Overproduction of the 'elites' (07-18-2025--Hour3)

What's going on? Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. It is heard live every day from noon to three on WBT Radio in Charlotte. And if you want exclusive content like invitations to events, the weekly live stream, my daily show prep with all the links, become a patron, go to thepeteclendarshow dot com. Make sure you hit the subscribe button. Get every episode for free, write to your smartphone or tablet, and again, thank you so much for your support. Let's talk about germs' to quote South Park jobs, particularly skilled trades. Why are you changing subjects, Pete? Did they get to you? They don't want you to talk about Epstein anymore? I'm kidding, No skilled trades. I was going to do this topic yesterday, but we ran out of time, And by we, I mean I did I talked too long about other things, so totally my fault. But skilled trades like electricians, plumbers, elders, and renewable energy technicians, which I have to admit that's a new category. I've not seen that lumped in with these skilled trades. But apparently it is now over one million trade jobs remain unfilled, including half a million in manufacturing alone. Why well, according to Jack Kelly at Forbes dot com. An aging workforce with five tradespersons tradesmen retiring for every two replacements. Okay, so you've got people who are aging out, they're retiring, So for every five that retire, only two come in to replace them. So that's a big factor. Number two, a cultural bias towards college degrees over vocational training. Telling everybody that they need to go to college in order to get a decent career has not worked out. It has not worked out. I've been saying this for years. Not everybody should go to college, and it's not an insult. I should not have gone to college initially when I was I mean, when I was done with high school. I wanted to be done with high school. I wanted to get out of school. I should have taken a year or two or five or whatever off and then gone back to college when I actually, you know, kind of figured out what it was I wanted to do. But you know, I ended up here, and I guess it all worked out. But here's the thing. If I were to go work in the trades, I'd make way more money. So you've got retiring people, not enough people replacing them. And you have all these people with college degrees and therefore a lot of college debt, and they've been told that they're better than those jobs. That's what they've been told. And this has created this this lack of people to fill these roles. But it has also created rising wages, right because that's the market, that's the free market. So you've got a whole bunch of demand, not enough supply, and so you're going to see the prices for those for the labor increase meet the demand. Skilled trades are uniquely positioned for the future. Unlike many sectors, trades are largely automation proof, requiring hands on expertise that machines cannot replicate. The green energy boom ensures long term relevance with roles in solar, wind and energy efficient systems leading the way. I would also throw in there obviously oil and gas production to nuclear obviously, but I don't know, you probably do need a college degree, probably something along the lines of, like you know, nuclear science. But meanwhile, technology integration like robotics and smart systems creates brand new specializations which blend draftsmanship with cutting edge innovation. I will say I went down and got some lumber a couple of months ago. It was it Carolina Urban Lumber I think was the name of it. Really cool place, Pineville, and you go in there and you walk through. They got the whole lumber yard. They got all these you know, cuts and stuff, and you pick it and then they they'll do as much or as little of it as possible. And know they're not paying me to say this. They had no idea who I was. We just needed a couple of pieces to make some shelves, and so we found a piece of you know wood with the live edge, and they cut it down. They offered to stand it. They're like, well, build the whole shelving thing for you. I said, no, no, I'll stand it. I'll just give me the cuts. I gave them the measurements. They did all the cuts, and I'm watching the machinery and it's like amazing stuff. So that's what they're talking about, this blending of traditional craftsmanship with cutting edge innovation. You've got all of the different computers and machines that are able to do the things, but you still need the craftsmen to direct the machine right. Due to the skills gap, which is created by none enough people taking the jobs, and all of the people with the college degrees that don't want the jobs because they think they're better than these jobs. It's all going to lead to what's expected to be a shortage of two point one million unfilled manufacturing jobs in America by twenty thirty. Manufacturers specifically are only filling six out of ten job openings. That's according to an analysis by the global management consulting firm McKinsey and Company. Now, women's labor participation in the skilled trades reached its highest level ever. It now comprises somewhere around fourteen percent of total apprentices in the trades. These in demand jobs offer high wages, attractive benefits, including pension plans, and opportunities for advancement. The trades offer competitive salaries and resilience against automation. And I would throw in here Ai AI, the AI bloodbath is coming. I don't mean like AI is going to kill us, because AI would never do that. I'm on record as saying I love AI. I welcome our AI overlords when they arrive, because when they do arrive, they will be able to go back and listen to everything I've ever said immediately, and they will recognize that I have always said AI is awesome, and I welcome them as my overlord. Okay, So AI is going to decimate the white collar field, and there are gonna be a lot of people now with a lot of college day the so called elites and their jobs are now going to be blown out. And what will they do? Where will they go? Ninety percent of trades people, by the way, report high job satisfaction as well. Energy efficient systems smart technology require advanced skills, making HVAC a high demand field critical for infrastruct and energy projects. Welders face nationwide shortages, and that ensures job security. You know. Mike Row thirty jobs, Microw, He's been beating this drum for years, right, trying to get people to understand that these are good career paths that are available, that pay very very well, that have job security and help keep America running. The back like to build stuff, maintain stuff, fixed stuff. Right, So he appeared at a what was this called the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit. It was held at Carnegie mal University of all places, and he outlined, or as the Daily Mail says, sounded the alarm on the nation's shortage of blue collar workers in the face of emerging technology. I will play for you as comments. I think they are really profound. I think they are very important for people to, you know, to internalize and think about this stuff in a different way. Because when I came up as a gen xer, and same with my parents, neither of my parents had gone to college, and they told us, you all got to go to college. We want a better life for you guys. And that's what a lot of people of the boomer generation believed. The problem is everybody went and did that. You have all these people. It's what this is called, by the way, is called overproduction of the elites. And I put elites in quotes all the time. I hate the term. We've produced too many people with degrees that now have this expectation that they're going to be pulling in a quarter million dollars a year, and that was never going to be the case. All right, if you're listening to this show, you know I try to keep up with all sorts of current events, and I know you do too, And you've probably heard me say get your news from multiple sources. Why, Well, because it's how you detect media bias, which is why I've been so impressed with ground News. It's an app, and it's a website, and it combines news from around the world in one place, so you can compare coverage and verify information. You can check it out at check dot ground, dot news slash pete. I put the link in the podcast description too. I started using ground News a few months ago and more recently chose to work with them as an affiliate because it lets me see clearly how stories get covered and by whom. The blind spot feature shows you which stories get ignored by the left and the right. See for yourself. Check dot ground, dot news slash pete. Subscribe through that link and you'll get fifteen percent off any subscription. I use the Vantage plan to get unlimited access to every feature. Your subscription then not only helps my podcast, but it also supports ground News as they make the media landscape more transparent. Mike Rowe, the former host of Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs, sounded the alarm on the nation's shortage of blue collar workers in the face of emerging technology. He was speaking at the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit. He suggested that trade based jobs may actually be the solution to the artificial intelligence driven jobs apocalypse. Here's what he said. We've been telling kids for fifteen years to code, learn to code. We said, yeah, well, AI's coming for the coders. They're not coming for the welders. They're not coming for the plumbers. They're not coming for the steam fitters, or the pipe fitters or the h fact. They're not coming for the electricians. You know that ideas festival I was telling you about an Aspen. I sat there and listened to Larry Fink say we need five hundred thousand electricians in the next couple of years. Not hyperbole. This is me being the alarmist again. There's not a week that goes by, and my humble little foundation, it's called Microworks Shameless Plug. We award work ethic scholarships every year right to kids who want to learn a skill that's in demand. These are trade school scholarships. Not a week goes by where I don't get a phone call from somebody like the Blue Forge Alliance, who oversees our maritime industrial base. That's fifteen thousand individual companies who are collectively charged with building and delivering three nuclear powered subs to the Navy every year for ten years right to Virginia one Columbia class mind bogglingly complicated. This guy calls and says, we're having a hell of a time finding trades people. Can you help? I said, I don't know, man, it's pretty skinny out there. How many do you need? He says, one hundred and forty thousand. One hundred and forty thousand now granted over seven years, but they need eighty ninety thousand right now. These are our submarines, folks. Right things go hypersonic, little sideways with China, Taiwan, whatever. Our aircraft carriers are no longer the point of the spear. They're vulnerable. Our submarines matter. And these guys have a pinch point because they can't find wells electricians to get them built. Where are they? They said, We've looked everywhere. Do you know? I said, yeah, I know where they are. They're in the eighth grade, man, they're in the eighth grade. And that same thing. The automotive industry needs eighty thousand collision repair and technical energy. I don't even know what the number is. I hear three hundred, I hear five hundred thousand everywhere. So not to fill a buster. But that's the underlying thing that I just really hope people take from this conference. There is a clear and present freakout going on right now. I've heard from six governors in the last six months. I've heard from the heads of major companies in the country. It's like a memo has gone out and people are realizing, you know something, we need to tend to this, both on the pr side and on the demograph. I don't know what to do about the retiring demography. I don't know what to do about seven million able bodied men choosing not to work. But I do know that the message to the young men and women in this state that a bright future awaits if they would but learn us skill that's in demand. That's going to resonate politically, that's going to resignate, resonate practically, it's going to move the needle. Yeah, I completely agree. Micro has been beating this drum for years. It was sort of a lone voice in the wilderness. Let me get to the Liberty Buick GMC text line. Here. This is I don't know who's from. It's from a seven oh four number. My son in law was in college and he was accumulating debt. By good fortune, he happened to be visiting somebody who had just gotten their Lineman certification, and so that's what he decided to do. He makes more than all of the college educated people around him. My friend Ray has been pushing his tools in o Ray Terry has been pushing his tools in schools. He has partnered with others because not everyone wants to go to college or should go to college, incur the debt from college, et cetera. My son grew up in the family business of residential construction. He is in a supervisory position in commercial construction. We were just talking about the lack of people in the trades. We had a tech putting in fiber optics this week. He's got an IT degree from a four year university, but he is sticking with his blue collar job because of the money and the job security. This is from Kevin. If I had went to college, I likely wouldn't be working for myself. Instead, I do what I love. I get up every day energized to get going. If my boss does something that ticks me off, I fire them. My customers they don't know they are fired, but I put fired next to their name in my phone to remind me each time they call me. With a college degree and working for the man with his foot on my neck, I would just have to take it. That's interesting, Yeah, that you fire the and you put it in your tech your contact file that they're fired. Yeah. And look, this is something I've learned earned dealing with various trades in sort of my non paid side gig, trying to get our HOA on its feet, because like, there are a lot of problems, and so I've been dealing with a lot of the trades for the various services and stuff. And one of the things I learned was if they don't want to work with you, they just give you a bid that is ridiculously overpriced. That's that's them telling you I don't want this job. So that's I'm not saying that's what Kevin says. He does. He just puts fired next to their names. Manufacturers are also having trouble finding workers, with about four hundred thousand jobs currently unfilled. I mentioned this stat this according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I mentioned this stat a couple of months ago. You know, this whole this whole idea like, oh, this is going to be a renaissance and manufacturing and all of that. We already have half a million unfilled manufacturing jobs. People aren't taking the jobs. They don't want the jobs. Why And I said, at the time, when this radio gig ends, and it will, like if I'm still physically able, like I intend to go look for something in the trades because it will be way more stable with the AI revolution that's coming. Like my voice is already out there in the digital environment. They can AI will be able to take my voice and make the most compelling content better than I can. So at some point, I'm sure it will displace me. So that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna walk down the street to a couple of the manufacturing facilities and I'm going to ask them, hey, can I get a gig? And by the way, if you are young enough and you start young enough, I got a list of the salaries for the various trades. They dwarf. They dwarf anything that I've seen in any of the gigs that I have ever been in. So we'll get to those in a minute. You know, stories are powerful. They help us make sense of things, to understand experiences. 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They are your life told through the eyes of everyone around you and all who came before you, and they will tell others to come who you are. Visit creative video dot com. From the WBT text line this from Bob who says trade work means you have satisfaction of jobs done well plus a happy customer every day. And then he signed it. A retired engineer with three college degrees who answered to the as built guys, they know crappy designs that waste their time. It's a constriction term. This is from Scotty. Hey Pete, my twenty four year old nephew lives in Ohio and works as a welder in Bridge construction. Has been making a six figure salary now for the past two years with nothing more than his high school diploma and a few welding classes from a local community college up there, with zero college debt to boot. The opportunities are definitely out there without having to go the traditional routes and go in debt. Always enjoy your show, keep up the good work. Thank you, Scotty. Appreciate that this is from RUSS. A friend went to the Naval Academy, was a nuclear submariner, got or sub mariner? Do you say sub mariner? Is that right? Got a master's in nuclear engineering and now works at a nuclear power plant. The highest paid guy at the plant is a welder with his ged and a few tech school certifications, who is so good at what he does he makes mid six figures to work a couple of days a week. I also saw where the guys who climb communication towers can make hundreds of dollars per hour. Lots of great paying jobs in the trades, especially if you can do one of the niche odd ones that most of us don't even think about. And then Dennis says, a doctor has to call a plumber to his house. Oh, so sorry, this is a so this is a joke. Just to be clear, this is a joke, all right. A doctor has to call a plumber to his house. And the plumber is there for an hour, and he hands the doctor his bill. The doctor looks at the bill and says two thousand dollars. Heck, that's more than I charge. And the plumber says, I know, I used to be a doctor too. We've been telling kids fifteen that was not the right I was supposed to play this. Now, that just makes it so unfunny on many different levels. So, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here are the salaries that you can earn in various traits. And they've got it broken down as apprentice salaries, journeyman salaries, so you go from apprentice to journeyman to master. Right, and so they've got it broken down. I believe these are the average salaries. So you start as an apprentice, and I'm going to run through each of the categories. So as an electrician started thirty eight, journeyman sixty two thousand, Master ninety thousand plus, HVAC started thirty six, journeyman fifty one thousand, master seventy eight thousand plus, plumber started thirty nine thousand, journeyman at sixty thousand, Master ninety five thousand plus, welder thirty five thousand to forty seven thousand to seventy thousand plus, carpenter thirty three thousand, forty eight thousand, seventy two thousand plus, solar installation thirty four to forty nine to eighty k plus, and a mold inspector. You start at four, journeyman at sixty thousand, and then master eighty five thousand plus. Those are those are very good salaries. Let's go over to line one. Here is Joe. Hello, Joe, Welcome to the show. Brett. Yeah, I'm a professional handyman. I've over the years in California and enter. I've you know, I do electrical plumbing, bathroom remodels, paint, but I mean the phone's ringing off the hook. I make, I make six figures without even breathing hard and and I charged it in the middle of what some handyman and handyman companies charge. And there's just there's just not enough trades, just absolutely not enough trades. And then the ones that are out there, you know, they either they're not doing good work or they're going so fast. It's it's some sometimes work, you know. I just I just tore out a door and found out a double door in a house and it had almost no nails in the frame at all holding it to the wall. Yeah. The only it was holding it was the brick molding on the outside and the molding on the inside. Nice. Now, and this is this happens all the time. We run into this stuff all the time. Oh I. We had two homes built new construction over the last decade, and the problems with the you know, the mass produced residential housing, it's ridiculous. Absolutely they had to so they the one of the house we bought up in Ashville, they they did not plumb half of the house through the water heater. Half of the house was right to the street. Yeah, And luckily I went there every single week and took pictures of all the work that they were doing. So when we got there and the water wasn't working correctly, I could show the guy who came in, I could show him the pictures of what behind the wall, and he was he was astounded. He's like, this is unbelievable that somebody would build this like this. Yeah, yeah, it's cuckoo for Coca bus. Right, Joe, appreciate the callbody, have a great weekend? All right, man, yep too. Here's a great idea. How about making an escape to a really special and secluded getaway in western North Carolina. Just a quick drive up the mountain and Cabins of Asheville is your connection. 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Call or text eight two eight three six seven seventy sixty eight or check out all there is to offer at Cabins of Aashville dot com and make memories that'll last a lifetime. It's Friday. We haven't done it in a while, but that's because I've been on vacation, or he's been on vacation, or just generally playing hooky. Brett wennaball. It's time for pregaming with Brett Brett. How are you, sir? It's with you. It's great to be with you again, sir. Thank you. Yeah, so you were fresh off of your vacation where you sailed the high seas. I went up to Comiland in New York and so yeah, yeah, I mean I wasn't in New York City like eating rice with my fingers. Oh well played, yeah, well play. Just gross that guy. So, I don't know if you heard any of it. We were talking about before about the trades and the you know, the lack of applicants to fill all of these vacancies in various trades, and so I was kind of curious, what is the toughest like trades job or blue collar job whatever, Like, what's the what's the what's the job the toughest job you ever did? Well, it was tough, but I loved I loved my job working in a supermarket ah uh. And but I did not like having to clean up all the the detritis that exists in the uh in the meat area and stuff like that. That that was that was hard. I mean, I'm not gonna lie toea. That was you know, kind of understanding some of the basic uh you know, butchering things that you have to learn and cleaning up and all that sort of stuff. But most of my most of my labor uh has has come uh in the form of something that's a very very lostart, and that is push mower. Yes, and I don't. I don't. I don't drive a drive mower. No, and I I pushed that thing up and down and all around, and let me tell you, on a hot day, that is brutal. Yes I did. Oh, that was my first job was mowing everybody in the neighborhood's yards for five bucks for the front, five bucks for the back. Five bucks for the front, and the one for the back. Ten dollars. Man, I would make dollars per house. And I had five houses, although one of them at a really big backyard, and so I got ten for that backyard. And this was these were the days before the propulsion motors, you know, yes, of course, yeah, yeah, like you had to push these you know, seventy pound mowers around as a you know, as a fourteen year old. Were you doing that? Because there were people who wouldn't take those jobs because they you know, they will not take those jobs. Right, No, I wanted the job. I needed the money. I wanted to buy Christmas presents for people. And oh wow, yeah that's what Yeah, that's what we did with our money. So that was not that was not the toughest gig I ever did, or what was the toughest. I did not lay the sod. The sod was laid. They brought in me because I was like in college. I had no skills, obviously, and so they just the only thing that they trusted me with was the big water barrel with the handle on it. And so you fill this massive drum with water and the thing weighs like one hundred pounds or something, and you have to push the water drum and roll it over the sod to flatten the sod out. That was That was brutal. That is horrible. Oh man, that's terrible. If you had to go back to the trades, what would you if of all the trades that are out there, what would you be curious to do? I think electrician. I did some electrical work, never anything that was off permit for the record, so I but I learned the basics of electrical work. And I have like a scarred a scar in my retina to prove it, because I crossed the wire and it flashed really brightly, and from then on out, I've always had a little black spot in my field. Division. Yeah, but I would like to do that, or maybe welding, because then you could build stuff too. You know you could weld stuff. What about you. So my grandfather was a cement basin for like fifty years old. That's a good one too. I wish I knew how to lay concrete and do all that kind of because that to be able to do that is incredible, And I think I think I'd like to be a cement mason. You bust your butt, but man, you get to do some really cool. Stuff, right, And that's the creative side of it. Like you get to build stuff and when you're done, you have something to look at. Like with this gig, it's all they're bouncing off of space. You know, it's like there's. I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. No, I wouldn't either. I'm just saying it's like nice to look at something and have something tangible to say I built that, you know, right, Yeah, so I saw this the Also, this is a annual priestly not the guy from nine on two one zero. This is Dent global entrepreneur and developer guy. He says mice get killed in mouse traps because they do not understand why the cheese is free. At age sixteen, your entire survival depends on handouts. Your psychological safety is built on simple ideology. Most adults, you interact with our government employees, you're hardwired to appeal to authority. So there's little chance of understanding the deep flaws in state control and big government. Now, I thought, that's that's actually really brilliant, Like your entire life up until the point where you are kind of like kicked out of the nest and then you come back to it for many years, but before that, you like, that's your whole worldview. It's a very insulated kind of an experience, and so it's only natural that you would tend towards authority, tend towards government employees essentially for that authority. But he's a that's a great that's a great point. And you know, one only has to look at the gen Z people here who are are actually starting younger younger, trying to build out what they can, and they will run into that behemoth of government at some point in their lives being told you got to do this, you can't do that, or any of that, and then they'll just stand there and give you the stare at the hearties. Stare are you seeing this thing with the stair? They're talking about the stair on these TikTok videos. I never realized it before, but now apparently like you can't unsee it. They all do this stare at you. This is Isaac broke it down for me yesterday. Oh really, I had not really experienced it. I just thought that they were high. No, I just thought that, you know, I didn't understand stair was I just stared back. So what is it? The stair is the stair? You say, like, you get the fast food. Isaac did this beautifully for me yesterday. He said, okay, so you get the fast food and you say, hey, have a good day, thanks for everything, and as you're driving off, like they're just staring at you. That's all that. The stair is the stair. There's no communicative it doesn't indicate any benefit nothing. Oh they just stop. It's like, oh, it's like a short circuit. Yeah, all right, and they're all doing it because of the devices. Oh gosh, the device. All right. That'll do it for this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I could not do the show without your support and the support of the businesses that advertise on the podcast, So if you'd like, please support them too and tell them you heard it here. You can also become a patron at my Patreon page or go to dpetecleanershow dot com. Again, thank you so much for listening, and uh, don't break anything while I'm gone.