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Bye-bye engineering, hello massage therapy
WorldNetDaily ^ | April 16, 2004 | Ilana Mercer

Posted on 04/16/2004 1:24:31 AM PDT by sarcasm

Last week, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao announced her Skills to Build America's Future" initiative. This is a "nationwide outreach and education effort designed to attract young people and transitioning workers to" the "key" occupations of the [near] future: "skilled trades."

This initiative, understandably, was proclaimed with little fanfare. While President Bush looks toward Mars, Ms. Chao can hardly be proud of her decidedly pedestrian prophecy that "construction laborers, operating engineers, carpenters, iron workers, cement masons, bricklayers, truck drivers and many other construction related crafts are among the trades expected to see the greatest demand in workers over the next 6 years." (This demand will be filled, I predict, by "guest workers," i.e., illegal aliens awarded shiny new government permits.)

Telling America's young people that the best they can hope for is careers as tradesmen certainly casts a pall over an administration given to grandiose planning and posturing. Essentially, the mathematically precocious – youngsters with aptitudes for science, engineering or accounting – must be yanked down to earth. Reaching for the stars in the America of the future will be the exclusive province of "American Idol" participants.

And according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics latest Employment Situation Summary, Ms. Chao's future is now. For all the din sounded over the addition of 308,000 jobs to the economy in March, the government-fed news filters failed to mention which job sectors were surging. Sure enough, it transpires that employment opportunities are optimal in construction, retail trade, food services, social assistance, and (naturally) in government.

As economist Paul Craig Roberts – a rare independent thinker on the issue – observes: "Only labor involved in non-traded goods and services is safe from foreign substitution." In other words, young Americans had better learn to live by their hands lest their livelihoods be outsourced.

If President Bush intends to revive America's space program, engineers will be at a premium. Yet the IEEE-USA, the world's largest technical professional society – representing more than 225,000 electrical electronics, computer, and software engineers – reports that "American high-tech firms shed 560,000 jobs between 2001 and 2003, and expect to lose another 234,000 in 2004." This contraction cannot be dismissed as the nadir of the dot-com correction. The jobless rate for electrical and electronics engineers was in fact lower in 2002 (4.2 percent) than in 2003 (6.2 percent).

Meanwhile, the Computing Research Association's Taulbee's Survey found that total enrollment in bachelor-degree programs in computer science and computer engineering fell 19 percent in 2003, a factor it attributes to "the decline in the technology industry and the moving of jobs offshore." (Curiously omitted are the impacts of the H-1B and L-1 work visas.)

College administrators are already hip to Ms. Chao's future. For example, San Francisco State University is considering the closure of its engineering school.

Indeed, today's college graduate cannot even expect to find entry-level jobs in the hi-tech industry, warns entrepreneur Rosen Sharma. Sharma heads a Silicon Valley start-up that "could not survive without outsourcing." Nevertheless, he fears for America's future. "As a father my reaction is different than my reaction as a CEO," he admitted to Time.

Pay no attention to such Chicken Littles, high-tech-industry lobbyists counter. Outsourcing is good for America, they claim. Their studies employ the "impregnable" science of econometrics to prove that outsourcing high-tech jobs creates more jobs than it kills. One such study, commissioned by the Information Technology Association of America, predicts 317,387 such jobs will materialize by 2008. The study's premise, however, begs the question, as it assumes the new jobs are and will be as good as the old (vanished) ones.

Why, they'll be even better, brags economist and outsourcing enthusiast, Catherine Mann. Dr. Mann, who also labors under the illusion that only bottom-rung jobs are vanishing, plays Pollyanna to a doubting Thomas, Ron Hira of IEEE-USA. Professor Hira confessed to Washington Post readers that he, an industry insider, had no idea what shape the "new" putative high-value jobs would take. "Is it nanotech, biotech, bioinformatics?" Of one thing he is certain, however: "Other developing and developed countries are targeting those very same industries and jobs."

Thankfully, author Virginia Postrel has located America's burgeoning (and indubitably "dynamist") occupations. She faults the Bureau of Labor Statistics for failing to recognize the rise of spa-related personal services – e.g., manicure and massage therapy – for the powerhouse growth industries they are. Of course, if Ms. Postrel is to remain faithful to the central thesis of her first book – that all change is always good – she is obligated to remain, like Ms. Mann, a Pollyanna, despite the new employment reality. Ms. Postrel's second book, the sum of which is that all that glitters is gold, even better encapsulates her enthusiasm for the role eyebrow waxing and other crafts will play in an economic recovery.

Although preliminary – even tentative – the Bureau's Employment Situation Summary suggests that high-value knowledge jobs are being replaced with low-value service and manual-labor jobs. The ensuing loss of income to American workers will surely outweigh the lower prices outsourcing engenders.

If I refuse to genuflect to this brave new world, it's because the idea of living in communities where applied scientists are unemployed while colonic hydrotherapists thrive isn't particularly enthralling. I'll leave it to the motion obsessed, ever-evolving Ms. Postrel to celebrate that kind of future.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: education; elainechao; immigrantlist; labor; outsourcing; trade; tradeschools
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To: Porterville
Pitiful, you don't even know how to post a picture. Maybe you can use your welfare grant to enhance your computer skills.
161 posted on 04/18/2004 9:14:35 AM PDT by sarcasm (Tancredo 2004)
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To: sarcasm
But liberal-communist like yourself have eyes, do you not? It is true, I know little about the twisted logic of the liberal, but I am certain I see red Lenin in the post before... Perhaps it is symbolic of your visualization of the world? You can't see red.
162 posted on 04/18/2004 9:46:03 AM PDT by Porterville (I will enter the liberal land with the Gramsci torch and burn down their house of cards.)
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To: neutrino
So, you would stop the owner of a company from firing employees?

The owner(s) of a public company are the shareholders. Unfortunately, many of the true owners - the people who's money is invested and at risk, don't get to vote!.

That's a great idea to create jobs in America. Make all hiring decisions thru the vote.

That's a nice misdirection.

I'm sorry, where's the misdirection?

163 posted on 04/18/2004 9:59:55 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (Quit yer whining)
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To: Dec31,1999
My point in asking the question...who were Conservative GOP presidents, was a wee trap.There has NEVER been and there will NEVER be a president Conservative enough to satisfy the "purists"/MORE CONSERVATIVE THAN THOUERS here. I can prove,no matter who is named,that they wouldn't pass the smell test, that the "purists" use for President Bush, whom I do support,as you surmised.

I'm a pragmatist,I don't expect the impossible from my presidential choices,and I do know history and understand politics.

164 posted on 04/18/2004 2:57:25 PM PDT by nopardons
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To: All
College administrators are already hip to Ms. Chao's future. For example, San Francisco State University is considering the closure of its engineering school.

Engineering is a buggy whip thing bump.

165 posted on 04/19/2004 8:31:29 AM PDT by A. Pole (<SARCASM> The genocide of Albanians was stopped in its tracks before it began.</S>)
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To: sarcasm
I read through this whole thread and while there's a lot of debating on economics....not one person mentioned that perhaps the educational system in asian countries is simply better than ours??? The culture is also different -parents really want their kids to succeed vs American parents who have no problem with kids watching TV for hours and hours every day instead of working on even harder problems that what they are required from school.
For reference see
http://www.mathematicallycorrect.com/
166 posted on 04/19/2004 9:04:11 AM PDT by arielb
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To: FR_addict
I mentioned the trend where companies are swallowing up other companies to prop up their real numbers. By adding the revenue from the new companies into the total revenue, it makes the company look a lot better. The amount paid for these companies are listed elsewhere in the financial statements.

Every professional who follows these companies know what earnings were bought and how much they paid. They also follow cash from continuing operations, so they know if the old business is growing or declining.

167 posted on 04/19/2004 11:22:58 AM PDT by Toddsterpatriot (Quit yer whining)
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To: Toddsterpatriot
Every professional who follows these companies know what earnings were bought and how much they paid. They also follow cash from continuing operations, so they know if the old business is growing or declining.

Of course, they do. I also follow the stocks and trades of certain high tech companies. That's why the one I mentioned is still at 13, yet they just posted a nice gain over last year. The gain also includes the revenue from the companies they recently bought for $3.65 billion.

When the company was over $120 a share, management was telling everyone that they were immune to the worldwide recession and at the same time dumping their stock as fast as possible. The head of the company at the time was just named ambassador to Ireland and he claimed that was why he was unloading his stock. Many small stockholders were suckered into keeping their stock. It's still at the price of $13 a share.

I doubt if most stock holders realize how bad morale is. I have been keeping track of other high tech companies, especially the ones that are outsourcing to see how they are faring.

Dell has been faring pretty well, even though they outsource, but that's because they have gotten into the lucrative storage market and don't really care about the little guy who has to go through someone in India to get support. Dell was also outsourcing their high end support for their large business customers, but they brought this back to the USA when the complaints started rolling in.

They ignore the complaints from the little guy and that's why I quit buying Dell computers. We have had nothing but problems with their customer support. Finding one who speaks English well enough to understand on the phone is just the first hurdle.

I recently purchased plane tickets from one of the airlines and I bet I was routed through India. Both agents I talked to had Indian accents. The first was hard to understand, the second was understandable.

168 posted on 04/19/2004 12:02:40 PM PDT by FR_addict
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To: XBob
When I sadly had to leave, I thought to myself, Who's rich? Me, the 'rich American' or these 'poverty stricken' people.

Go personally to some of these 3rd world countries, learn the language, and live with the people and see just how accurate this PPP is.

When a malaria threatens this idyllic paradise, which of the local witch doctors is going to invent antibiotics in time to save himself and the others?

When a hurricane threatens, who is going to build the concrete storm shelters?

When a socialist dictator in a nearby country decides to expand his empire, whose guns are going to keep his thugs from raping and murdering the entire village?

Your post exemplifies the worst instincts in human nature - run and hide and let someone else solve the big problems.

169 posted on 04/19/2004 12:45:30 PM PDT by Mr. Jeeves
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To: Mr. Jeeves
169 - "Your post exemplifies the worst instincts in human nature - run and hide and let someone else solve the big problems."

Apparently you haven't read the thread and the free-traitors arguments.

None of thse are things are the responsibility of anyone but the individuals. It's "every man for himself. Damn everyone else to hell, all profits to me"

Don't you see the free-traitors out there fighting their own battles, building their own roads, doing their own policing?

PS, interestingly enough, I was there with a medical team, bringing medicine and some treatments to the village, not hiding out, but taking care of some of the very problems you specified.
170 posted on 04/19/2004 5:11:54 PM PDT by XBob
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To: neutrino
Extrapolating these statistics from 2001 using the average growth rates from 1993-2001, the number of students with temporary visas will exceed the number of U.S. citizens/permanent residents enrolled in graduate science and engineering by 2021.
171 posted on 04/19/2004 10:06:14 PM PDT by Yalta
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To: Yalta
171 - "Extrapolating these statistics from 2001 using the average growth rates from 1993-2001, the number of students with temporary visas will exceed the number of U.S. citizens/permanent residents enrolled in graduate science and engineering by 2021"

That's already happened here at our local Lamar University, and undergrad's too in computer science.
172 posted on 04/19/2004 11:32:48 PM PDT by XBob
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To: A. Pole
College administrators are already hip to Ms. Chao's future. For example, San Francisco State University is considering the closure of its engineering school.

Engineering is a buggy whip thing bump.

Hey, if it’s what “the free market” tells us, who are we to argue, being the slavish devotees to it that we are. To h*ll with innovation and discoveries and the manufacturing base and military capability, money and profits are all that matter.

Probably not many here will recognize the name Pierre-André Couffinhal. He was an attorney and friend of Robespierre during the French Revolution and became one of many infamous Tribunal judges who sent many people to the gallows. Couffinhal was not the brightest bulb on the porch, because when the chemist Lavoisier, who was being indicted (and ended up losing his head) was brought before him, pronounced the judgement “The Republic doesn’t need scientists!” Needless to say, justice has a way. The mobs eventually turned against Robespierre and his cronies, including Couffinhal, who met the same fate he condemned others to.

173 posted on 04/20/2004 5:47:24 AM PDT by chimera
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To: arielb
I read through this whole thread and while there's a lot of debating on economics....not one person mentioned that perhaps the educational system in asian countries is simply better than ours???

Just tell me, is the better quality of Asian education the reason or maybe the lower wages/cost/standard of living?

174 posted on 04/20/2004 9:18:02 AM PDT by A. Pole (<SARCASM> The genocide of Albanians was stopped in its tracks before it began.</S>)
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To: arielb
Maybe at the pre-college and pre-grad school levels. But when it comes to advanced education many of them come here. They learn all they can here and then take that knowledge home with them. In another generation they won't come here at all, because they will have re-located the knowledge base to their homelands.

This is the elephant-in-the-living-room that so many slavish addicts to outsourcing and "free trade" won't acknowledge. We're literally selling out our technological future, consuming the seed corn from which future generations of scientists and engineers would have otherwise sprouted). Because if our own children have no interest in studying the sciences (because they see those as dead-end careers made "obsolete" by offshoring and outsourcing), who will be left to teach it if we suddenly come to our senses and decide that, yes, it is in our interest to maintain/rebuild our technological and industrial infrastructure? I suppose they think that we could import the necessary cadre of instructors to re-educate our future generations, but what if those countries who would be the source of these teachers decide that it isn't in their interest to do so? I guess then we have to go back to square one and re-invent all of the technology that we worked so hard to develop and build on our own but then sold out for short-term "profits". Better learn how to make fire from rubbing two sticks together. Hey, Chuck Noland did it...

175 posted on 04/20/2004 10:01:10 AM PDT by chimera
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