists, software coders and engineers thirty years from now if you freeze them out today.

The only REAL "unfunded liability" is a decayed and crumbling infrastructure and stalled development in a previously developed nation.
The concept of "intergenerational transfer of debt" is absolute utter bovine excrement.
Money today is spent by people living today. Money tomorrow will be spent by people living tomorrow.
The only REAL "debt" is when we wake up tomorrow and no one is smart enough to run things and no one is able to afford to live.

Wow! What a fantastic post! One of the best I've read here, in a long time. :yes:
 
Why can’t I find a job...I went to college, I spent $225 grand and my nieghbor who’s a grease ball mechanic in the building trades is making three times what I used to make.

Well Boo hoo hoo, suck it up cup cake, you bought into it, go back to night school and pick ya up a wrench, we can’t all sit behind a computer and produce nothing for the Country opting to push money and information around. Wait wait wait!...you can always teach, bwahhaaa

I would have invested the $225 grand in something of more value instead.
 
I recently replaced our water heater. It was as you described in your post, when you began working on them. What in the world is your picture of?

The new instantaneous water heaters. They are the size of a suit case and mount on the wall. You never run out of hot water. I can turn the hot water on and let it run for days and it will not run out. The gas bill will be interesting to say the least though. When I changed out the 500 lb. boiler and water heater at my house I replaced it with something similar to this but a lot more complicated. It is also the size of large suit case yet puts out more hot water for my base board heat than a 500lb. boiler and a 50 gallon hot water heater.

rinnai-boiler-water-heater-combo-water-heater-boiler-combo-benefits-of-water-heaters-constructio.jpg

This is similar to what I took out of my house on the left and what I put in on the right. The difference is my set up is even more complicated.
Plus mine is 98% efficient. Plus each room of my house has mini-split AC/Heat pumps. I can turn all the other rooms I am not using down to 50 in the winter or off in the summer and only cool or heat the room/s I am using. I also have a wood/coal burner that blows hot air in my basement, garage, as well as the main part of the house. I burn all my paper instead of shredding it as well as scrap wood from jobs plus any trees I take down. My heating bills in the winter went from over 500 dollars a month in the winter to less than a 100 dollars.
 
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Heating water; who knew it could be so complicated?

It is a matter of efficiency. I can cut the gas bill at a laundromat in half by replacing their several 100 gallon commercial water heaters with these new tankless water heaters. Instead of storing several hundred gallons of hot water when only 1 person was in their washing clothes the new water heaters shut off completely costing the owner next to nothing to run. They make the water as you need it from 1 gallon per minute to 100 or more gallons per minute. I can hook up 2 or 10 heaters in parallel and the computers turn on just enough gas to keep up with the demand at the time. 1 washing machine in use only 1 water heater comes on. If 100 washing machines are in use then all 10 or more will come on to supply the needed hot water. It saves gas, money, and reduces the carbon footprint.

That is what I have done for over 40 years now. I save people money, save resources, help reduce green house gases. I am universally certified for all Freon gases including reclaiming. I am actually doing something to save the environment and reduce green house gases every day for 40 years now.
 
It is a matter of efficiency. I can cut the gas bill at a laundromat in half by replacing their several 100 gallon commercial water heaters with these new tankless water heaters. Instead of storing several hundred gallons of hot water when only 1 person was in their washing clothes the new water heaters shut off completely costing the owner next to nothing to run. They make the water as you need it from 1 gallon per minute to 100 or more gallons per minute. I can hook up 2 or 10 heaters in parallel and the computers turn on just enough gas to keep up with the demand at the time. 1 washing machine in use only 1 water heater comes on. If 100 washing machines are in use then all 10 or more will come on to supply the needed hot water. It saves gas, money, and reduces the carbon footprint.

That is what I have done for over 40 years now. I save people money, save resources, help reduce green house gases. I am universally certified for all Freon gases including reclaiming. I am actually doing something to save the environment and reduce green house gases every day for 40 years now.

If you have any reclaimed Freon-12 handy I may call upon you. I have a continuing dream of buying an old Chrysler Imperial, hopefully 1965 or 1966 vintage. I might drive it with the original engine for a while until I get tired of 8 mpg, then replace it with something more efficient but until then I'm looking at ancient Freon-12 air conditioning, of course.

Yeah, I know it's terrible stuff and terribly expensive, but it is still cheaper than replacing an entire AC system on an antique vehicle.
 
Not at all. I am a plumber and I have been taking college courses as well as factory training for 40 years now. When I first started working on water heaters they had 3 wires on them. A thermocouple for the pilot and 2 safety wires. Today you need to go to college and be certified just to work on them or you may void the warranty. Plus it is nice to have a clue how to actually fix them.

View attachment 67255142

If you can't fix it with a hammer you got an electrical problem.
 
If you have any reclaimed Freon-12 handy I may call upon you. I have a continuing dream of buying an old Chrysler Imperial, hopefully 1965 or 1966 vintage. I might drive it with the original engine for a while until I get tired of 8 mpg, then replace it with something more efficient but until then I'm looking at ancient Freon-12 air conditioning, of course.

Yeah, I know it's terrible stuff and terribly expensive, but it is still cheaper than replacing an entire AC system on an antique vehicle.

No I don't. A junk yard would be the only place to reclaim some of the old R-12. Put a new system on. I don't think they are worth fooling with anymore except for nostalgia. They were so inefficient and any leak will cost you hundreds of dollars it is just not worth it. Plus there is a big difference between reclaim and recycle. Legally I cannot put any refrigerant I pull out one AC unit back in any other AC unit. The reclaim process that is required and the equipment to pull Freon out of 1 unit and put back into another cost too much. It is still cheaper to just buy it at the ridiculous price. Plus the fines if you are caught are in the thousands of dollars. Plus they pay thousands of dollars for someone to turn you in. It is just not worth it.
 
If you can't fix it with a hammer you got an electrical problem.

I have fixed more electrical problems with a hammer than you might believe. A bad connection can be fixed a lot of times with a jolt from a hammer. I have started many an old motor back working that sat for years with a hammer.
 
If you have any reclaimed Freon-12 handy I may call upon you. I have a continuing dream of buying an old Chrysler Imperial, hopefully 1965 or 1966 vintage. I might drive it with the original engine for a while until I get tired of 8 mpg, then replace it with something more efficient but until then I'm looking at ancient Freon-12 air conditioning, of course.

Yeah, I know it's terrible stuff and terribly expensive, but it is still cheaper than replacing an entire AC system on an antique vehicle.

Anything with Freon 12 can be converted to 134 easily enough, it wont work quite as good as the old but it will do the job fine.
 
No I don't. A junk yard would be the only place to reclaim some of the old R-12. Put a new system on. I don't think they are worth fooling with anymore except for nostalgia. They were so inefficient and any leak will cost you hundreds of dollars it is just not worth it. Plus there is a big difference between reclaim and recycle. Legally I cannot put any refrigerant I pull out one AC unit back in any other AC unit. The reclaim process that is required and the equipment to pull Freon out of 1 unit and put back into another cost too much. It is still cheaper to just buy it at the ridiculous price. Plus the fines if you are caught are in the thousands of dollars. Plus they pay thousands of dollars for someone to turn you in. It is just not worth it.

OMG I had NO idea it was like that.
Welp, I just found out that outfits like Vintage Air are very helpful in offering replacement compressors and condensers in order to upgrade old Freon-12 systems to 134, so if I'm stuck with getting a new compressor and condenser and a few accessories, so be it.
 
OMG I had NO idea it was like that.
Welp, I just found out that outfits like Vintage Air are very helpful in offering replacement compressors and condensers in order to upgrade old Freon-12 systems to 134, so if I'm stuck with getting a new compressor and condenser and a few accessories, so be it.

Always replace everything when upgrading to new refrigerants. The new refrigerants are not compatible including the oils mixed in them. They will work at first and then a month or so later they die. Cleaning out the old lines and coils and condensers is almost impossible. 1 drop of water can destroy an AC unit. Always work with professionals and change everything recommended. Plus everything new you put on could be ruined in a burn out. With a lot of the new refrigerants cleanliness is so important. While they are better for the environment they are not as forgiving.
 
Why can’t I find a job...I went to college, I spent $225 grand and my nieghbor who’s a grease ball mechanic in the building trades is making three times what I used to make.

Well Boo hoo hoo, suck it up cup cake, you bought into it, go back to night school and pick ya up a wrench, we can’t all sit behind a computer and produce nothing for the Country opting to push money and information around. Wait wait wait!...you can always teach, bwahhaaa

It's great that you're a mechanic. I've always envied people like you because you are talented with things that I have very little understanding of. I'm not exactly sure where your bent against college grads come from but you seem a little bit jaded, maybe. I've known many college grads making six figures as well as others who didn't fair so well. It's not just the type of degree you study it's also who you know post graduation. Most upper level job fields these days require an employer or skilled mentor who is willing to take you on and teach you skills and knowledge beyond what you learned at school.

Anyway I guess my point is, society needs all kinds of jobs and I don't see the point of belittling others. Be proud of what you do! Being educated in a skill is really fortunate. A lot of people in the world don't even get to finish middle school, let alone make it into college and learn an advanced skill. Education is invaluable!
 
Always replace everything when upgrading to new refrigerants. The new refrigerants are not compatible including the oils mixed in them. They will work at first and then a month or so later they die. Cleaning out the old lines and coils and condensers is almost impossible. 1 drop of water can destroy an AC unit. Always work with professionals and change everything recommended. Plus everything new you put on could be ruined in a burn out. With a lot of the new refrigerants cleanliness is so important. While they are better for the environment they are not as forgiving.

All the more reason I am actually tempted to purchase a roller chassis with no engine or trans at all.
I am not looking to own a collector's item, just a nifty looking classic daily driver.
As such I would be better served with a relatively new Chrysler 3.6 L Pentastar V6 out of a Jeep Wrangler or Chrysler 300 with the 8 speed auto trans and discs all the way around. If I get the AC unit with it, off to the races we go.
 
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