Comment by _dps | Hacker News Reader

Comment by _dps | Hacker News Reader

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I worry that believing the jobs are not coming back is a self-fulfilling prophecy – one with dangerous consequences of locking its believers into perpetual dependence on supply from places that act essentially as sin externalization depots.

If $2/hr vs $10/hr is indeed the thing preventing repair being economical , that seems like it can be fixed with a mixture of incentives, apprenticeship contracts, and elevating the social status of "vocational education" (the name exists IMO only to serve as status-lowering). Or if not one of those, then some other untried thing.

Edit: as sibling comments mention, if in fact the main limitation is not labor prices but exclusive-supply agreements for certain consumable parts, then this seems easily within the scope of Antitrust to address.

> If $2/hr vs $10/hr is indeed the thing preventing repair being economical , that seems like it can be fixed with a mixture of incentives, apprenticeship contracts, and elevating the social status of "vocational education" (the name exists IMO only to serve as status-lowering).

That incentive is the $x per hour. And the low $x per hour relative to quality of life is what causes the status lowering. Status is not lowered by a couple words. A doctor spends a ton of time in “vocational education”.

I think you've misunderstood what I meant; I mean incentives for businesses to pay their people more (or to offer something like apprenticeships).

As for status not being lowered by words, we'll have to agree to disagree. No one in practice (in the US) calls medical school "vocational school" precisely because it is a phrase associated with lower status work in the trades.

Yes, people use vocational school to refer to schooling that requires less time, cost, and generally has lower barriers to entry. This results in a higher supply relative to demand, resulting in lower prices for the labor, and that is the causative factor for lower “status”.

You can change the name from vocational school to Nobel school or whatever, but as long as people are not earning high wages, it is not going to change any perceptions of “status”.

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