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Well when you work you trade the irreplaceable hours of your life for money. Since you don’t have a clue how many hours you’ll get, they’re worth a fair bit. Those who pay well get workers, those who don’t go out of business. Anyways, would you really want some underpaid, unmotivated knothead working on a gun you’re going to buy?

What about the irreplaceable hours of MY life that I spend making the tax money that supports so many deadbeats that lack the motivation to get a marketable skill and pay their own way?
A pretty successful model from the past is that you hire on somewhere for relatively low pay, and as your skill level improves you move up the pay scale when your value to the company increases.
If we paid everybody what they think their time was worth a gun would cost $10,000, but a hamburger might cost $75. The fast food guys think their time is very valuable too.
So what is gained?
 
If you haven’t noticed that wages haven’t kept up with prices and ceo payouts, that old model is no longer in service. Other working class Americans aren’t the problem. What’s the point of hard work when you still can’t pay the bills while your boss keeps getting richer and richer? The greatest period of growth in average American wealth was in the 50s and 60s. Which coincides with the highest union membership. For the past 45 years we’ve gotten used to being paid less and the rich making far more. Hard work is rarely rewarded, it has been cheaper just to hire a new worker than to give raises. So here we are. America has been conditioned to dislike their jobs by their bosses. The rich like to make working people fight each other so they can keep looting the country. It’s a less successful argument today.
 
I guess I have about 6 TVM guns, so do you think I like them? I had one other that was a very nice Virginia rifle but got talked out of it and for just mere $$. I have a few others that get used from time to time but back when I still hunted it was with one of my TVMs. They stay very busy and with the "parts problem" work is slowed down. My first one took about 11 months. Then another time it was less than 6 months. They are super good to do business with.

I just saw a very stupid mistake I made about black powder cost. I never, obviously, paid $110 for a can; the decimal was forgotten. It should have been $1.10 a can.
 
If you haven’t noticed that wages haven’t kept up with prices and ceo payouts, that old model is no longer in service. Other working class Americans aren’t the problem. What’s the point of hard work when you still can’t pay the bills while your boss keeps getting richer and richer? The greatest period of growth in average American wealth was in the 50s and 60s. Which coincides with the highest union membership. For the past 45 years we’ve gotten used to being paid less and the rich making far more. Hard work is rarely rewarded, it has been cheaper just to hire a new worker than to give raises. So here we are. America has been conditioned to dislike their jobs by their bosses. The rich like to make working people fight each other so they can keep looting the country. It’s a less successful argument today.

I like rich people.
They invest money that creates jobs.
I never got a job from a poor person.
I figure if someone doesn’t like making money for someone else, they should scrape up every penny of their own money and start a business and take some of the risks of being an employer themselves.
 
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Well when you work you trade the irreplaceable hours of your life for money. Since you don’t have a clue how many hours you’ll get, they’re worth a fair bit. Those who pay well get workers, those who don’t go out of business. Anyways, would you really want some underpaid, unmotivated knothead working on a gun you’re going to buy?

A younger person’s work life hours are not worth as much because they typically have so many of them left in the future.
As far as CEO’s getting richer and richer, what’s wrong with that? The money gets circulated back through the economy.
Anybody can be a CEO if they want it bad enough to take the risks. Most people don’t want it bad enough.
I get richer every year myself, and so do you if you are still working.
Union bosses too-at the worker’s expense. And those bosses don’t even produce anything.
Anyway, we have gotten off on a tangent that has little to do with our hobby, so I will have to agree to disagree on some points. As former military and law-enforcement, and civilian military contractor ( Army Blackhawk overhaul maintenance) sometimes I get a little edgy when I see what is happening to the Western World in general, and our dear country in particular. Knowing almost all of our current problems are self-inflicted and need not have happened in the first place only makes it harder to take.
Maybe wiping down my Tip Curtis flint rifle will make it all better for a little while.
 
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Well when you work you trade the irreplaceable hours of your life for money. Since you don’t have a clue how many hours you’ll get, they’re worth a fair bit. Those who pay well get workers, those who don’t go out of business. Anyways, would you really want some underpaid, unmotivated knothead working on a gun you’re going to buy?
True to a certain extent, but how many applicants do you think, which are applying for a job at a custom rifle building shop is going to walk through that door with the skills and experience to work on, let alone build flintlock rifles? I wouldn't turn someone loose building a gun unless they had the experience, and that can take years. It can take several months in order to train someone just to perform menial work, but most want to start out with pay like their a master craftsman. Problem today is, those with no experience want top tier pay, then turn up their nose at minimum wage.

I'm in the custom leather manufacturing business, and we manufacturer mostly WWI and WWII leather accoutrements to the original military specifications. I can't tell you how many folks have shown up at my door over the years applying for a job and said they had experience. I would ask, Do you have any experience? Reply: Yes sir, I've been a custom leathersmith for over 20 years, building belts, holsters, saddle repair, and other custom items. I would think, "Hot D@mn, finally found someone"; however, when asked for samples of their work, quite frankly, it was pitiful, some was O.K. at a beginners level, but most looked like their holsters were chopped out with a hatchet.
 
I worked as a cabinet maker and our shop only seemed to find skilled people once in awhile. They didn’t pay well so I went to a different shop that paid far better. When those people hired they got good people. Both shops hired low wage apprentices but the good shop trained them and moved them up in pay and responsibility (as should happen with a good apprentice). The first shop just used them as laborers and didn’t even try to train them. Point being, I’ve seen more shops like the first one. Stickler furniture tried to hire me to run their finish shop because I was good but offered such a ridiculous wage I damned near punched the guy in the face for the insult. I’d guess that , today, it might be hard to find people who see that an apprenticeship pays two ways, money and skills. Good leather workers are few to the acre where I live.
 
A younger person’s work life hours are not worth as much because they typically have so many of them left in the future.
As far as CEO’s getting richer and richer, what’s wrong with that? The money gets circulated back through the economy.
Anybody can be a CEO if they want it bad enough to take the risks. Most people don’t want it bad enough.
I get richer every year myself, and so do you if you are still working.
Union bosses too-at the worker’s expense. And those bosses don’t even produce anything.
Anyway, we have gotten off on a tangent that has little to do with our hobby, so I will have to agree to disagree on some points. As former military and law-enforcement and civilian military contractor ( Army Blackhawk overhaul maintenance) sometimes I get a little edgy when I see what is happening to the Western World in general, and our country in particular.
Maybe wiping down my Tip Curtis flint rifle will make it all better for a little while.
Fair enough, I’m not terribly enthused about where
A younger person’s work life hours are not worth as much because they typically have so many of them left in the future.
As far as CEO’s getting richer and richer, what’s wrong with that? The money gets circulated back through the economy.
Anybody can be a CEO if they want it bad enough to take the risks. Most people don’t want it bad enough.
I get richer every year myself, and so do you if you are still working.
Union bosses too-at the worker’s expense. And those bosses don’t even produce anything.
Anyway, we have gotten off on a tangent that has little to do with our hobby, so I will have to agree to disagree on some points. As former military and law-enforcement and civilian military contractor ( Army Blackhawk overhaul maintenance) sometimes I get a little edgy when I see what is happening to the Western World in general, and our country in particular.
Maybe wiping down my Tip Curtis flint rifle will make it all better for a little while.
Fair enough, I’m not terribly enthused about where the country is headed either. We likely share the old man’s lament “Damned kids these days!”
 
I love my TVM
Built from a kit 2008
9BC06686-2C86-4229-9772-1A4DB768B6EE.jpeg
 
I worked as a cabinet maker and our shop only seemed to find skilled people once in awhile. They didn’t pay well so I went to a different shop that paid far better. When those people hired they got good people. Both shops hired low wage apprentices but the good shop trained them and moved them up in pay and responsibility (as should happen with a good apprentice). The first shop just used them as laborers and didn’t even try to train them. Point being, I’ve seen more shops like the first one. Stickler furniture tried to hire me to run their finish shop because I was good but offered such a ridiculous wage I damned near punched the guy in the face for the insult. I’d guess that , today, it might be hard to find people who see that an apprenticeship pays two ways, money and skills. Good leather workers are few to the acre where I live.
I suppose it’s getting pretty hard to find people under 35 that know how to properly operate a screwdriver, or any other hand tools.
 

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