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OK, who can we compete with for manufacturing jobs? The GM autoworker in China who makes $2 a day? Or TATA in India who is building the Nano, a new car that gets 40 mpg and costs $2000 brand new? Step up and share your plan with us please. Even Mexicans can't compete wage wise with Asia.
The man in the post below you just broke it down. Read it.
Baloney, desertdetroiter, I'd like to see more manufacturing, which is the main reason I'd like oil to keep rising (makes outsourcing cost more), and I'd like more RTW states. Many Asian firms run most of their US operations in RTW states. Yes, unions played a large role in the demise of Detroit and mfg, in general. Extortionist demands. The UAW per Granholm was VWs' big issue in taking Michigan out of the running for their US plant.
I do adore Mathguys' posts; we do need everyone to increase their level of education, and that includes the factory worker of 2015.
Let China and India take over manufacturing of steel, clothing, and electronics. If we truly are a first world nation, then it is time we upgrade our manufacturing base to something more technologically advanced. Maybe it is time for the US economy to switch gears and start generating tons of new jobs in new industries such as green technologies, bioengineering plants to produce biofuels, and updating our internet, mobile communication, and transportation infrastructure. Amazing how we get resistance from political hacks on government spending on infrastructure, but when it comes time to flush away trillions of dollars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon is basically given a carte blanche.
Let the rest of the world kill themselves over oil, maybe if we started massively spending money on renewable sources of energy production we wouldn't give two craps right now about Iran trying to block the Straight of Hormuz and we wouldn't have to send our youth to go off and die in lands 10000 miles away from home all over oil. 50 years from now the only countries that are going to be left standing are the ones that don't have their economies crushed with massive energy prices now that we've started to fall off the cliff of peak oil. The only way to prevent economic failure of this country is energy independence.
Okay. But still, we're not going to sustain a middle class on engineering jobs no matter what you think.
This nation like all first world nations needs a low skilled, decently paid (notice i said decent, not high paying) manufacturing base. Without it, throw in the towel.
desertdetroiter"This nation like all first world nations needs a low skilled, decently paid (notice i said decent, not high paying) manufacturing base. Without it, throw in the towel"
Since decently is extremely subjective, I'd agree with the words Fair Market Value substituted, and with RTW the law of the land. Closed Shop states are Asia's best US based asset. Usually, the wage levels do not differ much, but ridiculous work rules make union shops uncompetitive in a global environment far too often. In addition, while we'll always have lower skilled, our lower skilled of 2015 and beyond need to run circles in terms of education and training around their peers of 1955.
Baloney, desertdetroiter, I'd like to see more manufacturing, which is the main reason I'd like oil to keep rising (makes outsourcing cost more), and I'd like more RTW states. Many Asian firms run most of their US operations in RTW states. Yes, unions played a large role in the demise of Detroit and mfg, in general. Extortionist demands. The UAW per Granholm was VWs' big issue in taking Michigan out of the running for their US plant.
I do adore Mathguys' posts; we do need everyone to increase their level of education, and that includes the factory worker of 2015.
Pfffft...i'm talking about a manufacturing base, and you're talking about the right wing agenda of crushing workers rights and pushing down wages to "Fair Market Value (in another post).
Nah man....we aint talkin' about the same things here.
Wrong, desertdetroiter, I'm talking about rebuilding a sector with modest wages, where management is free to manage, so we can reduce the cost gap versus the world that is unfavorable right now. Crushing Detroit via unions does no one any good. Flint is happy that its auto employment is back to 7k, it peaked at 80k. Tell those 73k how much better off extortionist UAW demands made them (sar).
Fair Market Value, unlike the UAW model, is sustainable. You are correct, we're talking differently, as being sustainable is not something you are thinking about, but it should be.
So many post and not one mention of vocational job training. Not everyone is college material and not every college student is capable of welding, carpentry, or installing/repairing HVAC or hydraulic systems or electrical systems in homes and buildings. People trained in such fields are needed in factories, warehouses, and large buildings across the country. Someone trained as an auto mechanic can move up to diesel or natural gas generators or chillers. A plumber can get certification to install special piping thus earning a bigger paycheck. Welders who get certified for underwater or other specialty welding can command big paychecks.
sailordave, Vocational Training is to the fields you mentioned what a college degree is in business. Its a given it will be needed, and there are still tons of schools that cater specifically to vocational training.
Thing is most people fail to realize that only a select few STEM degrees are in demand, and it's really hard to predict which ones will be needed in the future.
Not too long ago, a degree in Math got you a job basically being a professor or if you're lucky a guy analyzing logistics trains. Now, suddenly, they're getting paid big bucks designing algorithms to make trades on the stock market. Nobody foresaw that coming in 2007, when those guys would be entering college to be in the workplace now, and certainly not in 2003 when if they have a PhD now when they were going into undergrad.
Aerospace engineering is another classic example. Boeing laid off tens of thousands of engineers in the 90s and now they're paying for that with dividends in that there aren't enough qualified and experienced guys teaching the younger ones. I see it all the time, younger guys questioning why designs are the way they are, and for good reason, only to make the same mistakes again because nobody could say why, and it wasn't documented. Experience counts, can't learn everything in school.
But it just goes to point out that STEM careers come and go. Eventually you'll have algorithm cook books and self-adapting algorithms and the PhD's will get the boot once the imaginary big-dick club will start taking in the money. Aerospace can't sustain its hyperbolic trajectory. Software engineers may one day decline.
Thing is though, if you have the intelligence to go into engineering, you will likely see the writing on the wall and retrain. If you don't, it's your own fault. I'm always looking to branch into other fields. Controls engineering looks promising because as sensors go smaller and so do actuators you can control more. So does GPS based navigation solutions for automobiles (again Controls engineering).
I do agree too that not everyone is cut out for engineering. I see it on the line. You got meat heads yelling and cursing and laughing at each other, scrawl things on the bathroom wall, and they're great at riveting, or putting fasteners on, or making wire bundles, but put anything math related in front of them and they're totally dumbfounded.
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