The Building Bidness

[Robatoy]

[PHT]

Well charlie, you can blame a lot on today's society. It's not a matter of getting something repaired anymore. Just throw it away and buy a new one. Yes, this is going to be part of the reason for the downfall of the U.S. I believe, that in the schools of today it's more important to get the kid's to graduation so the stats are high than what is taught and learned. Yet the U.S. cannot understand why the people in foreign countries out-shine the U.S. kids in math and sciences.

Paul H.

[charlie]

it's pretty hard to throw away the plumbing or electrical system in your house, let alone go to the store to buy a new one. not too many people i know who throw away a relatively new car and get a new one.

[Chris Friesen]

I saw this fairly regularly...either through leasing or else selling their old car and getting a new one every few years.

Gets expensive quick though.

Chris

[Chris]

Not only lack of Trade Schools, but also the lack of people willing to take on apprentices. I have talked to several contractors where I live and they say they do not want to be bothered having to teach. They rather find skilled workers. This makes no sense to me.

My son'n law who is a stone carver (does a lot of restoration work in D.C.) has taken on apprentices and they all end up leaving for one reason or another. Not the money side of it, but just they want to move to different areas or decide to go back to school for something else. So I can understand how this can be frustrating and why many contractors decide not to do it.

Chris

[Tim Daneliuk]

There's another dimension to this. I am product of the collegiate system and also briefly taught after grad school. There is

*tremendous* pressure to convince parents that their kids all need to go to college. But the fact is that a university education isn't for everyone. In no way am I saying this condescendingly. Some people are great at theoretical math. Some people bend sheet metal with eerie elegance. Shoving everyone into the academy does a great disservice to people who's gifts lie in the trades, helping other people in social services contexts, and so forth.

Jamming everyone into a strictly academic curriculum is unfair to the students and bad for all of us. I depend a lot more on my local plumber (who is really good) than I do the mathematician doing manifold theory. Both have a place, but we should be encouraging our kids to follow their gifts, not making the funding dreams of the universities come true.

There is now considerable evidence - after nearly 50 years of research

- that academic "IQ" is highly correlated to language and mathematical skills. These skills are innate - after billions spent and tons of teaching theory, there has been precious little evidence you can take people without those innate math and language skills and "teach" them. At some level, you have this ability or you do not. By parallel example, no amount of coaching would have made me an NBA star - it's not in my DNA.

But the universities pound the message of "If your kid is not a college grad, they'll never succeed" message into anyone who will hear them. (It no doubt annoys their fully tenured faculties that the aforementioned plumber makes more than the dean of their college.) We all have our "thing". Our job as parents is to help our kids find that thing and encourage them to pursue it. Sadly, there is a cultural and academic stigma attached to people who work with their hands. This will never change until professional academics - especially in the administrative end of things - are forced to unclog their own sewers ...

[nailshooter41]

SNIP of other true statements...

It hasn't happened in the last few years, but there have been many times I heard parents talking to their kids when I switched from commercial work to residential.

They would ask with sincerity, or with a downright sneer in their voice: "Do you want to wind up like those guys in there? Is that what you want? If that's the case, you might as well start flipping burgers now if that's all you want out of your life. We thought you wanted more."

Heard it more than once.

I even had a homeowner that had a son that was really interested in working in construction. He wanted me to hire his son for a summer so I could dog the hell out of him to make him stay in college. He actually asked me to do that, so that I could make sure his son didn't wind up like me.

No insult there, eh?

And how many times did I hear in my youth "well, the difference between you and me Robert, is that I make my living with my head and you use your hands." That statement alone should let you know how arrogant and stupid the educators of our country have become.

Everything you posted is true. Kids/teenagers are taught by parents, educators and hammered with peer pressure that it is shameful, or a last resort to make your living with your hands these days.

A sad comment on our society in my opinion.

Robert

[J. Clarke]

Yeah. When I was in high school I told my parents that I wanted to be a mechanic. They went ballistic. Then I went to college and it pretty much ruined me.

[Tom Watson]

We weren't framers, Mike. We were carpenters.

That is the point that I am trying to get to.

When people respond by saying that the trade got fractionated into framers, finishers, flooring guys, etc. - I reject that.

We were trained to be carpenters.

Carpenters laid out the site and did the framing and did the finish and often did the paint in those days.

Accountability was the deal.

You could not dodge your responsibility because you were the guy to pull off the next step.

Regards,

Tom Watson

[Tom Watson]

I spent a lot of time in my youth correcting the problems created by the building boom that happened after the second world war.

Skimpy ply, 24" centers, 2 x 3 walls, etc.

It wasn't the seventies that did it.

Regards,

Tom Watson

[Tom Watson]

Here is where we come to the core of the problem.

I'm actually not smart enough to have helped create the current financial mess.

You need an MBA to do that kind of damage.

I'm not smart enough to understand how I can make a loan to a person who has no hope of paying it back and call that a good day at work.

I'm not smart enough to loan money to a builder who has one foot in the financial grave and think that I have done a good deed that day.

I'm not smart enough to give money to a company that has already proved themselves to be improvident.

I guess I just don't understand finance.

What I do understand is that my house and my vehicles are paid for.

I do understand that my eleven and sixteen year old children can go to whatever college they are fortunate enough to get into.

I do understand that the only reason that I showed up to work today was to make sure that my wife would have a comfortable retirement - because I will surely die before her because I have nothing left to worry about.

That's all I know.

Regards,

Tom Watson

[Tim Daneliuk]

Me either. Here's what I don't understand:

How can you be on the public dole and think you should take out a loan on a house.

How can you earn $N per year, and be $N/2 in credit card debt?

How does any responsible person see a flat screen TV, a luxury car, a fabulous vacation, a second home, or a boat as an entitlement?

How is it that it's wrong to bail out Wall Street (it is), but not wrong to bail out the lazy, the greedy, and those lacking fiscal self-control on Main Street - cuz, you know what, they're both flat out wrong.

What if they do not want to? Are you cool with them going into the trades, opening a hair salon, becoming a musician/entertainer/comic, or wherever their abilities take them? If you are, good for you. If you're not, rethink this. The university system is increasingly a scam intended to scare parents into parting with $100k+ per student to ensure their "success" ... only it often does not work out that way.

[Swingman]

"Tom Watson" wrote

Read that again ... ;)

[DanG]

Amen, Tom. I always worked commercial, but same story. I like to tell that the same guys dug the ditches and hung the last brass doorknob. Electricians, masons,HVAC, and plumbers were usually the only subs on the job.

When did I have to decide if I needed a finish carpenter, form carpenter, or computer flooring carpenter? I guess it just evolved, but I agree there were better buildings built back when. Every carpenter could finish a bit of concrete or set concealed hinges in a walnut trimmed Forms & Surfaces door, and probably had the tools with him to do it.

[Han]

Tim Daneliuk wrote in news:4fhsu5-u9e.ln1 @ozzie.tundraware.com:

I completely understand your feelings about the below. I feel the same way, i.e. If you don't have the backup, or might not have in a downturn, don't go into debt if you can possibly avoid it.

As you have read here, people asking for a mortgage (for a house they planned to buy and could nicely afford) were asked by the banker why they didn't buy a much more expensive house since they qualified for it. IMNSHO that constitutes something close to enabling irresponsible financial transactions.

I don't know. Trying to live at the level I'm entitled to, despite being out of work longer than expected? It might be easier to get there if you're not very careful, and if your home is going to be worth much more next year, what's the problem? Note that I'm not really advocating this!!!!

See above

It has something to do with keeping the economy going. Don't you remember how the economists were saying that despite the slowdown then and then, the economy surprisingly wasn't going into recessions since the consumers kept on spending? Well, now with the fear mongering even greater than necessary, the consumer is stopping the spending, and the recession is getting much worse.

I don't have any solutions ...

[Robatoy]

On Nov 13, 7:34=A0am, Han wrote: [snipped for brevity]

agree with that view.

[Tim Douglass]

This was never really true. Sure, every carpenter was expected to do everything, but most of them were not terribly skilled at all of it. When I was doing a lot of remodeling work I was into a lot of houses built around 1900. There was some very good work in them and a lot of rather shoddy work, sometimes in the same house. The truth is that even in those days there were guys who specialized in certain things simply because they were more skilled at them. That specialization actually goes back thousands of years.

I think the main difference in quality is that the cost of doing it right has risen to the point it isn't worth doing for most people.

-- "We need to make a sacrifice to the gods, find me a young virgin... oh, and bring something to kill"

Tim Douglass

[Charlie Self]

I think what happened is the dream changed. My mother was raised with the idea that a house was a home, something she should get as soon as possible, with as small a mortgage as possible, with as large a down payment as possible.

I felt the same way, though I put myself in circumstances that made the whole deal impossible until something over 20 years ago.

But others, no. Buy it as an investment, fewest bucks in the bucket wins, flip it in 2-3 years, and do it over again, larger.

That does not make for carefully examined construction. It makes for a carefully examined payment book.

[Swingman]

"Charlie Self"

Don't get me started ...

Part of the "dream" changed due to the fact that a 'house as a home' has been subverted by local taxing authorities into a source of increasing revenue. For all practical/legal purposes you no longer own your home, you are renting it from the government, who uses it as a cash cow.

Just stop paying your yearly rent (property taxes) and see how long you retain "ownership" of _your_ "home".

In addition, if it happens that your "home" is in an area that the "real estate" industry has touted as desirable, and thus driven up real estate property values beyond reason, forget about staying in it after your retirement without your estate being subjected to usurious interest on any old age deferral the benevolent taxing authority may grant out of the goodness of their heart.

Once again we have allowed ourselves to be screwed by our elected representatives who have managed to create a situation whereby they are not accountable for an increase in the tax rate to the electorate, but, instead, can increase taxes (without representation) by virtue of the creation of an "appraisal district", which increases the appraised value, and thus your taxes, based on transactions run ever higher by the greed of the "real estate" industry.

After all, the sheeple get what they deserve ... fleeced.

For, like sheep, that is ultimately their purpose ... insofar as government is concerned.

[Douglas Johnson]

Unfortunately, my neighborhood has been infected with McMansions. They buy perfectly good houses and drive a bulldozer through them. Then they put up really big crap. They are just finishing one next door. 8500 sq ft. My wife and I walked through it today. I was appalled. While many of the materials were expensive, the workmanship was awful. 1/8" gaps in trim, blotchy stain, sloppy paint...

I am a volunteer electrician for Habitat for Humanity. We don't tolerate that kind of work and the house is 1/30 the price. Our houses aren't big, they aren't fancy, but they are honest.

-- Doug