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There was a time when this country was dotted with family businesses, and the objective was to pass the torch of that family business from generation to generation. Parents would send their children off to school to earn a high school diploma (to ensure their children were well-rounded members of society) and welcome them back to the family craft. Some kids would haul off to serve their country, some would move on and work in another specialty field. But by-and-large, this country was woven together with mom and pop stores that held towns together for generations.

There were fathers who passed on their craft to sons. Mothers to daughters. But at some point we decided as a country that it wasn't good enough to be a seamstress or a plumber. Our parents would come home from their blue-collar jobs tired and grumpy only to turn on the evening news and see Bill Gates and Eric Schmidt rolling around in money.How'd they do it? Sitting behind a computer screen? We'd look at Mom and Dad, then glance about our sufficient but unimpressive home, and decide that there was no reason to break our backs bent underneath broken down cars when we could head off to college and seek our fortune in the world of technology.

So people went off to school and got that degree and, wow, some of them really did get rich. It seemed so easy. We now believed there was a formula for success; a road map to the gold rush of the new millennium. Our motivations changed. The American Dream shifted from health, a solid 9-5, and food on the table to gobs of money and a hybrid car. And now if you don't have these things you aren't really successful. You may feel happy, but without the outward symbols of prosperity it doesn't matter.

Parents started pushing their kids to go to College. Don't be like me, they'd say. Get out there and get your piece of the pie. Sending kids to school became the thing to do. College turned into something that was absolutely necessary to reach this new level of what we decided was success. If you didn't get a college education you'd be left behind.

The unexpected result has been a shortage of the skilled tradesmen and tradeswomen. Welders, plumbers, carpenters, electricians, etc are now in high demand. We stigmatized these professions by assigning them the name "blue-collar" which eventually translated into "middle-class". And the middle-class isn't rich. It's the computer scientists, investment bankers, and stock brokers that get wealthy. They are achieving what society has

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