I was speaking in general terms. When you have a system go down in any manufacturing environment, depending on what the system is, you can shut down an entire facility in nothing flat. Anyone that has worked in such an environment knows that shuttting a line down for a few minutes mounts up costwise very rapidly. I worked in meatpacking years ago - where losing a 40 foot conveyer for 30 minutes cost the plant millions. You live or die by deadlines, contracts, overhead, etc. So, being down is a major expense. And when your Just in time system fails and you can't label goods, reconcile inventory, load a truck, etc for an hour... delphi loses mega bucks.
Okay, fair enough. I'm interested in your specific situation and instead of talking generalities like we have in this thread, I want to see what can be done about your individual circumstances, because I fall in the camp of people who believe that there are still enormous opportunities in this country.
For the record, I have worked on software systems where if X was not done by Y time, Z million dollars would be lost. Where Y time is six hours from the word "go", on a configuration I've never seen before in my life, and with a group of people I've never worked with before and now have to work with in perfect synchrony through only a phone and instant messaging connection. When you have that level of expertise, charging $50/hour and up is not a problem (actually, I charge 400% of that and my engagement calendar is still booked as much as I like, but you can reasonably expect $50-80/hour of W-2 employment at that level of expertise if you work for someone else), and you've indicated that you would consider that more than acceptable compared to your current situation.
Now, if it is true that you work in Windows support as freedumb2003 thinks, then yes, you have many long nights of studying ahead of you. However, I'm going to go with what little you have shared so far in this thread, instead of conjectures. You have indicated that you cannot move away from where you live (Indiana), and it has been a little over a year since your position was offshored. You claim you currently make $7 per hour. You say you have already looked at the construction market. Judging by your posts, I know that you can string together coherent sentences, though I can't tell one way or the other if you can put together reports for management consumption (I suspect you would be able to, or at least taught the skill in a year otherwise). Your offshored position was at EDS. You have some level of programming skills in C, C++, Pascal, and x86 assembler. You have about 10 years of PC sales experience.
You definitely don't have money to throw at your predicament, and possibly not very much time (say, 10-20 hours per week). You apparently do have enough time and/or money to get onto the Internet, at dialup speeds at least; otherwise we wouldn't be here on FreeRepublic. Whether you have to get onto the Net through the public library or through your own connection, the salient fact is you are finding the time to get on the Net.
Does this accurately describe your situation?