What happened to the jobs?

[expat_panama]

...you'll maybe learn what it's all about.

LOL!! Rush Limbaugh's always telling parents how they should raise kids, Obama's tells managers how to run businesses, and you're telling me how to manage employees. Since everyone's an authority on something they've never done how about I tell you all about 'women's problems'...

 

[MaggieMae]

I am not a protectionist,

so far you've been 100% protectionist liberal



who isn't????????/



thats dumb and liberal. when the nation spends money its wasted by liberal bureaucrats guessing with other peoples money. When individuals spend their own hard earned money it is not. Thats the general rule to remember!!



if any significant number are calling for that I'll pay you 10,000. Bet??

China is spending BIG time on green technology over the next decade while we are still arguing over climate change.

wrong wrong wrong!! they are mostly selling idiotic wind mills and solar panels to western liberals. It loses money everywhere except China because they know how to play western liberals.

China puts on a new coal plant every week that produces more new pollution each week than England produces from all old and new sources in a year

Listen, I am trying to talk in a civil tone. But if you push me, I won't. I will try one more time...also, please just hit the "Quote" button and compose your replies in paragraphs. I can remember what I said. It creates a disjointed conversation.

We have had a decade of the Bush tax cuts that were supposed to create jobs...the results are in: ZERO job growth, a lost decade. Trickle down is a myth.

Aughts were a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers

The only way we move in a new direction is through government investing to create or stimulate new technologies. You may not like to hear that, but it is the truth. We would have never created the aerospace industry without President Kennedy's vision and government spending.

No conservatives are calling for turning America into an environmental and human health time bomb. It just that the many conservatives who ARE calling for removing all regulations on corporations will unwittingly create another Soviet Union...LOL

China IS making a huge commitment to green technology

China pledges 'green' push over next five years

Green China? You'd better believe it

A recent report by the Pew Charitable Trusts shows that China was the world’s number one investor in green energy in 2010.

With a total investment of $54.4 billion, China was well ahead of second-ranked Germany ($41.2 billion) and the US in third place with $34 billion invested, not to mention Australia with $3.3 billion and ranked 12th.

In terms of installed capacity, China’s wind power sector alone doubled every year between 2005 and 2009. According to the latest statistics from the Global Wind Energy Council (GWEC), China added 18.9 GW of new wind power capacity in 2010, thus overtaking the US with the most installed wind power capacity in the world.

China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress (NPC), recently considered a 'New Energy Industry Development Strategy’ which is to be adopted as a major policy document by the State Council (some changes are expected due to the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster).

According to this proposed development strategy, during 2011-2020, China will invest about $800 billion in seven green energy areas, namely, wind, solar, nuclear, bio-energy, hydro, coal cleaning and smart power grid.

While I realize most fringe conservatives consider Jon Huntsman a rino, no one knows better than him how advanced China has become in this capitalistic market they now are willing participants in, and how the U.S. must start catching up or we'll be left in the dust relying on all our renewable energy through a Chinese conglomerate. Now all Huntsman has to do is convince his fellow Republicans that public (government) investment is as necessary as going to war over control of natural resources.

He said in a recent discussion with Henry Kissinger "Americans are very good short-term thinkers; the Chinese are good at long-term thinking." Nuff said.

 

[MaggieMae]

Thought I'd add this to this thread instead of a new one, the WSJ has an op-ed about teen joblessness. This summer only 24% of teens 16-19 have jobs, the worst number since they started collecting data on this in 1948. That can't be a good thing, fewer young people entering the market.

Some say this condition was exaserbated by the hike in the minimum from $5.15 in 2007 to $725 in 2009, by the Dems. Higher labor costs translates to fewer jobs. Some are even calling for higher wages, up to $8.25. Some 7 million teens had jobs prior to the mw hikes, now it's down to 5 million. No doubt a lot of that is due to the recession, but I'd rather have my kid working somewhere for less money than not.

Unless you actually put someone on a payroll, you can pay him/her anything you want. With so many adults being out of work, places like McDonald's will hire a person needing steady work (regardless what it is and how much it pays) rather than hiring a summer student temporarily.

 

[MaggieMae]

This is definitely the most important topic. It’s time to make important decisions to reverse this trend. We are still loosing jobs! Some “guru” said the jobs are already coming back. Where is it? I did not see it yet.

Make the economy healthy and bring jobs back.

Bringing US debt down and reducing the budget deficit is the most important part of it. It’s like fixing your credit card balance.

Someone started a petition at MyStudentLoker.net to bring the deficit and the debt lower by 1% (from our GDP) every single year. It is the right thing to do. Only, if our politicians are capable doing this.

The analogy of paying off a credit card balance is good. However, depending on the amount of that credit card balance (and I think the average American still carries about $3,000 with many much, much higher than that), paying off the balance is no small feat and it sure won't help with the person's cash flow since his monthly payments will remain the same. In other words, paying off existing debt is NOT a quick fix.

 

[MaggieMae]

...you'll maybe learn what it's all about.

LOL!! Rush Limbaugh's always telling parents how they should raise kids, Obama's tells managers how to run businesses, and you're telling me how to manage employees. Since everyone's an authority on something they've never done how about I tell you all about 'women's problems'...

Of course it's always helpful to use the entire quote, but nevermind. I'll do it for you, just for clarification as it relates to your response to something taken out of context.

Small companies are different, of course. It's kinda difficult to be chummy with 300 people, although one place I worked for about 3 years (a small paper/office equipment company) held a Christmas party for all and a huge company picnic where we all interacted. All company paid of course. It's hardly "buying labor," it's building confidence and developing a family amid your business, apparently a concept lost on most "business" leadership of today. Larger companies usually have got that way by growing exponentially and eventually decentralized into divisions, which have their own employee functions and "perks."

Read Henry Ford's bio who's famous line "I don't want to build a car that my own employees can't afford," (paraphrased), and you'll maybe learn what it's all about.

In no way was I trying to tell you how to run your business. I really don't care.

 

[flacaltenn]

We live in the 21st century folks and the problems we face are not going to be solved by attempting to apply the political economic theories of the 18th century.

We agree again.. Need to be doing what the economists of the 90's told us to do...

That is making cheap labor irrelevent. Pushing nanotechnology, bio-engineering, artificial intelligience, robotics and the like... MAINTAINING US technical leadership will bring back jobs.

Hoping for the "old jobs" to come back -- ain't in the cards... The government ain't gonna create jobs.. Technology leadership will...

But since we haven't kept up with the technology of other emerging nations like China, we need extensive training and retraining, and Congress bristles at putting up any money to do that. As individuals, most these days are too busy working and trying to hold on to that job and don't have the money to finance alternative or higher education. Education is something we CANNOT continue to keep ignoring, from the disastrous dropout rate to the quality of graduates who get the shock of their lives when they actually enter the work force and realize how little they've actually learned.

Actually Maggie -- I work with operations in China everyday.. If we stop sending them our DEVELOPED and TESTED products that are guaranteed to succeed in the marketplace -- it would set them back at least a decade. Lagely because CULTURALLY, the Chinese worker is taught to be focused on what he's assigned and NOT to be innovative. They do not question authority (tianamen square being that rare exception) and their bosses reguarly belittle them into subservience. Central Planning in Bejing CANNOT compete in terms of development and ideas.

Quit whining about making basketballs and tee shirts and concentrate on how we make CHEAP WAGES irrelevent. I've told you how to get there. 3 or 4 posts worth. The Industrial Revolution taught us that we no longer had to produce our own food. THIS revolution says the same thing about the easy stuff like toasters and lightbulbs.

The focus SHOULD be on education, but the Feds are NOT gonna lead us out of the disaster in Public Education. Most lefties aren't aware of the small role that the Feds actually play in Education and how more often than not -- it serves to bind up innovation and progress. We need CHOICE in education NOW -- For ALL parents who give a damn. We need to cut the indoctrinations and the mind-stuffing and let the brilliant kids go full tilt. No more discouragement of recognizing academic achievement. No more focus on "equal outcomes". And we need the unions to grow into the 21st century or get the hell out of the way.. We NEED to adopt Virtual Curriculum and Individually paced studies. We've been paying to wire schools for InterNet for decades. Time to start programming courses and content.

Anyone who can write web content can program manufacturing robotics. The labor boost would be dramatic and stable. Plenty of work to do -- even if --- you're designing automation to replace human labor. And you could STILL have cheap tennis shoes and glassware while you MAINTAIN a standard of living that MOST Americans "feel" they are entitled to...

 

[william the wie]

The focus SHOULD be on education, but the Feds are NOT gonna lead us out of the disaster in Public Education. Most lefties aren't aware of the small role that the Feds actually play in Education and how more often than not -- it serves to bind up innovation and progress. We need CHOICE in education NOW -- For ALL parents who give a damn. We need to cut the indoctrinations and the mind-stuffing and let the brilliant kids go full tilt. No more discouragement of recognizing academic achievement. No more focus on "equal outcomes". And we need the unions to grow into the 21st century or get the hell out of the way.. We NEED to adopt Virtual Curriculum and Individually paced studies. We've been paying to wire schools for InterNet for decades. Time to start programming courses and content.

Anyone who can write web content can program manufacturing robotics. The labor boost would be dramatic and stable. Plenty of work to do -- even if --- you're designing automation to replace human labor. And you could STILL have cheap tennis shoes and glassware while you MAINTAIN a standard of living that MOST Americans "feel" they are entitled to...

The problem is that our educational system is designed to create generalists without specialized skills. The reason Germany and Japan could threaten us economically was the craft tradition in both nations. Germany did a much better job of maintaining that tradition and is still in play Japan went generalist and may have a third lost decade before it is over. I would say a more focused argument is needed.

 

[flacaltenn]

The focus SHOULD be on education, but the Feds are NOT gonna lead us out of the disaster in Public Education. Most lefties aren't aware of the small role that the Feds actually play in Education and how more often than not -- it serves to bind up innovation and progress. We need CHOICE in education NOW -- For ALL parents who give a damn. We need to cut the indoctrinations and the mind-stuffing and let the brilliant kids go full tilt. No more discouragement of recognizing academic achievement. No more focus on "equal outcomes". And we need the unions to grow into the 21st century or get the hell out of the way.. We NEED to adopt Virtual Curriculum and Individually paced studies. We've been paying to wire schools for InterNet for decades. Time to start programming courses and content.

Anyone who can write web content can program manufacturing robotics. The labor boost would be dramatic and stable. Plenty of work to do -- even if --- you're designing automation to replace human labor. And you could STILL have cheap tennis shoes and glassware while you MAINTAIN a standard of living that MOST Americans "feel" they are entitled to...

The problem is that our educational system is designed to create generalists without specialized skills. The reason Germany and Japan could threaten us economically was the craft tradition in both nations. Germany did a much better job of maintaining that tradition and is still in play Japan went generalist and may have a third lost decade before it is over. I would say a more focused argument is needed.

We should be encouraging talent whereever it pops up. I'm not discouraging the next gen of fiction writers or musicians. But we DO NEED to get rid of the ceiling on expectations so that the graduate schools in science and engineering are filled with OUR KIDS. I like the idea of also encouraging the trades -- but there is little specific stuff you can do in K-12 anymore that's applicable. Even the trades need to be upscaled. Used to be -- you could turn out busloads of world-class mechanists from shop classes and vocational training. What the next labor revolution needs in terms of trade support is more demanding and probably requires if not college, then a tutored apprenticeship in partnership with some higher ed institute. To develop and work with new materials, nanotechnology, robotics, modeling, and the like. ALL levels of expertise required. Cannot tolerate K-12 schools that DO NOT produce exceptional students on purpose so that "self-esteem" and social equality is preserved.

I believe in educational innovation like Jerry Brown's Oakland Military Academy (that's right, he's my favorite leftist and it WAS a military school) where they produced scholars from ghetto gangbangers. And the line-up for applications went around the block.. (The squeels from the Berkley commies and teacher's unions were very entertaining.) YOU CAN turn inner city at risk kids into Chemical Engineers. And it doesn't take doubling the budget..

 

[Persy]

There is job growth out there but there are too many restrictions for it to work in every state. Every state has some way to generate or extract energy; whether it be oil, gas, wind, water or sun. The hardcore environmentalists won't allow us to use our own valuable resources to our fullest potential. I have much love and respect for the land we on which we live. But I know we can't continue to whore ourselves to foreign oil.

North Dakota, Spurred by Energy and Ag Boom, Has 3.2 Percent Unemployment
By Daniel Gross | Contrary Indicator – Fri, Jul 1, 2011 8:28 AM EDT

In May nonfarm payroll employment was up 4.3 percent from the year before, and the unassuming state sported a gaudy 3.2 percent unemployment rate. In several counties, the rate is below one percent. The state jobs office has 15,205 listings, up 64 percent from May 2010. North Dakota, which is one of the smallest states by population (about 670,000) and one of the largest geographically, has .7 unemployed persons for every job opening. In the U.S., the labor force participation rate is an anemic 64.2 percent. In North Dakota, it stands at 74 percent.

There's a full-on oil boom in the western part of the state. The combination of new technologies — horizontal drilling, fracking — and high energy prices has led to a boom in drilling and oil production in the Bakken Shale, which lies underneath much of the western half off the state. "It's the largest construction project in the U.S.," says Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council. A sharp rise in production, from 45.9 million barrels in 200 to 113 million in 2010, has made North Dakota the fourth-largest oil-producing state in the U.S. And there's more to come. Some 173 oil-drilling rigs are now at work in the state, about one-quarter of all those in the U.S., and Ness projects up to $5 billion on spending on oil- and gas-related infrastructure over the next three to five years.

But it's not just about oil. North Dakota's prolific agricultural economy that is benefiting from global boom in commodities. Without bragging, state officials will let you know that the state is the largest single producer in the U.S. of fourteen crops, including barley, canola, durum wheat and navy beans. As more people around the world eat — and eat better — North Dakota's farmers are finding new markets and plowing funds into equipment and processing capabilities. "We've seen phenomenal growth in our export markets, triple digit growth in the last few years," said John Mittleider, manager of agriculture and energy development at the North Dakota Department of Commerce.

In addition, there's a severe housing shortage in the western part of the state. Officials counsel people seeking jobs not simply to show up in North Dakota unless they have a place to live lined up.

 

[editec]

Bfgrn:

Yeah -- kinda like those JFK moments. I don't mind govt leadership or even sponsorship of R&D. It's FAR preferable to mindless subsidies and jobs programs. (The Lib Party just issued a warrant for my indictment).

editec:

It will no doubt be good for those who are about the business of "nanotechnology, bio-engineering, artificial intelligience, robotics and the like" but it does nothing for the millions upon millions of our FELLOW (formerly tax paying) CITIZENS who are actually being hurt by the changing geo-economical status AND the advances in technology which actually make more and more human labor redundant.

Why do hi-tech manufacturers tend to cluster around major universities? The new jobs will be created in close proximity to the R&D and research. If you change the very materials that are used in manufacturing (nanotech and biotech) and you develop intelligient automation (robotics, artificial intelligience) you will need an entire supply chain for those new manufacturing paradigms. The technology eggheads simply LEAD the industry, they don't monopolize the labor requirements. Remember the web page design bubble? Imagine all those folks writing useful routines for robotic manufacturing. Imagine the test techs and lab techs that will be required in the materials and bio-engineering fields. Opportunities for ALL scales of labor..

MUCXH of the technology leadership created technology here without doubt.

And then when it was time to SCALE UP that techology the factories that create that technology were built, not in the land that cr5eated the science to make that technology possible, but instead whereever the cost of [production was cheapest.

Do try to stick to the subject, okay?

The subject here is not "Is technology a good thing?" but rather "How do we deal with a MACROECONOMIC problem created by stupid free trade policies?"

I am in the bullseye of the subject buddy.. You make CHEAP labor irrelevent by inflating the value of SMART labor. By changing the very ways we produce goods. You stop offshore migration of production because OUR production methods of goods, food, ect are superior to what CHEAP labor can handle.

You're still missing the point.

There are only so many SMART LABORERS out there.

The average median IQ is 100, remember?

 

[MaggieMae]

We agree again.. Need to be doing what the economists of the 90's told us to do...

That is making cheap labor irrelevent. Pushing nanotechnology, bio-engineering, artificial intelligience, robotics and the like... MAINTAINING US technical leadership will bring back jobs.

Hoping for the "old jobs" to come back -- ain't in the cards... The government ain't gonna create jobs.. Technology leadership will...

But since we haven't kept up with the technology of other emerging nations like China, we need extensive training and retraining, and Congress bristles at putting up any money to do that. As individuals, most these days are too busy working and trying to hold on to that job and don't have the money to finance alternative or higher education. Education is something we CANNOT continue to keep ignoring, from the disastrous dropout rate to the quality of graduates who get the shock of their lives when they actually enter the work force and realize how little they've actually learned.

Actually Maggie -- I work with operations in China everyday.. If we stop sending them our DEVELOPED and TESTED products that are guaranteed to succeed in the marketplace -- it would set them back at least a decade. Lagely because CULTURALLY, the Chinese worker is taught to be focused on what he's assigned and NOT to be innovative. They do not question authority (tianamen square being that rare exception) and their bosses reguarly belittle them into subservience. Central Planning in Bejing CANNOT compete in terms of development and ideas.

Quit whining about making basketballs and tee shirts and concentrate on how we make CHEAP WAGES irrelevent. I've told you how to get there. 3 or 4 posts worth. The Industrial Revolution taught us that we no longer had to produce our own food. THIS revolution says the same thing about the easy stuff like toasters and lightbulbs.

The focus SHOULD be on education, but the Feds are NOT gonna lead us out of the disaster in Public Education. Most lefties aren't aware of the small role that the Feds actually play in Education and how more often than not -- it serves to bind up innovation and progress. We need CHOICE in education NOW -- For ALL parents who give a damn. We need to cut the indoctrinations and the mind-stuffing and let the brilliant kids go full tilt. No more discouragement of recognizing academic achievement. No more focus on "equal outcomes". And we need the unions to grow into the 21st century or get the hell out of the way.. We NEED to adopt Virtual Curriculum and Individually paced studies. We've been paying to wire schools for InterNet for decades. Time to start programming courses and content.

Anyone who can write web content can program manufacturing robotics. The labor boost would be dramatic and stable. Plenty of work to do -- even if --- you're designing automation to replace human labor. And you could STILL have cheap tennis shoes and glassware while you MAINTAIN a standard of living that MOST Americans "feel" they are entitled to...

I actually agree with you 100%, except of course your implication that the dour state of public education is all "lefty's" fault. Where the hell were Republicans when they could have stood firm against teacher unions, mandated curriculum, NCLB, and all the rest that has MUTUALLY brought down the quality of basic American learning? The cons/pubs seem to have suddenly found a backbone and standing firm on a slew of other issues, so where were they before now?

My own public education was so excellent that I never really needed a college degree, but I went after one anyway just because I wanted to earn more money. But I didn't "learn" anything "new" to expand my basic educational horizons, that's for sure. And my kids had the same education, one went on to college and the other got into a business where he too didn't need a degree.

Where do the states fit in as far as quality education? What the hell happens to all that lottery money that's supposed to go toward improving educational standards? I try to find that information on my state's website, and get rerouted to the point I just give up.

And the ol' profit motive also has something to do with quality education--enter private/charter schools. Now it seems for-profit universities are beginning to take the recent money set aside for returning war vets to further their education, when in fact those vets could get the same education at not-for-profit colleges. Greed greed greed. What's in it for me seems to be the common thread these days.

That was a rant, having little to do with your points. Sorry.

 

[Moonglow]

around here there are want ads with many jobs daily.

 

[MaggieMae]

The focus SHOULD be on education, but the Feds are NOT gonna lead us out of the disaster in Public Education. Most lefties aren't aware of the small role that the Feds actually play in Education and how more often than not -- it serves to bind up innovation and progress. We need CHOICE in education NOW -- For ALL parents who give a damn. We need to cut the indoctrinations and the mind-stuffing and let the brilliant kids go full tilt. No more discouragement of recognizing academic achievement. No more focus on "equal outcomes". And we need the unions to grow into the 21st century or get the hell out of the way.. We NEED to adopt Virtual Curriculum and Individually paced studies. We've been paying to wire schools for InterNet for decades. Time to start programming courses and content.

Anyone who can write web content can program manufacturing robotics. The labor boost would be dramatic and stable. Plenty of work to do -- even if --- you're designing automation to replace human labor. And you could STILL have cheap tennis shoes and glassware while you MAINTAIN a standard of living that MOST Americans "feel" they are entitled to...

The problem is that our educational system is designed to create generalists without specialized skills. The reason Germany and Japan could threaten us economically was the craft tradition in both nations. Germany did a much better job of maintaining that tradition and is still in play Japan went generalist and may have a third lost decade before it is over. I would say a more focused argument is needed.

We should be encouraging talent whereever it pops up. I'm not discouraging the next gen of fiction writers or musicians. But we DO NEED to get rid of the ceiling on expectations so that the graduate schools in science and engineering are filled with OUR KIDS. I like the idea of also encouraging the trades -- but there is little specific stuff you can do in K-12 anymore that's applicable. Even the trades need to be upscaled. Used to be -- you could turn out busloads of world-class mechanists from shop classes and vocational training. What the next labor revolution needs in terms of trade support is more demanding and probably requires if not college, then a tutored apprenticeship in partnership with some higher ed institute. To develop and work with new materials, nanotechnology, robotics, modeling, and the like. ALL levels of expertise required. Cannot tolerate K-12 schools that DO NOT produce exceptional students on purpose so that "self-esteem" and social equality is preserved.

I believe in educational innovation like Jerry Brown's Oakland Military Academy (that's right, he's my favorite leftist and it WAS a military school) where they produced scholars from ghetto gangbangers. And the line-up for applications went around the block.. (The squeels from the Berkley commies and teacher's unions were very entertaining.) YOU CAN turn inner city at risk kids into Chemical Engineers. And it doesn't take doubling the budget..

There are all kinds of independent efforts to produce scholars instead of street punks, with Arne Duncan trying to pull it all together as one unified effort across the country. In the meantime, too many schools are just passing on kids who fail in order to create a politically "nice" atmosphere. Of course a lot of it comes down to parents who don't care one way or the other about their kids, or at the opposite end of that spectrum, parents who care so much that they can't bear to have their kids fail at anything so they are allowed to cheat and always "win" at everything. Neither produces a child who learns how to learn and him/herself becomes eager to advance intellectually.

 

[MaggieMae]

I was intrigued by Bill Clinton's comments to Wolf Blitzer in an interview aired yesterday about job creation. He makes the point by existing example of how the public and private sector can come together to get back to being a productive country again.

CLINTON: Yes. Terry McAuliffe, the former chairman of the Democratic Party bought a car plant in China, and moved it to America. And he bought two of them and he put the first one in Mississippi, with Haley Barbour, the former chairman of the Republican Party. If he would do more of this in Washington, we'd get further. And that's-you know, I'm just trying to solve practical problems.

One last thing on the substance here. There are -- we have to create about 15 million jobs in the next few years to have real normal growth. And we've got probably 13 million just to get back where we were on the day that the economy collapsed. There are 3 million job openings today in America and they are only being filled half as fast as they have been filled in every previous recovery period. Why is that? We had a whole session on that yesterday.

And one of the best things that will come out of this is what Michael Thurman, the former labor commission of Georgia, said about what he did in giving training money directly to employers saying don't hire them until we see how they do. But here's the training money. You train them to suit yourself. Don't say they don't have the skills. Train them to suit yourself. They won't be (UNINTELLIGIBLE) employees. We need ideas like that.

Just think about it. If those 3 million people were going to work at a regular basis, by now, America would have 2 million more jobs. The world psychologically would be very different.

CNN.com - Transcripts

Clinton discusses many other topics, including the debt ceiling, the Republican presidential candidates (interesting...), Afghanistan at the link.

 

[Trajan]

The focus SHOULD be on education, but the Feds are NOT gonna lead us out of the disaster in Public Education. Most lefties aren't aware of the small role that the Feds actually play in Education and how more often than not -- it serves to bind up innovation and progress. We need CHOICE in education NOW -- For ALL parents who give a damn. We need to cut the indoctrinations and the mind-stuffing and let the brilliant kids go full tilt. No more discouragement of recognizing academic achievement. No more focus on "equal outcomes". And we need the unions to grow into the 21st century or get the hell out of the way.. We NEED to adopt Virtual Curriculum and Individually paced studies. We've been paying to wire schools for InterNet for decades. Time to start programming courses and content.

Anyone who can write web content can program manufacturing robotics. The labor boost would be dramatic and stable. Plenty of work to do -- even if --- you're designing automation to replace human labor. And you could STILL have cheap tennis shoes and glassware while you MAINTAIN a standard of living that MOST Americans "feel" they are entitled to...

The problem is that our educational system is designed to create generalists without specialized skills. The reason Germany and Japan could threaten us economically was the craft tradition in both nations. Germany did a much better job of maintaining that tradition and is still in play Japan went generalist and may have a third lost decade before it is over. I would say a more focused argument is needed.

I agree to an extent, wood shops, metal shops are disappearing from the curriculum, and EVERYONE has simply GOT to go to college.......was never true then and not true now.

 

[Trajan]

We agree again.. Need to be doing what the economists of the 90's told us to do...

That is making cheap labor irrelevent. Pushing nanotechnology, bio-engineering, artificial intelligience, robotics and the like... MAINTAINING US technical leadership will bring back jobs.

Hoping for the "old jobs" to come back -- ain't in the cards... The government ain't gonna create jobs.. Technology leadership will...

But since we haven't kept up with the technology of other emerging nations like China, we need extensive training and retraining, and Congress bristles at putting up any money to do that. As individuals, most these days are too busy working and trying to hold on to that job and don't have the money to finance alternative or higher education. Education is something we CANNOT continue to keep ignoring, from the disastrous dropout rate to the quality of graduates who get the shock of their lives when they actually enter the work force and realize how little they've actually learned.

Actually Maggie -- I work with operations in China everyday.. If we stop sending them our DEVELOPED and TESTED products that are guaranteed to succeed in the marketplace -- it would set them back at least a decade. Lagely because CULTURALLY, the Chinese worker is taught to be focused on what he's assigned and NOT to be innovative. They do not question authority (tianamen square being that rare exception) and their bosses reguarly belittle them into subservience. Central Planning in Bejing CANNOT compete in terms of development and ideas.

I spent time in Dalian and experienced same...good post.

Quit whining about making basketballs and tee shirts and concentrate on how we make CHEAP WAGES irrelevent. I've told you how to get there. 3 or 4 posts worth. The Industrial Revolution taught us that we no longer had to produce our own food. THIS revolution says the same thing about the easy stuff like toasters and lightbulbs.

The focus SHOULD be on education, but the Feds are NOT gonna lead us out of the disaster in Public Education. Most lefties aren't aware of the small role that the Feds actually play in Education and how more often than not -- it serves to bind up innovation and progress. We need CHOICE in education NOW -- For ALL parents who give a damn. We need to cut the indoctrinations and the mind-stuffing and let the brilliant kids go full tilt. No more discouragement of recognizing academic achievement. No more focus on "equal outcomes". And we need the unions to grow into the 21st century or get the hell out of the way.. We NEED to adopt Virtual Curriculum and Individually paced studies. We've been paying to wire schools for InterNet for decades. Time to start programming courses and content.

Anyone who can write web content can program manufacturing robotics. The labor boost would be dramatic and stable. Plenty of work to do -- even if --- you're designing automation to replace human labor. And you could STILL have cheap tennis shoes and glassware while you MAINTAIN a standard of living that MOST Americans "feel" they are entitled to...

 

[expat_panama]

...CULTURALLY, the Chinese worker is taught to be focused on what he's assigned and NOT to be innovative. They do not question authority (tianamen square being that rare exception) and their bosses reguarly belittle them into subservience. Central Planning in Bejing CANNOT compete in terms of development and ideas...

Huh. For a couple years now I've been making a lot of money with new inovative Chineese companies, and I was just about to disagree. Then I thought about how so many of the best companies always seemed to be powered somewhere by an American ceo, manager, product, branch headquarters, or something.

 

[Trajan]

But since we haven't kept up with the technology of other emerging nations like China, we need extensive training and retraining, and Congress bristles at putting up any money to do that. As individuals, most these days are too busy working and trying to hold on to that job and don't have the money to finance alternative or higher education. Education is something we CANNOT continue to keep ignoring, from the disastrous dropout rate to the quality of graduates who get the shock of their lives when they actually enter the work force and realize how little they've actually learned.

Actually Maggie -- I work with operations in China everyday.. If we stop sending them our DEVELOPED and TESTED products that are guaranteed to succeed in the marketplace -- it would set them back at least a decade. Lagely because CULTURALLY, the Chinese worker is taught to be focused on what he's assigned and NOT to be innovative. They do not question authority (tianamen square being that rare exception) and their bosses reguarly belittle them into subservience. Central Planning in Bejing CANNOT compete in terms of development and ideas.

Quit whining about making basketballs and tee shirts and concentrate on how we make CHEAP WAGES irrelevent. I've told you how to get there. 3 or 4 posts worth. The Industrial Revolution taught us that we no longer had to produce our own food. THIS revolution says the same thing about the easy stuff like toasters and lightbulbs.

The focus SHOULD be on education, but the Feds are NOT gonna lead us out of the disaster in Public Education. Most lefties aren't aware of the small role that the Feds actually play in Education and how more often than not -- it serves to bind up innovation and progress. We need CHOICE in education NOW -- For ALL parents who give a damn. We need to cut the indoctrinations and the mind-stuffing and let the brilliant kids go full tilt. No more discouragement of recognizing academic achievement. No more focus on "equal outcomes". And we need the unions to grow into the 21st century or get the hell out of the way.. We NEED to adopt Virtual Curriculum and Individually paced studies. We've been paying to wire schools for InterNet for decades. Time to start programming courses and content.

Anyone who can write web content can program manufacturing robotics. The labor boost would be dramatic and stable. Plenty of work to do -- even if --- you're designing automation to replace human labor. And you could STILL have cheap tennis shoes and glassware while you MAINTAIN a standard of living that MOST Americans "feel" they are entitled to...

I actually agree with you 100%, except of course your implication that the dour state of public education is all "lefty's" fault. Where the hell were Republicans when they could have stood firm against teacher unions, mandated curriculum, NCLB, and all the rest that has MUTUALLY brought down the quality of basic American learning? The cons/pubs seem to have suddenly found a backbone and standing firm on a slew of other issues, so where were they before now?

My own public education was so excellent that I never really needed a college degree, but I went after one anyway just because I wanted to earn more money. But I didn't "learn" anything "new" to expand my basic educational horizons, that's for sure. And my kids had the same education, one went on to college and the other got into a business where he too didn't need a degree.

Where do the states fit in as far as quality education? What the hell happens to all that lottery money that's supposed to go toward improving educational standards? I try to find that information on my state's website, and get rerouted to the point I just give up.

And the ol' profit motive also has something to do with quality education--enter private/charter schools. Now it seems for-profit universities are beginning to take the recent money set aside for returning war vets to further their education, when in fact those vets could get the same education at not-for-profit colleges. Greed greed greed. What's in it for me seems to be the common thread these days.

That was a rant, having little to do with your points. Sorry.

I actually agree with you 100%, except of course your implication that the dour state of public education is all "lefty's" fault. Where the hell were Republicans when they could have stood firm against teacher unions, mandated curriculum, NCLB, and all the rest that has MUTUALLY brought down the quality of basic American learning? The cons/pubs seem to have suddenly found a backbone and standing firm on a slew of other issues, so where were they before now?

on the Trajan guilt-o-meter I give the dems 75% of the blame, do you think thats excessive?

 

[flacaltenn]

Trajan/ExPatPanama:

I learned this not from my direct work with Chinese manufacturers, but from a couple US clients who ran Chinese shops here with H1B labor. They would kick their professional engineers around like an abusive father. The yelling was just horrendous. I would come into their Silicon Valley shops and the engineers would FLOCK to me with all their ideas. Because it was safe to discuss them with me. I made several good friends out of this. One explained this cultural subservience thing to me. He later returned to the Mainland and ended up working for the State as a kind of technological spy. Got a fancy apt. a chauffuer, the whole burgeoise thingy. Used to pump me for "the best" US products in certain applications. He was all giddy about being a rock star with the women. ALL BECAUSE -- their creativity right now is in theft or having stupid US companies just drop their best products in their laps. I am soooo certain that we still at this time have a lead in the creative edge that I'd bet the farm on it. And their centralized "marketing" in the Red Chinese planning structure ain't gonna ever completely overcome this cultural problem they have. But it's only a decade before that advantage is gone. We ridiculed the Japanese when we first sent our electronics ideas to them. Now they don't need us. We need to start caring about "our role" in 21st century manufacturing and engineering.

Editec:
I don't worry about IQ points or how they are distributed. We can train the test technicians, lab techs, service people, ect to fill ALL levels of labor. It's just gonna look a whole lot different. There will still be ACE machinists, but they may never use a lathe or a drill press. Instead they may direct a modeling machine to crank out parts. Or a manufacturing lineperson may be doing statistical samples/testing on product as it comes off the robotic line. Besides I have a personal faith that you could take 90% of burger flippers under 20 yrs old and make them into chemical engineers if you could dress them in uniforms and make them go to school for 40 hours a week. Just like Jerry Brown did with his Oakland Military Institute. It's statistics are good. Not great. But it's a much better outcome than the rest of Oakland's schools. And over 90% of those inner city gang-bangers are GOING TO COLLEGE because they've learned to LIKE academics and being an achiever !

 

[MaggieMae]

Actually Maggie -- I work with operations in China everyday.. If we stop sending them our DEVELOPED and TESTED products that are guaranteed to succeed in the marketplace -- it would set them back at least a decade. Lagely because CULTURALLY, the Chinese worker is taught to be focused on what he's assigned and NOT to be innovative. They do not question authority (tianamen square being that rare exception) and their bosses reguarly belittle them into subservience. Central Planning in Bejing CANNOT compete in terms of development and ideas.

Quit whining about making basketballs and tee shirts and concentrate on how we make CHEAP WAGES irrelevent. I've told you how to get there. 3 or 4 posts worth. The Industrial Revolution taught us that we no longer had to produce our own food. THIS revolution says the same thing about the easy stuff like toasters and lightbulbs.

The focus SHOULD be on education, but the Feds are NOT gonna lead us out of the disaster in Public Education. Most lefties aren't aware of the small role that the Feds actually play in Education and how more often than not -- it serves to bind up innovation and progress. We need CHOICE in education NOW -- For ALL parents who give a damn. We need to cut the indoctrinations and the mind-stuffing and let the brilliant kids go full tilt. No more discouragement of recognizing academic achievement. No more focus on "equal outcomes". And we need the unions to grow into the 21st century or get the hell out of the way.. We NEED to adopt Virtual Curriculum and Individually paced studies. We've been paying to wire schools for InterNet for decades. Time to start programming courses and content.

Anyone who can write web content can program manufacturing robotics. The labor boost would be dramatic and stable. Plenty of work to do -- even if --- you're designing automation to replace human labor. And you could STILL have cheap tennis shoes and glassware while you MAINTAIN a standard of living that MOST Americans "feel" they are entitled to...

I actually agree with you 100%, except of course your implication that the dour state of public education is all "lefty's" fault. Where the hell were Republicans when they could have stood firm against teacher unions, mandated curriculum, NCLB, and all the rest that has MUTUALLY brought down the quality of basic American learning? The cons/pubs seem to have suddenly found a backbone and standing firm on a slew of other issues, so where were they before now?

My own public education was so excellent that I never really needed a college degree, but I went after one anyway just because I wanted to earn more money. But I didn't "learn" anything "new" to expand my basic educational horizons, that's for sure. And my kids had the same education, one went on to college and the other got into a business where he too didn't need a degree.

Where do the states fit in as far as quality education? What the hell happens to all that lottery money that's supposed to go toward improving educational standards? I try to find that information on my state's website, and get rerouted to the point I just give up.

And the ol' profit motive also has something to do with quality education--enter private/charter schools. Now it seems for-profit universities are beginning to take the recent money set aside for returning war vets to further their education, when in fact those vets could get the same education at not-for-profit colleges. Greed greed greed. What's in it for me seems to be the common thread these days.

That was a rant, having little to do with your points. Sorry.

I actually agree with you 100%, except of course your implication that the dour state of public education is all "lefty's" fault. Where the hell were Republicans when they could have stood firm against teacher unions, mandated curriculum, NCLB, and all the rest that has MUTUALLY brought down the quality of basic American learning? The cons/pubs seem to have suddenly found a backbone and standing firm on a slew of other issues, so where were they before now?

on the Trajan guilt-o-meter I give the dems 75% of the blame, do you think thats excessive?

Not when you consider that bandaids have been put on quality of education for decades and the dems weren't always in charge of the money.