Posted on 07/31/2003 11:53:32 AM PDT by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at capwiz.com ...
The H1-B visa program is based on a lie - that there is a shortage of tech workers. And, above and beyond that, do we want this country to completely lose the concept of a middle class, which is the primary component of economic and political stability? Other countries keep up barriers as we lower ours. It's kinda like being in a boxing match and lowering your guard and hoping the other guy doesn't clean your clock - it ain't ever gonna happen.
Ok I'll just ask my employer to cut my salary to 6k a year so I can be more attractive to employ. Is that what you're doing?
So let's see how this works. We use tax dollars to train manufacturing workers how to become low-level tech workers ... and then they'll graduate and not be able to get a decent job because they've all been outsourced overseas. So I guess we'll then train them how to be Wal-Mart greeters.
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?
She was talking about the chronically unemployed, for anyone who was listening. For all anyone knows, she was talking about textile jobs going overseas; technology in the form of robotics and automation replacing union labor, etc.
You guys see "technology" and "jobs" or "work force" and think it's all about H1-B and Indian programmers. Sheesh.
His response was adequate, as far as I'm concerned. He said community colleges should be recognizing employment trends and training people accordingly. Right now, they are not. They are still selling IS certificate programs without regard to opportunity, and are inflating demand with ridiculous promises.
And I'm sure your mortgage company will follow suit and cut your mortage by 90 percent. As will GMAC on your car loan.
I can't repeat it enough: corporate America hates IT. They consider it a disparate service, like the janitorial staff, instead of an important part of the business; they hate having to deal with it; they hate having to hire and manage difficult IT people; and they hate spending the money to maintain an in-house IT presence. They feel they were gouged by IT salary levels during the tech boom, and outsourcing IT now is just a way of getting their own back and disposing of people they never wanted to hire in the first place.
lmao, I can only dream.
"Bush just lost several thousand tech worker votes with this line." - Dirtboy
All that Bush did was to rephrase what the reporter asked him. People do that every day simply to insure that they have fully understood a question being asked of them.
And if several thousand tech workers can't understand that simple fact, then they aren't smart enough to be employed in America.
But, the point is, we'll train those laid-off manufacturing workers to be low-level techies - and they STILL won't get work because we're either bringing in H1-B visa workers or companies are outsourcing the very jobs they're training for.
This isn't about the workers. It's about policies in this country that are expediting the rampant hemmoraging of decent-paying jobs and the destruction of the middle class.
A good case can be made that it's actually a vacuum.
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