Wha?
"is the swelling of their ranks during the tech explosion created an unrealistic appraisal of the value of their emloy. In short, they soon priced themselves out of the market."
Engineering has not been a popular major for domestic kids in the US for twenty years. The swelling in ranks was due to H1Bs. Over supply leads to lower pay, not higher pay. Very many H1Bs went home in the downturn, and are now the source of semi-experienced offshore labor.
The broad based loss of whitecollar jobs will decimate the US middle class. You simply can't run a sustainable economy on lawyers, dentists, doctors, hamburger flippers, hair stylists, janitors...i.e. service jobs, or government jobs (Social Security, Lockheed, Northrop Grumman, etc.)
Look at the experience of the US bluecollar worker: it used to be possible to eek out a modest living as a unionized bluecollar worker, on one income, wife stayed home, four or five kids in public school. Kids grew up and at least got highschool, some went to public university. Retired on modest savings, small pension and social security.
As hard as that story was, it was the good life.
It now takes two whitecollar incomes, maybe one kid, all the wifes income goes to day care, and foreign students take the slots in the public university. 401K lasts about one year, no pension (CEO spent it on "perks"), social security broke and dying.
Manufacturing as a percentage of the workforce needs to be supported, to have a balanced, sustainable economy: i.e. taxpayers. If that means short term protection tarriffs, so be it. The value of the dollar will adjust in the long term. That's how we compete.
JMHO
-Own |
