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Originally Posted by Perma Bear View Post
A thousand dollar mortgage? Is this 1991?
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Originally Posted by CGab
Yes, I said it could go "towards" a mortgage!
Yes, and it would go a long way toward a mortgage. In most parts of this country, it would cover the mortgage. A $200,000 mortgage at 5% interest over 30 years comes out to a monthly payment of $1,073.64. And most loans are not at 5%; a lot of loans today are at 3% and 4%. In most of the country, including some big cities, $200,000 will get you a starter house.
As far as skilled trades... the demand is sky high most of the time for those types of people these days. The problem is that it's a hard job, which no one likes, and virtually no women want to do it so that rules out 1/2 the population straight off the bat. If you're a highly skilled certified welder you can easily out earn most Bachelor's degree holders. In fact, most of the rich people I know came from the trades and the majority of them started a business in their field (so a welder becomes a mobile welder... then buys another truck and hires a guy... and then it just snowballs from there).
It's not working out that way here in Colorado.
The husband is probably one of the best welders in the state. His ornamental iron is all over this city; fences around the Broadmoor estates, spiral staircases for the Victorian neighborhoods. His custom built Harley's are showcased in bars. He was the highest scoring welder on the pre-employment welding tests for both Vestas Industries (Dutch wind turbine company) & the AngloGold mines (African gold mining company).
I've had people knock on my door in the middle of the day, looking for "The guy that can weld chrome ". He possesses the highest certifications in existence: Not just the DOD certs but the Aerospace ones as well.
He did used to own his own company until about 20 years ago when his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's & as a single, custodial father of 2 young boys, he closed his buisness for family obligations.
The last 3 companies he has worked for have all done the same thing: They use him to pass the pre-contract welding tests needed to land the big Dept of Defense contracts & then cut his pay, benefits or hours. Obviously they don't reveal to the Feds that all the welding that was viable was done by one guy who they squeezed out, so right now, as I write this, there are armored vehicles being built that will fail our military & infrastructures being repaired that will fail ... us.
He's 61 & says he can't ever retire now. He's frustrated with what he calls "the guys with the gift of gab" because he's worked for shop owners that can't operate a welder but know how to "brown-nose". He says in about 5-10 years, everything will literally be falling apart because there will be no qualified tradesmen. That most companies have 1 old guy that can do everything, quantity vs quality for the new, young welders & the few young people he sees with a natural talent for welding are already leaving the industry because nobody wants to pay a self-sustainable wage.
If you can afford to live in SM, you are ahead of people living in $400K houses in the Midwest or south.
How so, exactly? Because they can think they're making their facebook friends jealous by saying they live somewhere cool like Santa Monica? That paying 30k-50k per year in throw-away-rent-money, lining some landlord's pocket is a better thing than eventually paying off and owning a 400k house somewhere more modest?? I mean, if you're assuming the person can afford a house (or to own anything, not rent) in Santa Monica then it's debatable but let's be honest, 90% can't.
The husband is probably one of the best welders in the state. His ornamental iron is all over this city; fences around the Broadmoor estates, spiral staircases for the Victorian neighborhoods. His custom built Harley's are showcased in bars. He was the highest scoring welder on the pre-employment welding tests for both Vestas Industries (Dutch wind turbine company) & the AngloGold mines (African gold mining company).
I've had people knock on my door in the middle of the day, looking for "The guy that can weld chrome ". He possesses the highest certifications in existence: Not just the DOD certs but the Aerospace ones as well.
He did used to own his own company until about 20 years ago when his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's & as a single, custodial father of 2 young boys, he closed his buisness for family obligations.
The last 3 companies he has worked for have all done the same thing: They use him to pass the pre-contract welding tests needed to land the big Dept of Defense contracts & then cut his pay, benefits or hours. Obviously they don't reveal to the Feds that all the welding that was viable was done by one guy who they squeezed out, so right now, as I write this, there are armored vehicles being built that will fail our military & infrastructures being repaired that will fail ... us.
He's 61 & says he can't ever retire now. He's frustrated with what he calls "the guys with the gift of gab" because he's worked for shop owners that can't operate a welder but know how to "brown-nose". He says in about 5-10 years, everything will literally be falling apart because there will be no qualified tradesmen. That most companies have 1 old guy that can do everything, quantity vs quality for the new, young welders & the few young people he sees with a natural talent for welding are already leaving the industry because nobody wants to pay a self-sustainable wage.
In another life I was a certified welder and worked in Aerospace... really enjoyed creating and lots of work...
The part about having one old guy rings very true... at least around here... people simply don't stay around long enough to acquire institutional knowledge and after awhile it catches up to a business... the thing is the managers all the way to the top are not around that long either...
There was a time when continuity and long range thinking was more the norm as opposed to today where often the thinking is just as long as the current contract.
I switched to medical because it is harder to off shore patient care but big hospitals gobble up little ones and then the giants gain market share to the point where they dictate and options become very limited with only a few players left.
In some areas of the country, $1,000 can pay the entire mortgage.
Sure, but those areas have no jobs or the jobs pay so little that even the small mortgage becomes a big mortgage.
I think people get a better bang for their buck spending their working years living in a high COL but high wage place. Property values appreciate a lot more in economically desirable areas than in a small town where they decline or remain stagnant. You can always sell your house for a ton of dough upon retirement and move to cheapsville.
Sure, but those areas have no jobs or the jobs pay so little that even the small mortgage becomes a big mortgage.
I think people get a better bang for their buck spending their working years living in a high COL but high wage place. Property values appreciate a lot more in economically desirable areas than in a small town where they decline or remain stagnant. You can always sell your house for a ton of dough upon retirement and move to cheapsville.
Of course there are jobs in other parts of the country. Wages aren't necessarily that different unless you're in certain industries. It's all about choices. You can spend most of your money on housing now so you can spend more in retirement after you sell, or you move to a lower COL area and have more disposable income while you're younger and healthier.
My little neighborhood is full of doctors, engineers, university professors, business owners, programmers, attorneys and retirees. Houses run $150,000-$240,000. Many have second homes on the beach or lake, huge RV's to travel, boats, etc.
A $100K 10 year loan would be about $1000/mo. Not cheap for most, but doable. Cheaper if we made educational loans zero interest.
Or... We could get the government out of the student loan business entirely and shut the spigot of unlimited money to universities, and thus limited fees they can charge students, off. I'll also add that unless you're leaving school with the word "Doctor" somewhere on your resume or have attended the ivy league, you've done it wrong if you have $100k in student debt.
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Originally Posted by s1alker
The bell curve is also at play here. A good percentage of this country does not have the IQ to be able to study a worthwhile major like engineering or computer science.
I'd be dead shocked if my IQ was much higher than average and I hold 2 engineering degrees in related disciplines (Industrial and Mechanical). I had to take every math class twice (starting from high school algebra 1 all the way up to a year of calculus) and became an almost permanent fixture in the offices of some of my professors so they could help drag me through the things I simply don't have a gift to understand. As is often the case in life, you can replace being gifted with being tenacious if it's something you really want. MOST people just don't want to work that hard. Engineering school isn't "easy" for anybody and I saw people wash out over all sorts of things, but simply being "dumb" wasn't generally one of them. I worked harder than almost anyone (because a lot of them were just smarter than I am in many areas) and made it out with a 3.1/4.0 GPA from one of the better programs in the country, which is on the lower side but not career ending low (under 3.0 is pretty much a death sentence). So... it can be done. It was even worse in the nursing program (it's super competitive around here) so anything under like a 3.6 and they tossed you out of the program entirely... I met some straight up ditzy girls in that program that couldn't balance a check book, but they always had their flash cards and were always working hard to hack it...
I get what is being driven at here but this is still the way it has always been. The job market is stratified such that the cream rises to the top (guys I've worked for, or the people who work at places like NASA), then their are mid tier people (like me), junior level people (no degrees but skilled, or new grads), shop foreman, line bosses, and then all the way on down. It's been rare for me to find someone in my career working out on the floor putting the widget in the hole that was genuinely "too stupid" to do anything else. Most of them just didn't want the hassle of doing anything more than that and simply wanted to punch the clock and go home. Even the people working at Walmart can climb the ladder in pretty short order if they actually want to.
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Originally Posted by CGab
Unless you are making 6 figures as an Engineer, Lawyer, Doctor, etc. it's insane to be in that kind of debt right out of school!
I'm glad your husband has done well for himself, but the type of numbers you're throwing out here are mostly just a pipe dream for those careers or at least not until MUCH later in your career and I think a lot of people go into those programs with wide eyes and big dreams without knowing the reality of things, which actually strengthens the point you're making. I think maybe the conversations on this forum get skewed sometimes because it seems there is a large population of West Coasters here. In most of the country, you're going to work for at least 10 years in those fields before there is any risk of tickling 6 figures. My girlfriend is an attorney and went to a "good", but not awesome, well respected regional university. The best she could doing coming out of school is $40k/year. When I graduated in 2006 with my mechanical BS my first job paid $48k. It wasn't until 6 years later that I had brought that up to the $80ks and that was a job that paid OT and I worked a TON of hours to do it. Next job was back down to $70k, but there's a long story that goes with that too (short version is that my employer relocated and flooded the local market with about 1000 unemployed engineers, so it was a take what you can get atmosphere and it largely still is... I'm moving in 2 weeks, actually).
So anyhow... The road in a STEM career is certainly not bad, but it isn't paved with gold either (especilly at first) and a lot of people think it is. The highest I've ever been offered to relocate anywhere in the country was some large city (don't remember) in California at like $145k/year, which would have easily been a net 75% pay cut compared to the cost of living where I am. I'd die before I could have owned any property out there at that salary.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Perma Bear
A thousand dollar mortgage? Is this 1991?
My current mortgage, all in with property taxes and insurance, is $806/month on a 30 year loan. I have a modest 900ft^2 3 bedroom, 2 bath, on a full finished basement, with a 2 car garage and about a 2/5 acre lot in a decent neighborhood. I paid something like 5 grand down and have kind of a crappy interest rate too (various reasons). Again, I think there is plenty of geographic bias in this thread. 99.99% of America is not a major city. If a person dreams of becoming a home owner, I have no idea why they would want to live near a salt water coast. Some people can afford to "have it all", but most people never will.
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Originally Posted by LookinForMayberry
You cannot go back, and you cannot relive the past. Be here now.
Sure you can. As I mentioned previously, I'm moving in a couple of weeks. The job I accepted is in a city that was one of the most decimated in the country when the 2008 recession hit. Granted, I'm a little nervous abut that and won't be in any hurry to put down real roots there, but that town has added something crazy like 40,000 jobs since then. My employer also gave me everything I asked for after a little negotiation. 15% pay bump over previous job, 3 weeks vacation (which I haven't had since 2011 and took me 3 years to get), almost double their normal relocation package, downright cheap healthcare insurance costs (like $150/mo for the best package for just me... it would be like $250 for a family), etc...
Again, if you have obsolete skills in an area where those skills have been obsolete for a LONG time, then for sure you're screwed. But you can always move... Those skills are in demand somewhere.
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Originally Posted by s1alker
Most likely basic income. A lot of these people are already on some kind of public assistance anyway.
This is the worst idea in the history of the US and will outright doom the country. Handing someone money for nothing has never once achieved a positive result unless the intended goal is to have more people asking for money for nothing. It is not the government's job to fix your problems. It's the governments job to make sure you have the freedom to fix your own. We used to call that liberty.
Quote:
Originally Posted by coschristi
It's not working out that way here in Colorado.
The husband is probably one of the best welders in the state. His ornamental iron is all over this city; fences around the Broadmoor estates, spiral staircases for the Victorian neighborhoods. His custom built Harley's are showcased in bars. He was the highest scoring welder on the pre-employment welding tests for both Vestas Industries (Dutch wind turbine company) & the AngloGold mines (African gold mining company).
I've had people knock on my door in the middle of the day, looking for "The guy that can weld chrome ". He possesses the highest certifications in existence: Not just the DOD certs but the Aerospace ones as well.
He did used to own his own company until about 20 years ago when his mother was diagnosed with Alzheimer's & as a single, custodial father of 2 young boys, he closed his buisness for family obligations.
The last 3 companies he has worked for have all done the same thing: They use him to pass the pre-contract welding tests needed to land the big Dept of Defense contracts & then cut his pay, benefits or hours. Obviously they don't reveal to the Feds that all the welding that was viable was done by one guy who they squeezed out, so right now, as I write this, there are armored vehicles being built that will fail our military & infrastructures being repaired that will fail ... us.
He's 61 & says he can't ever retire now. He's frustrated with what he calls "the guys with the gift of gab" because he's worked for shop owners that can't operate a welder but know how to "brown-nose". He says in about 5-10 years, everything will literally be falling apart because there will be no qualified tradesmen. That most companies have 1 old guy that can do everything, quantity vs quality for the new, young welders & the few young people he sees with a natural talent for welding are already leaving the industry because nobody wants to pay a self-sustainable wage.
I'm really sorry to hear all of that. Bad circumstances can wreck anyone's career and it sounds like that's what happened to him.
Likewise, my last job (a contract I worked for a few months) was with a small heavy steel fabrication company. Almost 100% of their welders were felons, with the vast majority being DUIs and assaults (so.. mean drunks, basically) that were probably making $20-$25/hr. It's hard to sort the wheat from the chaff when there are so many lower tier employers around and I could easily see the owner of that company doing exactly what has been done to your husband. Hire a guy to get where you want to go, maybe train some folks, and then fire him. That's basically what they did to me on the engineering side.
One of their better welders left simply because he was bored and wasn't being challenged. He went to a company that works almost exclusively in stainless steel making pressure vessels so he was very excited about that. The company made very little effort to retain him. Just the way it is at those type of shops.
I also know it's a nightmare to get work as a later years job seeker. Again, just the way it is. My mother retired from her career as a Nurse Practitioner and, more or less, got bored of sitting at home after about a year. She can't even find a job doing transcription work for like $15/hr and her NP license is still current! She was making about $140k/yr when she retired.
IMO, your husband is probably best to start his own company again if you have the capital to do it. It doesn't have to be big. Even with a small plasma table and a couple of welders (which I'm sure he already has) he could make a killing just as a supplier of the higher quality assemblies to lower quality shops. If he wanted to jump through the hoops and carry the insurance, he could even big on smaller DOD contracts and such himself. All of that stuff is just done through a website the last I had anything to do with it.
Point blank, I've never seen a welding and fab shop where the owners were "poor". Those places make a killing. The last shop I worked out even turned down a $3 million contract to supply some SIMPLE shipping racks to Ford because "automotive is hard" and they didn't understand how automotive works (they basically expect you to their job for them and design the stuff too, for free... it's not that hard to design a shipping rack...). They wanted nothing to do with it. I ran the math on the project and we would have made about $300k-500k on that job and keep the shop busy for weeks doing it. Ultimately, the owner (who is a fool to an extent), just decided he could make more money doing different jobs... I would have brought on more guys and ran a night shift and done both, personally... anyhow.
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Originally Posted by Ultrarunner
I switched to medical because it is harder to off shore patient care but big hospitals gobble up little ones and then the giants gain market share to the point where they dictate and options become very limited with only a few players left.
I've worked for a lot of companies that have actually been bringing their technical offshoring back. They've been trying it for about 20 years at this point and they're still getting pretty low quality results from their efforts, which are enormous, of attempting to train the 3rd world to do what we've been doing for over a century. Plus, no matter how you feel about it politically, Trump's rhetoric IS shaking them up (regardless of there being anything fruitful behind that rhetoric). I was working at Whirlpool the day after the election and the global head of refrigeration had a meeting where he talked about something crazy like a 200% investment in growth in the US market and expanding domestic manufacturing by leaps and bounds while also scaling back their efforts in markets that simply never really were profitable, like South America (specifically Brazil and obviously Venezuela). Those export products were all made in China.
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So anyhow... No, I don't believe things are doom and gloom. We're not going to go back to 1950 where anyone a working body will be able to become a titan of industry, but things are improving.
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