President Blames Unemployment On Lack Of Tech Skills

IEEE ^

[Florida_Irish]

During a Wednesday morning (July 30th) press conference, President Bush was asked a question about jobs going overseas as a result of technological innovation. His response was:

"I fully understand what you're saying. In other words, as technology races through the economy, a lot of times worker skills don't keep up with technological change."

Many people have taken his response to mean that unemployment in the high-tech sector is the result of American workers who allowed their skills to become obsolete. This is an unacceptable explanation.

[The_Media_never_lie]

The IEEE has seemed to be trying its best for years to make sure the world was up to U.S. standards, in manufacturing and in weapons production.

[dandelion]

Q "Thank you, Mr. President. Staying with that theme, although there are some signs of improvement in the economy, there are sectors in the work force who feel like they're being left behind. They're concerned about jobs going overseas, that technology is taking over jobs. And these people are finding difficulty finding work. And although you're recommitted yourself to your tax cut policy, do you have any ideas or any plans within the administration of what you might do for these people who feel like there are fundamental changes happening in the work force and in the economy? "

Note the italics - the reporter specifically targeted people who are AFRAID THAT TECHNOLOGY IS TAKING OVER JOBS. That statement in NO WAY refers to the tech sector - it refers to workers who are put out of jobs by tech advances, not by tech outsourcing. The question never addresses overseas tech outsourcing, nor does it bring up the visa program.

[Southack]

"Try reading the papers, Southack, and read up on the tax increases being proposed around the country, and the ones that have already passed. And fine, if you want to remove increased taxes from the equation, do it. There are still plenty of downward pressures on middle-class incomes in the tech sector."

We've just had federal tax cuts, not tax increases. Blaming Bush for **your state's** tax hike, if any, would be a bit unfair, dishonest, and perhaps disingenuous.

Are there downward pressures on the middle class? Of course. And there always will be, but the middle class hasn't shrunk as you've claimed, and in fact national salaries have INCREASED over the last five years.

What we've got around on this thread are probably just some laid-off techies who are upset that the glory days of the dot com boom aren't coming back, however, hence the readiness, no, hence the EAGERNESS to criticize our President for merely rephrasing a reporter's question...

[cmak9]

I am getting really tired of the notion that people are ENTITLED to certain jobs, or a certain standard of living merely by virtue of being born here.

I think what American citizens are getting tired of is this endless importing of illegal aliens (net consumers of services and taxes)taking jobs, driving down wages, while simultaneously paying the tax bill for it. We are also getting tired of any decent jobs left to us being exported to some third world country, which anyone wanting to eat anything other than dog food and live in a hut can't compete with. We are also getting tired of being called lazy, etc., when we are the ones breaking our backs to finance this idiocy.

If somebody doesn't get a grip on this problem, we will find our American way of life gone, and find ourselves living in a Third World hell hole. And the beauty of it is, we get to finance the crap. It's a race to the bottom. If you think you can avoid it, I think you're wrong. If you avoid it, your children and grandchildren won't. We don't want a stacked playing field, we only want a fair playing field and we're about sick of financing our own destruction. President Bush and Congress had better realize this, or there will be political hell to pay.

[lelio]

The question, and the answer, were directed to unskilled workers in the U.S. who find fewer and fewer opportunities to sell their services for a wage.

Highly skilled workers with college degrees are having a rough time finding work, if at all. Does the president not know this part of the economy?

Now is one of those times, if anyone would care to look.

Such as? I mean a job that won't be offshored to India or China as quick as possible.

[Southack]

c#34

[familyofman]

"The President has been taken out of context. (more so than usual) "

How many times will this tired old horse of an excuse be trotted out to defend what GWB says. He always says he means what he says - or are we not to believe him?

Another prime example of: start brain before engaging tongue.

I think he meant it - what with him being a free-trader and all.

[clamper1797]

If you are an advocate of replacing fellow Americans by importing cheap foreign workers to our soil to take their place ... you Sir ... are NO American ... not in my book

I find myself getting more and more intolerant of free "traitors" as time goes by and yet another of my friends is laid off and yet another H1B comes in to take their place

[thackney]

Read the original question again.

The writer of this article tried to twist the topic into High-Tech jobs going overseas. "technology is taking over jobs" isn't about high-tech jobs, it is jobs, like manufacturing, being replaced with technological advances. The president's answer dealt with that.

The H1-B program has grown WAY to large, and should be addressed even more. But this was not the topic of the question or the answer.

[oceanview]

we need private sector wages and wage growth over the past 2 years, excluding wage earners over $250K. that is the telling stat. it removes government employees, who get steady raises. and removes higher income people, many of whom in the private sector benefit from offshoring. I doubt you can get that stat, with those conditions, but that is what is needed. I am sure an honest number for that stat would show both a decline in the median salary and negative wage growth.

[banjo joe]

most of the H1-B holders I have worked with weren't worth much

The re-work is killing us here... but yep, they're cheap and exec. mgt sees the payroll savings but not the re-work figures. Waddya say when the OT goes thru the roof to fix stuff?

[StolarStorm]

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.


Don't worry, if current trends continue you will get a chance to find out what it's like to have the government REALLY after you ... like the government h1-b program is against IT professionals.

[Southack]

"I'll get you data, Southack, if you insist on ignoring the stories in such liberal rags as the Wall Street Journal about the changes to the workplace over the last few years. But you're just making a fool of yourself in demanding that the obvious be proven to you."

I doubt that you will **ever** show that the physical size of the American middle class has shrunk with any rational look at available demographic data.

Consider that to be a challenge.

[dandelion]

I'm sure he knows, but he was answering a question asked by a reporter - not reading minds.

[familyofman]

"Who are you going to vote for?"

Someone that cares about American workers, industry, and families - name to be determined later.

[RobFromGa]

I have worked with many Mexican and Asian "peons" as you call them and if it is manual labor you want performed, they are your top choice, for sure. They will work endlessly, for peanuts, and be happy for the opportunity.

And these "peons" can be trained to operate sophisticated computerized machinery (you have heard of sophisticated comouterized machinery, haven't you?) that is meant to be operated by "peons" by the machinery manufacturers. This was done because most manufacturing jobs are performed by UNSKILLED workers.

"Peons" are dime-a-dozen, and interchangable. If you are instead looking for a more valuable employee who can suggest improvements, program the machines, fine-tune the process... then you have a winner.

BTW, automation is just getting more prevalent. One machine can do the work of ten operators (think tractor/combine). Should we ban automation?

[lelio]

The question never addresses overseas tech outsourcing, nor does it bring up the visa program.

Very well. What has Bush or any member his economic team, said about that then? Anything?
On Snow's (I think it was him) recent trip to the midwest to rally support for the economy he's been asked about this trend, and recently said that he's going to go to China to talk to them about it. What on earth is he going to say? Stop sending us your goods? Is that all we have for economic leadership in this country?

[Tokhtamish]

A constant theme of these threads is some babbling fool of a libertarian strutting about how he doesn't owe anyone anything and if the middle class is decimated it's their own fault with his chin set defiantly into the wind as if he's some Ayn Rand ubermensch.

Sure. Go ahead. Allow the working and middle class of this country to be decimated by pervasive outsourcing and offshoring. Get used to the society it creates. You had better live behind gated walls because if you don't you will live in a society that can no longer control young males of average or less intelligence by being able to give them secure futures. Get used to a generation of amoral, rootless, antisocial young males without mercy or remorse who will take your callousness and hand it right back to you. When the manufacturing jobs go you get hoodlums, like the gangstas of South Central or the skinheads of the Midlands when the British industrial economy died or the neo nazi skinheads of Eastern Germany, etc.

Whether you think you owe it to them to pay for them is of no importance. You Will pay for them one way or another whether you like it or not.

[wesdale]

Why is our standard of living higher? Not because the government told business who they could and couldn't hire.

I have worked 12 hours a day to put food in my mouth. I worked harder, got better skills, made myself more valuable.

I am not gonna sit back now and relax just because I have reached a certain salary level. If that happens, I don't deserve my job. I will continue to improve. If my job is outsourced, then I'll work to make sure that doesn't happen again. I am not going to whine or ask for someone else to give me a job on the basis that I am an American and I deserve it more than the Indian on the H1-B. It doesn't matter what collective harm is being alleged.

[carton253]

Okay...

#1 - agreed...

#2 - agree again...

#3 - totally agree

#4 - tried to do that, got voted down in the Senate. Hopefully will try again. But agree.

#5 - agree

#6 (last paragraph) Don't agree. I think he has used the bully pulpit, but is undercut in the Senate by Republicans (Voinovich being one of them). Though a veto every once is while to show them that he means business would not be a bad idea...