I Think I See Your Point

The thing about the shoes makes sense to me, and I'm not even a Commie. I always believed that doing productive work was more virtuous than shuffling papers, which is one reason I didn't go to college. The thing is, though, it's not nearly as easy to find a productive job these days as it was back in the 60s and, even if you do find one, they still want you to kiss their asses as if you were some kind of executive crawling your way up the corporate ladder. Of course they don't pay you like an executive, or even like productive worker. When they first started that shit in the paper mill, I told them that, if I wanted to kiss people's asses for living, I would have gone to college and gotten paid well for it. If I wasn't willing to do it for the big money, I'm certainly not willing to do it for the small money. Of course, the small money of those days would be considered big money today, adjusted for inflation. Let's face it, Ken, there is no future in working for a living in this country anymore. You and I got out just in time, but I feel sorry for the young kids starting out today.

I think that, if I was one of those young kids starting out today, I would try to find something in the financial field. I would have to go to school for it, and maybe serve some kind of apprenticeship but, once I learned everything I needed to know, I would become one of those plinky-plinkers, in business for myself, working from home, and kissing up to no one. There's no point in starting something like that now, since I can live as comfortably as I want to on the conservative investments I already have. I don't see any point in risking what I've got to gain something I don't really need, especially at my age.

While you're gone, I'll see if I can dig up anything more on the subject. I still don't plan on doing anything like that, but I'm kind of interested in seeing how it works. If you don't want to talk about it anymore, we can always go into that French stuff. That's another subject about which I only have superficial knowledge and wouldn't mind learning more.