The Skills Revolution America Actually Needs
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The right way to educate this country. Again, if you know some people are listening to this, some people watch the vlog. I I’m I’m smiling ear to ear. Some this is a story, sometimes, again, you know, that that just put a smile on my face. The the ingenuity of Americans, what we can come up with it, when we put our minds to it, when we don’t rely on the government.
To do things for us, taking a little bit of initiative is a wonderful thing. did a podcast today, you might have listened, talking to about H1B visas and the hundred thousand dollar fee and at how it’s being rejected, need for workers. Again, this is a topic that’s been ongoing here on the program. We’ve discussed this again for again, dating myself in decades. Well, today, there was a story, again, put a big fat, huge smile on my face. It was
Dina Powell McCormick and Mike Rowe. Mike Rowe, you know, from Deadliest Catch and Dirty Jobs. I want to read a little bit in their column today. Americans have been told a fable about our economic future. Construction and manufacturing were giving way to a digital economy. Yeah, you gotta go to learn out. You gotta go learn to code, said Hillary. Remember that? You gotta go learn to code based on just knowledge alone. Skilled labor out.
Dated shop class defunded. Again, I think about shop class. I think back to my high school. And again, we kids learning how to be mechanical. I mean, just a myriad of different things. Anyway, four-year degrees were idolized. Blue-collar job losses and brittle supply chains were the price of progress. The myth assumed that high tech and the trades.
Were alternatives, even rivals. In fact, they’re interdependent. For 250 years, America has claimed the lion’s share of the world’s greatest inventions. But it was generations of American workers who strung the telegraph wire, laid the railroad tracks, and built the interstate highways and buried the fiber. They shared in the prosperity that resulted. Now, again, anecdotal. Grandparents came from Italy.
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Grandparents came from Poland. My grandfather from Poland. again, he didn’t even have a high school degree, taught himself to be a draftsman and designer. He was very, very smart, ended up getting a job working designing and for General Electric in Schenectady, New York. Grandfather on the Italian side, again, came here, shipped him off, fought World War One as soon as he got here, came back. He ended up building railroads here in this country.
Both jobs, very, very important to what and where we’re at today. Anyway, I digress. The artificial intelligence revolution shows that America’s technological progress and skilled workforce are still inseparable. To maintain our technological edge, we need to build infrastructure at a scale and with great speed. This requires better pathways into high paying trades.
For Americans hungry for opportunity. The skilled trades and Silicon Valley need each other, and America’s future needs them both. This is why this is interesting, Meta and partners. Mike Rose helped put this together, including the Associated Builders and Contractors and the National Urban League, are announcing the launch of America’s Workforce Academy. Again, this is.
Love this. This is something, again, we’ve talked about this, the need to get back to apprenticeships here in this country. But anyway, it’s a little bit different. The largest private sector commitment to the skilled trades in American history, beginning with a $115 million commitment the first year and committing hundreds of millions over time. AWA will reject the failed approach that asks workers to pay for their own training.
And hope to be rewarded with a job. Again, companies have already, tech companies have already started doing some of this, not to mention other building companies, actually paying kids. We actually talked about this in terms of people in the shipping and whatnot, and getting kids actual jobs and training them when we’re in high school. So when they graduate, they’re good to go. But anyway, this is a little different. The men and women who enroll will be paid for their time.
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Parents won’t be blocked from learning tomorrow’s skills because they need to put food on the table today. Courses will take weeks and leave graduates with industry standard certifications in high demand fields such as electrical work, mechanical systems, and plumbing. Every graduate will be guaranteed a job on a meta partners construction site. AWA, we believe, is the start of a revolution, our economy.
Needs practically every major industry is desperate to hire more skilled workers. The MicroWorks Foundation has spent years sounding this alarm. At Metal Alone, we anticipate needing thousands more workers as we build infrastructure to empower students, families, and small business owners. Again, style these kinds of things, type initiative, puts a smile on my face. Now again, I I wouldn’t be shocked. I wouldn’t be surprised at all where you’re gonna start.
Seeing pushback. You’re going to start seeing pushback from the powers that be. Because again, we have, you know, whether teachers, unions, various different, you know, organizations that give creation to colleges. You know, I’ll give you a prime example. One of my one of my interns this summer, and I, you know, again, I hope they’re not gonna listen to this. I hope they don’t want to.
You know, I don’t want to pump up their ego so much. They’re killing it. They’re they’re they’re doing an unbelievable job. I’m gonna give a shout out. This kid, I the coach when he was very, very young. He he plays, you know, division one sport, plays the cross at High Point. Now, High Point, a couple it was a year or two ago. They were all there’s something going on at that school. they they’re gonna lose, they’re not gonna be accredited university anymore. You ever been to that school? Never been there? I have.
I have, they’re doing it right. They’re doing it right. And again, do you want to do your little homework on what they’re teaching kids there? The proper how to properly talk with executives, how to do it on an airplane, how they have various fancy restaurants on campus, not allowed to use the phone, all these life skills that they’re teaching, not to mention some of the the tech stuff they’re doing, it’s off the charts. But again, it’s bucking bucking the system, you know, what the way we do things here in this country.
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Gotta make sure we take enough bullshit gender classes at, you know, whatever it may be. But kids rate, killing it for me. Again, we so this is why I think yeah, you’re gonna get you’re gonna get pushback from the I’m sorry, the evil teachers unions and all these groups that are, you know, they don’t really give a damn. Again, all they do is continue to fail. You take a look at test scores here in this country and what a frickin’ disaster it is, and they keep patting themselves on the back and asking us for more money.
Over $40,000 a student in New York City. Nobody can freaking pass the test. Bullshit. This is a step in the right direction. You go to school, you go to school, so you can learn the skills to get a job. Okay? My interns here, they don’t do bullshit work at Markowski Investments over the course of the summer. They’re hey, they’re helping me. They’re working AI, how to learn, how to utilize AI, how to do all these things. Again, they want to go into finance later on the road. If that’s what they
decide to do, they’re gonna be 10 steps ahead of the game. And that’s what education’s for, is it not? To put food on the table? Life i in its itself should be constant education. Should be carrying around a book all the time. I always love that line from Goodwill Hunting. He talked about he was debating the the grad student from Harvard and how he blew him away with just his library card. Again, that’s life. You can do that all the time. We need to understand first and foremost, yes, schools
You there to help you to learn to to to think and problem solve and all those things, but it’s to go out and get a job. This step in the right direction. Watchdog on wallstreet.com.
