Jobs No American CAN Do

Pajamas Media ^ | July 3 | Scott Ott

[AJKauf]

In the battle over immigration reform, some believe we need to grant amnesty to “undocumented workers” because they do the jobs “Americans won’t do,” as George W. Bush once said. But there’s a new class of vacant jobs in U.S. manufacturing — call them “the jobs Americans can’t do.”

According to a story in the New York Times, many jobs, even in this recessive economy, go unfilled because employers can’t find applicants with the skills to perform them....

[Mariner]

"Otherwise the cheap manufacturing and labor costs of China and India will allow corporate America/globalists to enslave us forever."

There's no way one can control technology for 5 centuries in the modern era...you get 5yrs...10yrs tops. Then everyone has it.

The KEY is the willingness to put tariffs on all imported, finished products which come from countries with little ecological or labor regulation.

Bilateral trade agreements ONLY. Be willing to slap 100% or more. Additionally, companies that go off shore with their manufacturing while keeping HQ here should be subject to the same tariff. Use a formula not unlike the VAT.

Then tax every barrel of imported oil $50/bbl while opening all LAND-BASED potential to exploration and drilling. Use some of the imported oil tax to guarantee the price of "cracked" diesel from coal at $2.00/gal wholesale AND make that diesel tax-free.

Then, build as many nukes as possible (200 ought to be about right) and quit burning NatGas for electricity. Outlaw it.

[Fee]

If the US do not allow foreign students come to US and learn at our state of the art universities engaged in nano technology, bio technology and employed in the newly started manufacturing technologies being explored and built, and shoot the first American bastard that sells the info to a foreign nation, we might be able to keep it a secret for ten or more years. By the time the foreign nations learn it, we would have moved on. In other words we should keep the entire world one or more generations behind us. I do agree, one cannot keep it a secret for centuries. Go back to the 1970’s and get a book that lists the military forces of the world. You will see that our allies always had aircraft and tanks one generation behind us. Africa, Asia and South/Central America were operating late WW2 equipment at best. In that era look at our standard of living, middle class wages and etc. It was light years ahead of what we have today when you consider the buying power of the US dollar, the gap between super rich and middle class was smaller, and everyone had a chance to climb out of being poor and working poor via hardwork, overtime and education. Oh yes, little or no illegal immigrants to boot. I say we can return to that era. The current order has to be swept out thru the ballot box and if necessary armed revolution before the new American Rennaissance can begin.

[wintertime]

Some public high schools still teach some (or even most) students well, thanks to dedicated teachers and academics-focused principals.

The above is the only exception that I have to your excellent post.

How do we know that these so-called "good" government schools are actually teaching their students anything? Where are the studies that prove that the school and its teachers are doing the teaching?

Perhaps, these kids in these so-called "good" government schools are receiving excellent **afterschooling** in their homes. Perhaps the only thing these so-called "good" government schools are doing is sending home a curriculum for the parents and child to follow. Perhaps 99% of the really hard work is being done by the parents and the child himself in the **HOME**.

I had this epiphany some years ago when my sister-in-law told me how much time she spent helping her kids with their homework. Then some years later it was private algebra tutoring and French camp during the summer even before these kids took their government school courses in these subjects.

Also....When I have questioned parents of academically successful institutionalized children about their home lives, I find that these parents are working just as hard with their kids ( one on one) and their kids are doing just as much independent homework study as my children and I did as homeschoolers! I conclude that there is absolutely NO difference in the quality and time of afterschooling that these parents and their institutionalized kids are doing when compared to the quality and time that we spent as homeschoolers.

If you know an academically successful child, I would bet my entire 401K, that if their home lives were carefully examined, measured, and timed, the only conclusion that could be reached is that the school is merely sending home a curriculum for the parents and child to follow. Nearly all the real learning is happening in the home.

But I’ll note this: despite the demonstrably slowly failing government-dominated “education” sector, despite its voracious consumption of ever more tax dollars, despite its failure to improve results, our government has a cure: it will take vastly greater control over another sector it already almost dominates: health care.

I agree.

In one or two generations all of the arguments used to defend our socialist-modeled, socialist=funded, single payer, government schools will be used to defend socialist, single payer, government health care. Future generations will not be to imagine life without it and will defend it vigorously. Hey!...They sacrificed and have mom working out of the home so they could afford to move to an area with "good" health clinics and hospitals.

[HiJinx]

Ping!

Maybe we need the DREAM act after all!
/sarc

[HiJinx]

Ping!

[Kenny Bunk]

You are a true comic. That is, after your jokes, people smile before they erupt in rage at the underlying truth.

[annelizly]

I think our expectations are too damned high in this country. all of a sudden you have to have a college degree to do ANYTHING! even when the job shouldn’t require one!

I mean for god sake! A receptionist , answering phones all of a sudden needs a degree! And it doesn’t pay the kind of pay that a college educated person would require.

There should always be jobs out there for people who didn’t go to college but have intelligence and skills earned with experience.

[cynwoody]

Offer more money and soneone will find the skills. I would bet that they interview qualified candidates who exit laughing when they hear the offered wages.

For sure. With 99 weeks, what's the hurry?

[magslinger]

So anyone who submits a resume is committed to accepting any position the employer deigns to offer them at whatever wages that employer sees fit to pay?

I believe that there are enough qualified people out there that if the employer breaks down and pays what his competitors are paying for a certain skill set, he won't have a problem filling the position.

Supply and demand works for everybody.

[RaceBannon]

$26 an hour??

I have two associate degrees now, just graduated from college again

When I had just an ASME, I knew Pascal, Fortran,C++, CADKEY, AUTOCAD, SOLIDWORKS, PRO-E.

I was NEVER offered a job more than $22.50, and that was as a mechanical technician, never that much as an engineer.

The problem is not people who dont have skills, it is employers who are unwilling to train people.

How did the first person do the job they are seeking help for? What did that person know?

[P.O.E.]

What’s left out of free-market equations is quality of life. (Because it’s very difficult to quantify, for one thing).

There are hundreds of millions of people who would be ecstatic at earning the US minimum wage. Millions who don’t have electricity, running water, plumbing, etc.

So free-market wage pressure is down.

[meadsjn]

Forget the fancy overtime calculations. Make that 26.50 for a 40-hour week (for the salary). The hours worked would be 12+ per day, with occasional weekends. No overtime pay, no benefits, no bonuses, no guarantees, no relocation reimbursements, no hope of profit, or even breaking even.

That is the IT pay scale today.