bluGill

I've been hearing that line for more than 20 years. Anytime there is a tech downturn you hear it loudly - this has happened several times since 2000. However the fact remains that most coders make far more money than most people in construction. The exceptions tend to be people who own their construction business - though if you do the paperwork construction is one of the easiest businesses to work for yourself in once you have skills.

He can only charge what the market will bear. Since he has skills he can do the work fast and make a good living. However he cannot afford to invest in someone new who can't work as fast and thus could not make a good living. If a new guy would work for free for a couple years the new guy would be good and could get a good income - but I don't blame new people for not wanting to work for free and it is likely illegal anyway. Also while there is a good income possible, I wouldn't call it great, and so I'm not sure if it is worth getting into vs other options.

So yeah, he needs to charge more, but he can't because people will just do without masons if they charge more.

Having been around for a few decades now I can tell you that the job market comes and goes. Things have been tight before, and there has been more openings than people to work them many times in the past. I can't tell you when things will turn around, but odds are they will. (this is sadly not helpful if you are one of those currently needing a job)

The plumber wasn't making that much though. That $300/hr includes a lot of buisness costs - someone needs to pay for the fancy van they drive in, the office workers (which is often private equity backed and has a lot of office staff and CEO that you don't care about), advertising, and whatever other costs. Plus the plumber often only has 20 minutes of work in your house, but between jobs taking an unknown amount of time, and drive time to the next job they need to charge for a lot of time that they are not working.

That is what it means to be a liberal: you respect people who are different than you to as large an extent possible. (there are limits - I don't respect cannibal cultures ...)

i've never had it asked of me so not every company. I wouldn't be surprised if most ask though. That they asks shows they don't care about getting good people by enough to figure out what questions are worth asking. Are you sure you want to work for that kind of place?

but I won't get the insightful reply someone else makes next week unless they reply to me.

Asking such questions should be a red flag. There is a lot of research on interviews and that question isn't on anyone's list of useful questions. If they would waste your time asking that do you really want to work there?

There will be another election. Third parties don't need to win to send a message and change things, as the very fact that some positions get some votes means that politicians looking to win try to figure out how to attract some of those voters next time.

Freshwater is not wasted. Hot water is wasted unless your water heating comes from renewable energy (rare), so wash as cold as possible, but freshwater is not wasted. It is trivial (though it does cost money!) to treat waste water from your cleaning (including your toilets) and turn it back into drinkable fresh water. I know cities generally dump their treated sewage back into the river, but it is drinkable water and the next city downstream will take it in.

That is my culture. Why do you have so little respect for my culture as to think I should follow your values?

I have seen variations of this debate in letters from around 100. I'm sure it goes back much farther.

The NRA was long the organization with the least wealthy members. It wasn't money that made them powerful (though they had a lot) it was they could show their average donation was an order of magnitude less than just about anyone else. They had lots of little guys donating money and that scared politicians - money is second to votes and all those little donations meant the NRA had a lot of voters who wouldn't be swayed by any amount of money.