I promised at least one reader of this stack a little bit of career advice a while ago. As I’ve spent the past week teaching five aspiring skippers their MCA Boat Master License this week, now seems like an appropriate time.
I also had to drive the breadth of Scotland each morning and evening to deliver the training course, so I had time to catch up on my podcasts. The Symbolic World, Lord of Spirits, The Delingpod, & The State of the Markets were my soundtrack this week, while I passed through the breath-taking scenery of Stirlingshire, Loch Lomond & the Trossachs to Argyle. Campbell country always stirs the soul, and Gareloch brings back some hilarious memories of my time in the Navy Reserve, mucking about with Marines and Submariners.
It would be easy to despair these days. The dragon-blooded eugenicist who co-launched the WEF’s Great Reset with the wannabe Bond villain Klaus Schwab is about to be anointed King Charles III next week.
‘Samuel spoke all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking him for a king. He said, “Here are the policies of the king who will rule over you: He will conscript your sons and put them in his chariot forces and in his cavalry; they will run in front of his chariot. He will appoint for himself leaders of thousands and leaders of fifties, as well as those who plow his ground, reap his harvest, and make his weapons of war and his chariot equipment. He will take your daughters… He will take your best fields… He will demand a tenth of your seed and of the produce of your vineyards and give them to his own administrators and his servants. He will take your male and female servants, as well as our best cattle and your donkeys, and assign them for his own use. He will demand a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will be his servants. In that day you will cry out because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord won’t answer you in that day”.
But the people refused to heed Samuel’s warning.’
1st Samuel, Chapter 8, Verses 10-19.
Until the day we learn to govern ourselves, we will be cursed with kings and tyrants. Whether they are demon-spawn, lizard people, aliens, or just self-deluded occultists matters not. They believe that they are above the rules that govern the rest of us, and above the law of the land.
I believe that we will suffer under King Charles III, possibly just as much as we did during the reign of his namesake forebears. His very coronation not only promises to be an affront to God by design, but will be a self-defeating negation of itself, as a performative contradiction of the oath he is supposed to take. But likely more on that next week, after the coronation. When considering historical context, it may be worth remembering that the restoration of Charles II marked the beginning of ‘The Killing Time’ in Scottish history. A time which lead directly to the sacralising of the second amendment right to bear arms, and the requirement for innocence until proof of guilt, in the USA.
When our omnivorous overlords launched the Great Reset, and knocked back Agenda 21 to 2030, they promised that ‘you will own nothing and be happy’ [or else].
It seems then to be an amazing irony that the people who typically support the authoritarian agenda of our time already own nothing and are decidedly unhappy about it.
And, it is an unfortunate fact of life that the people who populate the podcast circuit and the new media, tend to be people with enough of the luxuries of life available to them, to be able to afford the time to indulge in the pursuits of making eloquent articles in defence of the current system, and the virtues of property ownership in contrast with the new fascism.
But shockingly, listening to old guys talk about wealth management through a monetary reset, or speculating about the price of gold or bitcoin, doesn’t do much to recruit young people to the cause of liberty.
(Dear Tim, sorry to say, it caused me pain to listen to you all talk about the energy industry. Tidal energy is more predictable, yes. But the maintenance costs are astronomical, compare to renewable energy above the surface, due to marine growth, and as you’ll see later, the cost of divers).
So, my article today will aim to provide some careers advice for the most group of people most discriminated against, maligned, black pilled, likely to captured by radical political ideologies, internet cult leaders, substance abuse, poverty, suicide and a despondent wasted life. The straight white Christian male, aged 16 to 42. Gen z to millennials, in marketing parlance.
If you are 16 years old today, you were born in the year 2007. Six years after the 9/11 event that militarised the West. The year after Twitter was invented. The same year the iPhone 1 was released. Your country has been in continuous war since your birth, and has known no peace. You have seen at least 20 terrorist attacks on British streets. You were born in the year of the Great Financial Crash and the birth of ‘Too-Big-To-Fail’, (& soon to strike back). You have seen house prices more than double in your short life. Official inflation of the pound has been 53% since your birth, reflecting the 54% increase in house prices, but the truth is much worse, as worker productivity has grown by only 0.8% in that time. So while the value of your money has halved, the capacity of the British or US worker to generate income has barely budged during your lifetime. Despite unfathomable technological advances, which in principle should improve your earning potential, porous borders and frontier visas mean that you are competing with masses of illegal migrants not only for your first unskilled work in the job market, but for use of scarce and collapsing common resources of the welfare state that your parents incorrectly believed they were paying into.
You have been born into the late stages of a dying empire, with a Prussian education system, and a spiritual and ideological battle for your attention being waged mercilessly on your developing mind.
Currency crisis. Pensions crisis. Immigration crisis. Cost of living crisis. The war on terror. The war on weather. Covid lockdowns, that allowed at least one policeman to think he could literally get away with rape and murder. BLM and Antifa. the toppling of statues and defacing of priceless art. Transgender bathrooms and sexual assault in high schools. Grooming gangs ignored by politically ‘correct’ police forces. Racial and gender quotas instituted by your own government and civil service. The sacrifice of human life to ‘save the NHS’. Record high income tax, sales tax, corporate tax and inflation, kicking in ever sooner.
92% of covid deaths were among the triple vaccinated, and now country’s with mass compulsory jabbing are experiencing a fertility crisis. Australia has seen an 80% decrease in their birth rate since compulsory vaccination. Sudden unexplained deaths among the young and working age population have increased tenfold. Bloodclots and infertility should not come as a surprise, as they were the results of decades of animal experiments, and of the Pfizer trials, until EUAs pretended they weren’t.
Let’s face it. There has not been a generation so downtrodden and actively hampered by their own government and elders in this country in living memory.
You guys have got nothing coming.
At 38 years old, I’m technically (although not culturally) a Millennial. I had the benefit of being taught b people old enough to remember living through the WW2. Most of my friends and mentors were older, and close to retirement when I sailed with them. I remember life before smart phones, when people would actually keep their appointments, and showing up on time, shaking hands and making eye contact were normal and expected. I may be overly nostalgic, but I do remember some of the before time. It really did used to be better, if you like things like freedom.
I read on Twitter this week that Millennials hold 4.8% of all wealth. At the same age, the GenX before us held 9%. The Boomers 21%. At 38, I am lucky to have bought my first property with my wife, about six years ago. We barely got onto the ladder by the skin of our teeth, with a deposit that would have paid for an acre of land and a four bedroom detached house when I was a kid.
The ‘Tiny House’ movement, and a lot of the hippy dippy bunk that my illustrious generation has spawned as a supposedly virtuous crusade of climate martyrdom, is in fact a response to absurd inflation. State pensions will be worthless for us, and with the escalating evil act of theft that is inheritance tax increasing year on year, there is no hope for us that the natural transfer of wealth from our boomer parents will yield much relief. The importation of migrants, and a top-heavy childless population further compounds support for this unnatural transfer of wealth to the state, and hastens the return of serfdom.
The tweet then said ‘The largest generation in history did what the system told them to do and became the most educated in history. Now they’re the poorest in history’. – Dan Price.
If that’s true of us, surely Gen-Z will be known as the most propagandised in history.
Scared, stressed, afraid, divided, confused, distracted, and disgusted. That’s how they want you.
Well, that’s the black pill outlined.
I’m going to give you the White pill now. Or, at least, the advice I would give myself if I were 16 years old in 2023.
Some are saying online that unvaccinated sperm is the next Bitcoin. I hope by that they mean fertility will be monetised in response to the tragedy of mRNA shots, and not that there will be a violent showdown with the state to monopolise control of reproduction, as there will be between CBDCs and BTCs.
If you have your health, your soul intact, and your wits, you have everything there is.
I promise you, that despite all the effort to enslave your mind body and soul, you already possess everything you need to succeed.
Forms of Capital
Don’t worry about all these people who ‘invested’ in Bitcoin, and are encouraging you to HODL for dear life, etc. These people were not investors. They were speculators, and some got lucky. Many didn’t.
If they are right, and Bitcoin is the magic answer to fiat inflation, then you will just be able to work for Bitcoin.
Until that day, don’t worry about it. We’re not there yet.
In my opinion, it will never come, except as a trial balloon and tolerated forex option for CBDCs, with just enough anonymity to permit bribery and blackmail politicians. The fact that the entire BTC crew argued that it offers a stateless alternative to currency, yet then invite taxation in crypto, and regulation of crypto, shows that they are not a serious alternative. The failure to understand the threat of force that underpins fiat currency and CBDCs betrays a childlike naivety among the crypto community.
Aside from being able to order drugs and hitmen on the dark web, crypto has yet to offer any protection from the state monopoly on the use of force.
Until it does, taxes shall continue to rank alongside death, in the category of unavoidable things.
So, before we continue, I’m going to assume that you were like me at 16. The victim of a state education, living in a council house, with no contacts in the workplace, and no financial capital of your own, and no serous prospect of financial assistance from your parents.
What can you do, if you ever have a hope of success in career, family, and society?
Well, I think it is worth taking stock of the advantages that you do have, before you start on a path of despair. While the Filipinos and Indians I sailed with were dead right when they said ‘No Money, No Honey’, there are forms of capital that you can utilise to turn into money
Forms of capital that you do have include:
· Time
· Youth, health, and strength
· Access to information
· The spirit of rebellion that comes from having nothing to lose, and everything to gain
· Low overheads
If you are reading this blog, you’re probably above average intelligence, and potential. Therefore, like me, everyone probably insists that you should go to university to make something of yourself.
You need to understand the opportunity cost of a university education these days. Not only has a degree become devalued since your parents went there, the attitude of Marxist entitlement and the promotion of victimhood as virtue in today’s subsidised universities may serve to make you nearly unemployable in a free market environment.
Given that your high school teacher probably has £45,000 in student debt when they graduate, and start on a salary of £25K per annum, they are probably not the person you should consult for careers advice if you want to make any money. When the average UK house price is £290,000, is it any wonder your teachers are bloody Marxists who want you to follow in their footsteps and become propagandising conformity-commissars, breeding the future foot soldiers of techno-communism?
You can do better than your teachers. There is still some social mobility.
If you are 16 and female, you have another five years before your brain is fully developed. Men, you have until 24, giving you a full eight years to unlearn the propaganda, and form your character into something useful. I subscribe to the learned Steven Wilkinson, who writes Good and Prosper on Substack. He thinks that we will see a landmark collapse in the global financial status quo in 2026, and most other financially successful people whose judgment I trust concur that between this year, and 2030, we are in for a major financial shock.
I can’t tell you the future, but I can tell you that I live by the motto: ‘Plan for the worst, hope for the best’.
So, let’s say that you have between three and seven years before a major societal upheaval and financial upset. If you are 16-18 years old today, how can you position yourself to come out on top if these predictions are true?
If I were you, I’d consider the following. :
- · Know that the American founders were right. Freedom of speech is an inalienable right. That means you are free to think and say what you like. At least as much as anyone else on this earth. They cannot physically take it away from you. It is not possible. Never allow someone else to tell you that you are not allowed to think or say something. Political correctness is by definition, not correct. Don’t waste your attention on these people, and speak out at work, and in your own life, on things ou know about.
- · Do not pin any of your happiness on the government. Don’t work for them. Don’t believe them when they say they’ll give you a pension. Don’t set up your business to depend on regulation or subsidy. They have proven over the past few years that they absolutely do not care about you, your happiness, or your health. And when they ask you to go to war with Russia or China, or with generic concepts like terror, hate or drugs, just say no.
- · In a world of destructive consumerist nihilism, the productive person and the optimist are rebels, with a competitive advantage.
- · Develop a sense of urgency. No, it isn’t fair that your parents could take their culture for granted, buy their ex-council house for £30K and have it now be worth a million quid, and basically rely on the welfare state and a pension, whereas you will be left with nothing but the ashes of the state, and an obligation to pay for the over-indulgence of generations past. But there is no point in moaning about it. That is reality. The only thing you can do is earn as much as you can, by becoming as valuable to other people as best you possibly can, and as quick as you possibly can. Remember, currency inflates, losing its value, relative to things of real value. If you want to win, become valuable in a way that serves others.
- · Consider leaving High School and completing any necessary A-Levels or SQA Highers at a vocational college. These institutions take people as young as 16, and have a far more practical outlook toward employment than any high school or higher academic institution like a university. Escaping the vapid conformity & popularity contests of your high school peers as early as possible can only be a good thing, and you might even find a teacher who has had a job in the real world, instead of simply going from school to uni, and then back to school.
- · Be not afraid. Don’t waste any energy worrying about dedicating your life to solving the major problems of the day. Climate, energy, veganism, plastic pollution, internet censorship, perceived inequities between group identities, etc. These are all distractions. People who make a living as political cult leaders profit from your attention, and from regulatory capture. The profits from BLM went to beach houses and jobs for the boys. These things are all scams. Focus on the universals. If a politician says something is a problem, it’s usually because they are making it a problem. Ignore people who want to change the world but can’t even change a light bulb in their own apartment.
- Renewable energy, hydro-power and nuclear energy all rely on massive state subsidies or political permission. Oil & Gas remains an important and viable industry. If you’re planning your career in the energy industry for the next ten years, LNG, Ammonia, & Oil Production remain good options. Although be aware that in any industry where the price of the product is cyclical, there is risk of sudden redundancies. Save accordingly.
- · Use the pressure. What psychopaths like Yuval Noah Harari don’t understand from their academic positions is that pressure works. If you’ve ever been rock climbing or hiking and found yourself slipping off the ice-covered edge of a mountain or in an impossible boat handling situation, and somehow found the strength and ability to pull off a move you’ve never done before and save your bacon, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It comes from the same fear of loss that will get you out of bed at 4 am to catch a flight for your holiday when normally your lazy teenage ass can scarcely wake up for the crack of noon. You can use that. Put yourself into positions where you cannot fail. Commit to a plan. Commit to a career. Commit to your business. Get married. Have kids. You may not think you have what it takes, but putting yourself into situations where you have no choice but to succeed actually works. You can rely on the human spirit, and your higher power, to get you through. If you can learn to overcome fear and do new things, you need never fear AI or tech.
- · Live with integrity. As soon as your employer or education establishment or government lies to you, they have betrayed you. Time to move on.
- · Aim for a permissionless life. Do not work in fields that require total submission to the state or some bureaucratic agency for permission to exist. Many fields that may require a formal education or credential to be employed in, have no such requirement for you to be self-employed in. E.g. I started a tiling business as a side-line with only 1-week training at an adult trade school. No college curriculum or three-year apprenticeship is required to start making money. Computer programming, coding, and video editing are all permissionless fields and highly scalable. However, the problem a lot of young people have is that they want to be famous, but they haven’t done anything worth being famous for. Go out and have a life before you try to become a YouTube star. I know you think five years is a long time right now, but it really, really isn’t.
- · Get married and start a family. The guy with a paid-off house, five kids and a minivan is the real stud. The guy driving a Lambo and spending money on only fans and hookers is a loser, with a browser history to match. Women are harsh judges, and they will keep you right. You won’t be wasting all your money on booze, drugs, tattoos and big-engine cars if you’re married.
- · Be self-employed at least once in your life. It’s really fun, and if you don’t do it, you’ll always wonder. And in times of Stagflation or hyperinflation, it may be the only way for you to keep up. You see, holding out for a 3% per year cost of living increase isn’t going to do you much good when inflation is 10% a month. At least when you’re self-employed you can adjust your prices every month, and cover your expenses in real-time. If you are British or American, you are privileged to still live in a country where it is embarrassingly easy and cheap to incorporate. Check your privilege, and use it.
- · Whenever you encounter HR forms asking about your race, gender, religion, etc, always tick ‘prefer not to say’. Don’t play their silly games, and do not encourage their stupid, bigoted quota systems.
- · Don’t ever late age be a barrier. If you’re good enough, you’re old enough. If anyone thinks you’re too young, tell them, ‘It’s not the age, it’s the mileage’. And if you’re older, it’s never too late to change. I know people who went to sea at 55, and they did just fine.
Taxation
Tax is an enemy force that prowls the landscape. I know your teachers and parents with government-licensed jobs probably told you that evil corporations not paying taxes is the reason for all of society’s ills. Or that if you get a £10K tax refund a primary school will shut down somewhere the next morning.
Total nonsense.
If your government has inflated its currency to less than 1% of its original value, and is 100% of GDP in debt, with many more multiples of unfunded liabilities, it matters not how much tax you pay. They have already committed fraud and committed the sweat of your brow to indentured servitude long before you were born. We are entering the age of consent. You can say no to tax, to an extent. Tax avoidance is not just for the billionaires, my friend. And you don’t even have to be self-employed.
Seafarers Earnings deductions
In the UK, if you spend more than six months at sea, and get one crew change in a foreign port, you can qualify for seafarers’ earnings deductions. If you are on Pay As You Earn tax, you will be refunded 100% of your income tax for that year.
100%.
It is worth planning a few years of your career around this fact.
Let’s say you want to become a Merchant Navy Officer. If you go the HND route at 16, you could become a licensed officer by age 18, with a starting salary of £28 to 32K to be expected for anyone in the UK offshore sector. If you get a basic dynamic positioning qualification for £700 & a 1-week course, you can expect at least £32K starting.
If you were earning that on land in the UK, you’d pay £3,940 in income tax, and £2,331 in National Insurance (which isn’t insurance, but is just tax). You likely won’t have any student loans, as Merchant Navy Officers get paid £200 per week to go to college, and your training provider will pay your tuition.
With 100% SED refund, your take-home pay rises from £25,728 to £29,668. So your take home salary is equivalent to £37,000 if you were paying full PAYE.
That’s year one.
After 3 to 4 years you go to college for 9 months, at your company’s expense, and you’ll likely return to work as a chief officer or second engineer. You could then expect to earn between £45 and £55K in your first year in that rank. I made £55K that year, and my refund on that today would be £11,164.
SED turns a £55K salary into the functional equivalent of a £75K salary on land, with a total take-home pay of £50,381. It is not unusual to be earning this by age 23 or 24 in the Merchant Navy.
If you have the aptitude, end up in the right sector, and make it to Master or Chief Engineer, you could easily expect a salary between £60K to £85K. LNG guys make more and can be entirely tax-free in West Africa, Brasil or the Middle East. If you qualify for seafarers’ earnings deductions at the top end of £85K, this could be equivalent of a shoreside salary of £127K.
Some Masters make more than this, although you have to be quite a specialist and put in a few more years.
Not bad if you’re already kind of into boats. You could earn London money, and live somewhere cheap in the sticks. Lots of people achieve this and are mortgage free by the time they are in their early thirties. I didn’t because I took six years ashore to have my kids, but I know plenty of folk who have. Most people only do ten years at sea, and that’s usually enough.
There are pockets of Ayrshire where a four-bedroom house still costs £100K.
Again, no university wokeness, tuition fees or student debt to worry about either.
In the US there are no tax deductions, but you have the Jones Act and the unions, so salaries are far higher, to begin with. Masters make a quarter million a year and Bar Pilots in places like San Francisco and Fort Lauderdale can make $300-600K per annum. Those guys are self-employed and have overheads like insurance, but I think most US seafarers pay only Federal Income Tax. Although state rules vary widely.
Trades and random jobs offshore
To work in your existing trade offshore, you only need to spend about £1K, and do your basic safety certificates. Personal Survival Training, Elementary First Aid, PSSR & Basic Firefighting (which is really fun). It should only take about 3 weeks to do that training. If you want to work on windfarms, you need GWO as well – good for painters, scaffolders, cleaners, electricians, etc. If you want to make more money and work in Oil & Gas, you need to spend another £1k and a week doing BOSIET, helicopter escape training, & a medical.
Most trades can charge double for what they do, simply by going offshore. Painters, for example, make £400 per day in summer, self-employed on offshore turbines. Riggers make £450 per day if they experience. Project Managers make about £720 per day, for basically asking captains stupid questions, and repeating the captain’s answer to your aforementioned stupid questions on Microsoft Teams 3 times a day.
Spending £1K on your basic tickets can get you to work as a deckhand starting at £150-180 per day, with the potential to be self-employed, or getting your tax back. Deckhand to skipper apprenticeships pay around £18K at the moment, and within 2 to 3 years you’’ll be able to make £60K, taking home about £48K if you’re self-employed. You can become a skipper within 2 years via this route, and make up to £310 per day around the UK on crew transfer vessels. Boat Masters need only pass the MCA exam, and require no formal education. I can train you most of what you need to know for that job in 2 weeks. You can be a self-employed Master-Owner of a passenger ship, carrying up to 250 tourists in UK inland waters, with only 12 months of work experience and a practical exam.
Divers
Not enough money for you? Not quick enough career progression? Good at swimming? Enjoy breaking things?
Be a diver.
If you have access to £15K, you can go to a commercial diving school and complete your training in 8 weeks. With a UK Health & Safety Executive diving license, you can work worldwide, with excellent prospects for temporary work in the USA, Middle East and Australia. Work in the Middle East can be tax-free.
An average diver, with little experience, can make between £50 to £60K per annum doing basic air diving. These are the guys I work with these days on renewable energy projects, and they typically dive for about 90 minutes, once every few days. These guys are all self-employed contractors, so they have the advantage of being able to make their expenses deductible, either as a limited company or sole trader. That means their car or pickup truck, pension, laptop, iPad, training courses, etc are paid with pre-tax money.
If they work in the oil & gas sector, the diving gets a bit deeper, and the projects a bit more valuable. Salaries rise to around £100K. No seafarer’s earnings deductions on the rigs though.
Saturation Divers are the highest paid. They work on a Dive Support Vessel and live in a compression chamber for the duration of their 30-day trip. Sat divers can earn £250K per annum and can qualify for seafarer’s earnings deductions.
Not bad for 8 weeks of training, and on-the-job experience.
If you are a Royal Navy diver or have other diving experience already, your 8-week training can be reduced. It may take you between one and five weeks to qualify down this route.
Yes, it’s a hazardous role. But most people who are going to get the bends get it during their first week of training. That is usually caused by a hole in the heart. It’s quite rare for that to develop later on in your career once you’ve started.
If you’re fit and healthy, and you hate the idea of spending 5 years in school that may potentially yield nothing but a minimum-wage job, this might be the route for you. Just make sure you watch the movie Last Breath before you commit, cookie. 😉
Live Cheap, Save, Invest.
Even if you’re on a trainee salary of £180 per week, you can still buy one silver coin per week, at about £15. Silver, unlike Bitcoin or $USD or £GBP, cannot go to zero value. And it is just illiquid enough to stop you from spending it on beer or TikToks, or whatever you kids are into these days.
Spend another £15 on books every week and read them.
The greatest investment you can possibly make is in literacy. Every wealthy person I know has a library in their house. But the trick is, they read the books before they got rich.
If you read for 2 hours per day, every day, you will be in the top 1% of people with wisdom in no time. All other good things can only follow from there.
Don’t just read Twitter, or Reddit, or Substack for 2 hours per day, unless that’s all you have. Books are still the main containers of ideas. Buy manuals. Read them carefully. One book usually contains one good idea.
And, of course, read the bible.
Whether you believe in its historical accuracy or not, it is the foundation of all that is good in our society. And it is wonderfully non-PC. An antidote to our crazy times, and the anchor of the ages. Your education is incomplete without reading it.
99% of people who dismiss the reading of scripture have never read it for themselves. Like the pathetic fact-checkers and pseudo-journalists of our time, most people only read what other people have said about it. They have no experience or opinion of it which is their own.
The way to read it is to download the YouVersion Holy Bible App from the app store and download four or five translations to flick between if you’re not sure what someone is on about. Use the NET bible. The New English Translation has the most footnotes of any version and explains any interesting etymology you might want to dig into. Then get the popcorn out and read the book of Enoch.
Don’t read it in the idiotic modern way, as I once did, by taking snippets from sources like evilbible.com or Joe Rogan out of context. Know that there are bad examples as well as good examples in there.
Make your own mind up and live your own life. Just remember, if the system is screwing you over, then screw the system. So long as you follow true morality, you’ll be alright in the end.
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