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Notes -
For a section of the white population; those who have the marketable skills that are in demand (see the current hand-wringing over the tech company lay-offs, and others writing reassuring articles that it's okay, it's just trimming the fat of all the hiring during the pandemic and the useless people, but real engineers are always in demand).
That Last Psychiatrist piece annoys me, probably because I'm from the section of society where people are welders, and it's a good, respectable trade:
No, dickhead, people who do hard manual labour don't decide that "welp, I'm 45, I'd prefer to laze about for the next thirty years so I'll pretend I can't work anymore". Mostly they keep working until they can't work, because their body really does wear out. And very few of them do nice, tidy, 9-5 hours. If somewhere in your house springs a leak, do you decide "Can't call a plumber, it's after 5 pm so they've clocked off!" No, you'll try ringing round and see if you can get a guy to call out sometime, anytime soon (because often they're very busy, being in demand for all kinds of jobs).
Do some people game the system? Yes, of course. Just like educated white guys who like to pretend they're the Hunter Thompson of mental health professionals and write their hot takes. I don't know any welders who retired at 45, I wonder if Mr Big Brain here even does know anyone who works with their hands? I know plenty of people who worked themselves into the ground, or had legitimate health reasons for retiring early. Man, I had no idea that living off social welfare was so easy, I could have done it when I was 45 and lived high on the hog! Allegedly!
I agree about the "never worked" cohort, but again - that's complicated. There are some people who never worked because they're incapable of holding down a job, because they're too weird or they have untreated mental problems (not even outright crazy, never diagnosed with a disorder as a kid and left to sink or swim through school and life) or some other reason. Again, yes of course there are people gaming the system with fake illnesses and scamming their way through life. Humans do that kind of thing.
Excellent advice - were it not for the snide bit earlier about the welders (and plumbers, presumably, and other tradespeople) who scammed the system by pretending they could no longer work the 9-5 job and decided to live off the public purse so they could laze about.
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