Well, there was that whole marriage mistake, but yeah, besides that.... :o)
But do you really think that all jobs will be gone in 15 years?!
I exaggerated to make a point. There is a possibility that if we relentlessly automate and send jobs to the cheapest, slave-based labor nations that we could end up there.
Look, IT has just gone through a boom and a bust. It was over-hyped in the beginning, and it's being pessimistically oversold in the present.
Well, I cannot disagree with both assessments. They predict a 10% outsourcing level by 2010. If that is true, then we'll still have a net-increase in IT jobs, just some siphoning off of some of them. However, don't tell the kids at school -- I like that they are fleeing IT in droves! ;^)
And while it is true that menial, repetitive jobs (be they in IT or in most anything else) **are** going to be mechanized and automated away, that's not cause for doom and gloom in my book.
We automated and mechanized farming, if you'll remember, and now we produce better food, safer, in larger numbers, at less cost, and with fewer people than ever before.
Yes. But I question the wisdom of automating and outsourcing EVERYthing. People need to earn a living, because without this economic mechanism, the only alternative to distribution of goods and services is communism. And we sure as s**t don't want THAT.
Certainly banning the automation of farming would have been a net negative for America 20 years down the road (picture 1930 to 1950).
I'm not advocating the banning of technology, or even offshoring. I'm advocating a return to tariffing said offshoring, which is in the rich tradition of America for the last 200 years -- and has, in part, made America the strongest economic powerhouse in the world.
In fact, the foreign IT competition will force state, local, and perhaps even the federal government to reconsider their ponderous, onerous anti-business legislation (descrimination laws, anti-right to work union laws, pension funding laws, tort reform to rein in out of control lawsuits, EPA regulations, OSHA nonsense, et al).
Not a chance in hell. I mean, maybe they will look at it, but there will never be a set of reforms like the ones you mention. Once government has adopted laws, special interest groups and trial lawyers, as well as Democrat scare tactics, make sure the law, tax, or benefit is never repealed. Do you know we STILL have a boll weevil subsidy on the books for farmers, which dates from the 1930's -- this, when the boll weevil threat has been almost eliminated?
The other side of the coin is that lots of so-called "high-tech" IT jobs were nothing of the sort. A code slinger putting together an order-entry web page ain't cutting edge, much less high tech. Ditto for system administrators installing software updates, checking for infections, and setting up new user accounts. It shouldn't really surprise anyone to see such jobs either being automated by robotic software and/or being outsourced to 3rd world grunts.
Some of the jobs were not very hightech at all, granted. I might debate you a little about the order entry page, but that is because I would expect a coder to put together something a little more sophisticated and innovative than one of those stupid Shopping Cart systems I see too much of.
But innovative software, that's another story. Look at the game and utility markets. Plenty of entrepreneurial efforts from the little guy make it into the American system, and those guys are being handsomely rewarded. Why aren't we seeing Indian and Chinese programmers come out with such games and comercial utilities?! But we certainly see the Americans doing it, and I don't see that trend stopping.
Well, I have to grudgingly concede that -- IT recession or not -- it took me about the same amount of time to land a job at nearly the same pay as the one in Birmingham (only this time, the client seems to have his s**t together -- grin). So perhaps the IT situation is not as dire as advertised, or perhaps I have the skills and innovative ability to compete, or maybe I just got lucky geographically. Things might be different for me were I to be situated in California or Washington state.
I do strongly believe that a little tariff activity on exportation of labor might be in order to slow the trend towards offshoring. We both know that tariffs won't reverse the trend, but slowing things down might give people a chance to figure out WTF they are going to do if most of the jobs go overseas!
I'm not as sanguine as you are about innovation being a solely American quality, as well, BTW. I expect that will change over time, and that -- if the rote jobs are gone, and if the manufacturing jobs are gone, and then if other nations begin beating us in innovation -- well then, we'll be in a world of feces.
The estate tax has been repealed.
The dividend double tax is gone in less than 4 months.
The income tax is now trivial ($45 per year for a family of four earning $40k/yr).
OSHA home office "ergonomic" regulations are now dead.
Clinton's CO2 regulations for electricity providers are now dead.
Surely you aren't claiming that laws and taxes never get repealed...
What has really made the US rich is the fact that we destroyed nearly all of industrial bases of competing countries during WWII, which is why jobs and retirement packages were secure.
The third world has of come of age and is now entering the marketplace. Now that America is forced to compete, all of those perks are being sold to the lowest bidder, unfortunately.
Of course, it's an insane policy to compete with slave labor, as we do with China. The day William Buckley showed up on the TV proclaiming that MFN status being bestowed upon our ideological enemies was a revelation.