Our Spanish-Speaking Geologist Writes In

I have noticed a trend and it is in the embryonic or "proto" stages of becoming a post. A post along the lines of how I've seen our Latin American counterparts have a genuine hatred of socialism, and a more-than-anecdotal statistically significant readership/commentaryship on the part of Latino/Hispanic men of the "Capitalist Faith."

Of course there is no doubt selection bias on this blog, but I have noticed a lot of Latin men voice conservative ideals and thoughts.

Regardless, a guest post from a Spanish speaking capitalist who I believe hates communism even more than me.

However, this does also behoove the question, "Where is Lieutenant Latino?" He occasionally drops in, haven't heard from him in a while! Regardless, enjoy.
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"No jobs in the US? No jobs for graduates? Ha!

If someone graduates with a degree in engineering or geology, there are lots of jobs (not IT or computer science, too many of them out there... and -at least in Canada- employers have figured out they can employ Wan Chang and Kumar Patel for 12-hour days at $40k, which is a pittance for a network engineer, if you ask me).

As long as you are willing to eat and crap snow and/or sand, at least at the initial years of your career, engineering/geology is pretty good money. I wish I had known about the amazing job opportunities in Canada when I was 18, back in the mid 90s. I probably would not have a mortgage now (instead, I spent 98-04 working for faceless -I'd say bastard- corporations paying peanuts for 50-60 hour weeks).

Trust me when I say this: I have employed fresh, out of university geology and mining engineering graduates, for projects up north (e.g. Labrador, also in Chile). They were costing the project $350-$400/day. People with experience (they could use MapInfo and had 2 or 3 summer seasons) were $500+/day, plus onerous conditions (for them, not me). Drillers and miners (and good cooks) earn even more (rumour has it good drillers -i.e. >7 years experience- earn $1000/day, particularly when working abroad, but I have not been able to verify this). If I wanted to make lots of money and have a life consisting of hard work periods followed by several weeks off, for 10 years, I'd rather be a driller than a medicine student between ages 20 and 30: you would have a lot more to show at age 30 -assuming a counting coppers mind- and probably earn more than a doctor. Should a driller be careful with his money (and fingers, too many 40+ drillers with an odd number of fingers, including the number 7) he should be able to retire at 40 (there are some famous drillers who retired or half-retired to Thailand or Costa Rica age 40). I have met Canadian drillers who had a ranch or something similar by age 40, no mortgage, and worked in drilling for 3-5 months a year in order to support ranch life.

If a young lad (or lady) were to take one of the mineral exploration assignments for a couple of years and not blow it all on bars and the meat market (like 70% of men do), they would definitely have no student debt within a few months, and a nice 20% downpayment on a Toronto or Montreal home within two or three years of graduation.