Guest Post by Joe Guzzardi
Displaced American IT workers, and recent grads struggling to find a tech job, just received good news. A February U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services memo advised employers hoping to hire a foreign-born engineer that they would have to conclusively prove that no qualified American is available. Given the numerous fired American engineers at Disney, Caterpillar, Metropolitan Life and dozens of other high-profile U.S. corporations, demonstrating that Americans are unavailable will be challenging. Plenty of them are out pounding the pavement.
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Among others that concluded corporate employers who prefer cheaper overseas workers may have hyped the American-shortage is 60 Minutes, notable because over the decades it has featured many pro-H-1B segments. Another skeptic is Challenger, Christmas and Gray, outplacement specialists, which reported that in 2016 the tech sector was responsible for 18 percent of the 526,915 total announced job cuts. Finally, the annual guest worker inflow is equal to half of all tech hires each year at a time when U.S. colleges graduate plenty of science, technology, engineering and math STEM professionals.
The USCIS advisory memo has been met with criticism from the usual suspects, namely the tech industry, and immigration advocates, especially those who promote more employment-based visas like the H-1B. But the USCIS request is logical and sets appropriate standards for overseas workers who wish to enter the U.S. on a temporary, non-immigrant visa that often leads to lawful permanent residency.
Effective immediately, H-1B applications must supply “detailed statements of work or work orders” about any duties at a third-party site. The visa recipient should have “specific and non-speculative qualifying assignments in a specialty occupation for the beneficiary for the entire time requested in the petition.”
For their part, employers must provide detailed information about why they need to hire someone from abroad instead of a U.S. citizen. USCIS defends its more rigorous, but logical, release as an effort to eliminate H-1B fraud which has been a constant since Congress created the visa in 1990.
In 2017, federal prosecutors successfully won convictions against two major H-1B fraud perpetrators. A Virginia man who pleaded guilty to visa fraud and making false statements is now in jail and facing eventual deportation to India. Raju Kosuri used shell companies to fraudulently apply for nearly a thousand foreign workers visas. For years, Kosuri ran what prosecutors in an Alexandria federal court described as a visa-for-sale system. He used the H-1B program for allegedly specialized foreign workers, generating more than $20 million through the scam.
And in tech capital San Jose, Sridevi Aiyaswamy lied and submitted false documents, including counterfeited “statements of work” with forged signatures, to immigration officials which claimed that her clients had jobs awaiting them at Cisco Systems Inc. Altogether, Aiyaswamy, who faces a maximum statutory penalty of 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine, “enabled over 20 alien workers to either remain in or enter the U.S. under false pretenses,” according to a pretrial statement filed by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
The Alexandria and San Jose cases alone represent more than 1,000 jobs that American workers were denied because of the flawed H-1B visa application process. The 1,000 plus total represents but a fraction of the jobs Americans have lost out on because of H-1B fraud, and may not sound like many to anyone except to unemployed, but skilled, U.S. tech professionals yearning to return to work.
After 25 years of lax H-1B standards that have consistently put Americans second, tougher regulations are overdue.
Good news.
The company I worked for (and was fired from) in California high tech, replaced us “old white guys” with H-1B folks from the sub-continent.
18 months later, they’re out of business. But…but… they were CHEAP!!!!
Capn Mike: GOOD AND FUCK ALL THEIR STOCK HOLDERS AND INVESTORS TOO !
They have stolen enough money from the American IT workers already
Anecdotal, but the firm where I work seems to be losing a few to visa renewal issues. They don’t seem to be replacing them either.
There for a while when we were hiring, I would only get resumes for foreigners…
Capn Mike on the 16th we will be launching a website called http://www.ustechworkers.com it will focus on H-1B abuses. Please share your story there. I interviewed Craig DiAngelo who was one of the 220 fired by Northeast Utilities. After training their replacements (which took twice as long as planned) the agency that did the hatchet job was fired, and replaced with another Indian based agency which was also fired and now they are working with another agency. I was speaking with a guy in Seattle who told me they would place bets on how much time it would take an H-1B would emerge from the server room to tell them he didn’t know what was wrong . . .I suppose it would be one thing if these H-1Bs were qualified, but they are not. Here is the interview with Craig
Now what about all the sub standard steel products that were produced on the cheap while steel workers in America were told they were overpaid , the retirement and medical benefits cost to much . Remember the powers that be did not lower the taxes needed to fund their benefits and retirement or for government employees . That is until some ass wipes in Washington and state capitals actually got out a calculator and exclaimed HOLY SHIT !
I worked in a heavy industry that was the only place in the country that could machine the Apollo missions heat shields but fuck it some former Soviet block or Chinese bargain price plate would have been fine !
I must admit being a journeyman in multiple trades with decades of experience I got a chuckle when the engineers and IT guys were getting the boot for a Shri lankan with a half price visa fuck toid in hand was filling their places . The real slap in the face was a severence package held over their heads if they don’t train the cheap cheap replacements !
To all who profited from America’s industrial demise and sub standard products flooding our markets , l hope you enjoy it because the time is near your going to fucking choke on it !
Boat – it was the Japanese that hit US steelmakers hard originally. Their steel was, and is, top notch. Their cars were good quality and cheap, and US cars were junk.
US steelworkers were overpaid. Way overpaid. But the biggest problem was that the factories were obsolete. They should have been replaced decades earlier. But guess who would havedone, and did do, all possible to stop that? Why, the steelworkers, of course. That gravy train needed to keep on chugging. And it did. Until it hit the wall.
A perfect example of what a closed environment leads to. High prices. Poor quality. Obsolete plants. Folding factories.
Llpoh if American steel workers were overpaid please tell me how much is to much ? Do you honestly know the pay scale and benefits ? You probably know high end capitalist lies exaggerations and other nonsense blown out of proportion ! If you are correct in your assumptions then School Teachers , Police and Fireman are all overpaid along with every other government employee . It was the industrial union workers tax base that built the school the road the bridge the fire department and all the general infrastructure that made America what it was into the 1970’s . Failure to protect our industry thru poorly constructed trade deals , poor reinvestment strategies designed for a quick quarterly gain rather than a long term gain and benefit eventually hollowed out this nation . The collapse set into motion decades ago has only been avoided massively thanks to debt bubble bust money printing and you are intellegent enough to know that this is true . The Wall Street to K-Street to Capitol Street circle jerk is the real problem not the pay scale of working people or the welfare payments to poor shmucks at the bottom of the barrel .
I still have a great deal of hope our president will succeed in Making America Great Again . He has decades of neglect and dishonest business and finance practices that he himself profited from not to mention the deep state scurrying about like cats covering up shit not to mention the MSM turd flinging monky’s . Remember good experienced trades people can still turn the wrench and grease the gears just not for $15 per hour , that’s not even show up money unless you roll back prices to the summer of 69 !
Boat – steel collapsed because they turned into a heap of shit steel manufacturers. Their plants were old, and inefficient, and their workers were overpaid, and the average steel worker made almost twice the income of the average family during the 1970s. That is too high. When the 1980s recession hit, these factors, combined with foreign competition, hit the steel industry hard. US steel manufacturing is down around a third, but steel workers have dropped about 80%. The bulk of job losses are a result of increased manufacturing efficiency.
The idea that you can protect manufacturing jobs is erroneous. They cannot be protected. They are automated away steadily.
As a result, there is no way that manufacturing industry can be resurrected. It is steadily going out of business.
And world-wide competition is going to increase. The US can slammits doors, put tariffs on, see imports eliminated, as well as exports. This will lead to much the same situation as in the 1970s – poor quality, low productivity, etc., but this time there will be fewer jobs, as automation has already wiped them out. The rest of the world will trundle forward.
Fact is, Americans are overpaid relative to its competition, and are living far beyond its means, financed by untold trillions in debt. That situation cannot continue.
I hope Trump will do something good. But each day I doubt it more. Thinking that manufacturing is a solution is ignorant. That ship sailed a long time ago. The new world is tech, and the US education system is screwing that opportunity up.
There are many other issues, of course, too many to list. But naively thinking that industry vpcan be resurrected is not clear thinking.
So we are destined to turn into, say, Africa?
I think there may be other options.
Not Africa. But think Italy or France. Affluentish, but frugal. But with severe economic inequality, as the economy will reward the top 20 percent, the next 30 will do ok, but the bottom 50 will be SOL.
So how much is too much to pay you, LLPOH?
I guess if you falsify test data , yeah, one might think Jap steel might be better , but you’d be wrong .
Kobe Steel’s Falsified Data Is Another Blow to Japan’s Reputation
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/10/business/kobe-steel-japan.html
BTW . Have you heard #NewAmericans are better than old fashioned Americans too ? I’m sure you agree.
Llpoh your assumptions regarding steelworkers are pure nonsense . You continue to fall into the class warfare designed by government and their supporters . How else does a job as a congressman paying $170K per year turn you into a multimillionaire , bribery and insider trading . You also have some narcisstic belief that everybody but you are overpaid or do not deserve what they earned . You are correct that most industries were turned to outdated rubble but that was due to huge profits and poor reinvestment to modernize . That is not the steelworkers fault just like a shitty education is not always the students fault .
Tell that shit to the 500 steelworkers going back to work in Illinois. I think they might disagree.
http://thehill.com/regulation/international/377155-us-steel-to-restart-illinois-plant-after-trump-tariffs
25 years too late. We’ve lost an entire generation of scientists and engineers, just so worthless shit could overpay themselves for being incompetent and destructive.
It will take a century to crawl out of the hole that ‘free trade’ dug.
Might be quicker than that, AC. This kind of thing could snowball pretty quick. We start pumping our educational money into our best, which would be 180 degree turn from what we’ve done the last 20 years, pumping our money into the least likely to contribute, the turnaround could be remarkable
Star – China graduates more engineers every year than the US has. Every fucking year. There is no turning that around. Big companies can LITERALLY hire THOUSANDS of engineers in a week in China. Let that sink in. And then think how long it would take a company to hire thousands of engineers in the US. How about never ever as a possible answer.
Plus, the best and brightest are already doing just fine in the US. The finest schools in the world are in the US – Harvard et al, MIT, Cal Tech, Stanford, etc. They attract the best already. Maybe we could impact the field of education that is undertaken – more scientists and engineers, for instance.
It is those tiers below that that are the issue. And even if we start educating the middle band well, it will take decades before it can be turned around. There are literally a hundred million or more of working age Americans that are poorly educated. They will have to be filtered out and replaced with educated sorts. That will take a very long time indeed, especially seeing as the school system is fucked from kinder through college already.
” China graduates more engineers every year than the US ”
Of course they do.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pktM__i-8IQ
That would require an entire change into a culture that values education, industriousness, and adherence to common moral and ethical values to make a single people instead of a diverse people.
That is virtually impossible as an entire country, but individual ethnic/social groups might be able to achieve it and rise to the top of the heap as a result.
If Chinese engineering graduates are anything like the Chinese grad student I mentioned earlier, then the quality of their engineering could be all over the map.
By the way, I have worked with some good engineers, weak engineers and absolutely hazardous engineers (GIGO, but they couldn’t see any mistakes in their work) from EVERY race and ethnicity – individuals are just that, in any workplace.
This may help around the fringes, or for average IT types, but it will do nothing at the pointy end. Google, et al, hire every top engineer they can get their hands on. If they cannot bring them to the US, they will set up shop elsewhere. It is easy enough to do. The world is a small place these days with regard to IT.,
The way they test software engineering applicants is they give them algorithms to solve/write. If the applicant can do it, bingo, they move forward. If not, see ya later. Average engineers have no value to them at all (except fot women and minorities to check the boxes, of course.) They need the best, and will not pursue average. Which is why they are paying these kids enormous salaries.
Llpoh, you have no idea what you are talking about. I’ve spent 35 years in IT and can tell you that the quality of these ‘so called’ highly educated engineers is complete and utter BS. IT has had to be dumbed down to accommodate these highly educated morons, what used to take 10 people to do now takes a crew of 50+ along with a slew of ‘project managers’ and process engineers.
And your comment above about top quality steel and cars. You need to do your research. Take a look at the 1970’s era Toyota Carolla’s, all plastic and aluminum and designed to last maybe 8-10 years if you were lucky, complete and utter POS’s that got flattened/totalled every time they were involved in an accident with a solid body US vehicle. The US auto solid block engines were easy to work on and could last 500k miles without a problem, although admittedly the bodies tended to rust to hell if you didn’t take care of ’em. Their steel industry was good because it was new and subsidised by the Japanese government, most of the tech was stolen from the US or given to the Japanese by the US Govco. Japan was, from a industrial epspionage standpoint, exactly like the modern day China.
US workers have been maligned and sold-out by their companies and their government for decades now. Not saying that some industries didn’t need shaking up (any unionized industry comes to mind), but to say that US workers and products were and are sub-par is wrong.
Gilnut – I have spent my life in manufacturing. I have run plants all over the world, both large and small, private and multinational. I indeed know what I am talking about. US cars of the 1970s and 1980s were total pieces of crap, and allowed the Japanese, who were producing far better quality cars, to take a grip on sales. Japanese, guided by Deming, virtually invented quality systems. Those solid body US cars were death traps. You are totally clueless.
Re IT, if you think that Google, FB,etc., are hiring morons, you are out of your mind. You are full of sour grapes. Bet your 35 years have not been successful.
Re maligning US workers – I said they were overpaid. But fact is, middle class US workers are low-skilled AND poorly educated AND overpaid, by and large but not universally. I own a business, and have run businesses for a long time, and know of what I speak.
Re Steel – if all that knowledge was available in the US, why did the steelmakers not use it, instead of letting their factories rot? Because that is what they did. If they had remained cutting edge, they would have been fine. Instead they were bloated, poorly equipped, and with a high-priced workforce, and got bent over hard as a result.
Over paid in relation to what standard of equitable pay?
My career in IT has been exclusively in Fortune 100 companies, and the last 15 years has been in several Fortune 50 companies. Ad-hominem attacks reveal more about the attacker than those attacked.
Quality of US products had to be “dumbed down” to match those being imported from those “plants all over the world” you ran. US cars had to be “softened” as to not kill people in the tin/plastic imports. Farm ‘beater’ vehicles that had no further ‘roadworthy’ use on the road were exclusively US made, I never saw a riceburner ‘wood truck’ or ad-hoc ‘tractor’, they were Chevy’s and Fords.
Household appliances that would last for generations had to be cheapened down to compete with the plastic POS being imported. Look up ‘vintage’ applicances and find something that’s not US made, you’ll have a hard time finding those vintage plastic POS’s but you’ll find plenty of old GE’s and Maytags.
Finally, the decline of the US worker was exclusively caused by affirmative action BS. Once integration in our schools began and standards were lowered to accommodate lower intelligence the lower quality workers was baked into the pie.
Seriously, Gilnut, you do not know what the fuck you are talking about. I live on farmland. The local farm beaters are all Japanese. Toyotas, Subarus, etc.
The US cars were not softened because of the smaller imports. They were softened because those monstrosities were edath traps. They had no crumple zones. Crumple zones save lives. The softer cars proved much safer. Do a bit of research instead of spouting bullshit.
Take a look at these stats. They show that between 1960 and 1970, deaths per 100 million miles began to rise. Then guess what happened in 1967? And deaths per 100 million miles plummeted thereafter. Coincidence? Hardly.
Blows your ignorant bullshit out of the water.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year
Ad hominem attack? You started it. I have not even love tapped you yet. I smell dumbshit all over you. You have no clue, and are inventing shit. Give it up.
You are a clueless dolt. Go back to sweeping up – I do not believe for a minute you have had any success. Sccessful people have more sense than you are showing.
On September 9, 1966, the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act became law in the U.S.
Effective in 1966, US-market passenger cars were required to be equipped with padded instrument panels, front and rear outboard lap belts, and white reverse (backup) lamps.
In 1966, the U.S. established the United States Department of Transportation (DOT) with automobile safety as one of its purposes.
In 1967, equipment specifications by major fleet purchasers:
1. Elimination of protruding knobs and controls in passenger compartment
2. Additional padding on the instrument panel and other interior surfaces
3. Mounting points for front outboard shoulder belts
4. Four-way hazard flashers
5. A uniform P-R-N-D-L gear sequence for automatic transmission gear selectors
6. Dual-circuit brake hydraulic systems
But yes, auto safety was entirely about imported riceburners. I bow to your awesome intellectual echo chamber.
There is no doubt America screwed the pooch at many levels for decades . I worked and went to school and was trained well not just in the mechanical electrical field but also in the work ethic field . The work ethic of producing and actually taking responsibility and accountability was what has been lacking from Mahogeny Row of the CEO’s to the line worker . Once dissent infects a company it is doomed to fail . I have witnessed this thru my work experience . As a sub contractor my small company of good cross trained people would be called in to get projects done . Many times the managers attempted to hire one or all of us away . We knew better , we were called in because the manfacture or US importer of the brand of boat had already lost all faith in the dealership we were sent to and in a year or to they were gone . Many of these businesses had good people doing the dirty work and the grandson the nephew and their wives and girlfriends all drawing salaries and company vehicles from the business but no raise for the crew . The productivity and cooperation of the staff went to shit and Grand Ma couldn’t believe the business her late husband who was so successful at was failing so poorly and so fast !
Boat – nice comment. Much truth and insight there. The decay began long ago, and it infected all levels.
The top levels are inhabited by short-sight types that get paid for today, and with no thought to tomorrow. Middle levels are inhabited by those who have little interest in other than keeping their jobs, and with no thought to actual performing.
Lower levels are the bastion of low skills, low ambition, sense of entitlement types that find it challenging to get up and go to work.
This screwing has been a long time in the making.
Re steel companies – the fault lies with the management. They allowed it to happen. They believed they had no competition. They did not need new plants. They could afgord to bend over for the unions. But when it hit, it was all such a surprise. The reality is that the vast hulk of the jobs could not be saved, as automation was going to take them, but they could have held onto the production. Instead of an 80% employment reduction, maybe it could have been only 50 per 60%. But it will keep falling as robots take the manufacturing jobs.
“The top levels are inhabited by short-sight types that get paid for today, and with no thought to tomorrow. Middle levels are inhabited by those who have little interest in other than keeping their jobs, and with no thought to actual performing.
Lower levels are the bastion of low skills, low ambition, sense of entitlement types that find it challenging to get up and go to work.” That’s a pretty concise little synopsis right there. Changing that is the challenge.
“Lower levels are the bastion of low skills, low ambition, sense of entitlement types that find it challenging to get up and go to work.”
That is one of the most asshole comments you have ever made on TBP. I have run across many people you speak of and they are far better people, I’d bet, than the ones in the other levels. To denigrate a class of people is, what I thought, even below you.
Most business men are S//t we let Japan cars in the country with small import tax the steal plants shut down because they could buy over seas ship here much cheaper then making here same old deal if i can make it for a dollar why do I want to pay you 2 dollars Ameria was given away very cheap for cents on the dollar and it’s not coming back Trump may try the deep state will kill him first
Agree completely star. The media hypes all this nonsense about China graduating all of these geniuses….nonsense. There are plenty of very smart, industrious people in this country. They are literally just suppressed. I know of two kids at my daughters high school, that are scary smart, I am talking they can just look at a concept and be able to work with or modify it with little trouble. Do you think that they will be able to get an engineering degree – probably not. Why? Because we make it so goddamn hard, and expensive to do so today. They are white, so basically no scholarship available, and without wealthy parents, how are they going to get the all important (in American HR departments) “degree” to get that engineering job. Their only hope is to create their own business – oh wait, we have stifled that too. I mean, you would not want to create a competitor with a better product that may dislodge an entrenched political donor….
Would it surprise you that a large majority of the major, world changing inventions from 20th century America were invented by people that not only did not go to college, but in some cases did not even finish high school? Brilliance comes from within. It cannot be created by a “degree”. We will begin coming out of our funk as a country, when we get these asshats out of HR Departments making decisions about who to hire, and start bringing it back to people that actually run the business and have the skin in the game to make the product the customer wants.
BTW, just so you know, I am a college graduate, and have run (and sold) several businesses, so I DO know the deal.
If they are so smart, they can get into an Ivy, Stanford, MIT, and will not need wealthy parents to get educated. If they cannot get into such a school, then they are not that smart. The air at the top is thin.
You folks maligning the Chinese have not been watching. You see them building islands out of nothing, for instance? You notice how they have grown their mfg base? Belittling China as backwards is moronic. They are catching up fast. Get used to it.
Underestimate your competition at your peril. China is kicking ass and taking names, and you folks think that USA USA is winning? The US is getting its ass kicked. Tariffs ain’t gonna cut it. Hard work, education, competing is the only hope. But that will be too hard.
https://www.computerworld.com/article/3182792/it-industry/5-reasons-why-china-will-rule-tech-2017-edition.html
https://www.techworld.com/picture-gallery/data/examples-of-high-tech-innovation-in-china-3641347/
http://fortune.com/2017/11/21/china-innovation-dji/
So let’s stop financing them. That’ll slow them down.
Star – they do not need our financing so much anymore. We need theirs. You see. The US lives on borrowed money..
When it can no longer borrow, guess what happens? Rates go up. Rates go up and the US goes broke in a hurry.
And China kicking our ass has nothing to do with out government, right? No, it’s all the useless workers, right. No, a bloated public employee swamp and regulations etc. But, nope, it’s all the worthless employees, right?
The Chinese are really quite smart, they’re just not very innovative.
That’s why they seem to develop very little of their own origin and counterfeit, copy, and otherwise pilfer from the Western countries even when developing something that is their own application of existing technology.
Even those Chinese SKS and AK rifles they use were originally developed by Russia, not to mention the rest of their “homegrown” military hardware and ordnance.
I would disagree with your contention that it’s HR that is blocking the progress of talented, yet un-degreed, technical employees.
I have worked in 15 different Fortune-500 HR departments during my career and as the primary job evaluator in most of those jobs, I have always pushed that “or equivalent experience” qualifier for a degree requirement, but typically, it is the department Director or VP that won’t even consider candidates that don’t have that piece of sheepskin.
My first corporate job was with Carpenter Technology Corp, which is a specialty metals engineering/mfg company in PA, which spent a good chunk of their production capacity also making stainless steel. They continue to be a successful U.S. steel company that has been NON-UNION since its founding in 1902, which has proven to be a significant competitive advantage (customers don’t need to worry about union contract negotiation f-ing with their supply chain). They did it by paying the floor workers about 25% higher than the competition and having a staff of 5 Employee Relations (HR) roles who did nothing but listen to them bitch about one thing after another. If a company LISTENS and FOLLOWS THROUGH with addressing legitimate concerns, no union is necessary.
They also promoted floor workers to Metallurgical Engineers without the degree because you can learn how metals behave if you have 20 years of working with them.
That sounds like a great company.
WIP, a good college education used to be your ticket in the door, nothing more. In other words, you started as a lieutenant. The harder and more rigorous way to advance was working your way up from the (enlisted) ranks. But talent always shines through. Always. The advent of public sector unions turned a college degree into a cradle-to-grave nipple all your own, no further effort required. The number of people I’ve met over the years that think they’re something because they got a master’s degree in something dumb, and yet they don’t have a brain in their head would boggle your mind
star – a high percentage of college degrees these days do not include a good college education. That is a real problem. A degree in philosophy is not indicative of a good education.
Yeah, but try to tell that to somebody who has one of those dumb degrees. They think the Red Sea should part for them. Those days are almost over, for sure. And I always love the question, what are we going to do with them?
Yeah, I wasn’t being sarcastic. I think America could use expansion of what is considered a trade vs a degree. Less broad training, more focus. Get people employable and the cream can go further on from there. Education costs are cray cray and kids, whose brains aren’t fully formed yet, are being lied to. How many useless classes are these kids required to take anyway?
2 reasons for unionized work force protection .
Either the people are no good with poor work ethics or the company is no good and sees good people as a liability rather than an asset .
not really related but here’s a short article from cnsnews.com
male hs dropouts in 1973 had a higher wage than female college grads today–
https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/male-hs-dropouts-earned-more-1973-female-college-grads-2016?mkt_tok=eyJpIjoiWVdaa01tUmtZVGxqTjJaaCIsInQiOiJ2ZktBekVneExJSW1Tc1Z0OE1pZG12M2RZcjdvc1F1blJHT09velFjUlZlbldOODBpVlU0QVFOVWgxaGNKSVExNFZsM05PUDhWR3AwK0s5aGxjUmZKTTFSREYwK2c0aGhIclwvRlwvSGF3WXhtNVRlRHd5dDJMQmNGME1wVmR0TU9rIn0%3D
Tampa – yup, it was great to live in a country that had no competion out there in the world. Those days are over.
America has great young people , many graduating with degrees that should place them on a Work track in life to the traditional American dream . The trouble is the industry that would employ them is long gone and the government has indebted them with loans sold as a solid path to success . What it really was , a secure path to indentured servitude designed and implemented by the circle jerk that is Wall Street to K-Street to Capitol Street
This was no accident or unfortunate chain of events . The icing on the cake is the IRS is the collection agency for those student loans . If that is not a red flag , fuck it I give up ! It’s bourbon time !
here’s what llpoh is talking about when he talks about automation–this is low tech but it’s coming to every industry–
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/watch-burger-flipping-robot-get-work-ncna854536
Tampa – that is what is coming. There are virtually no mfg jobs that cannot be automated. Mfg has long been about division of labor, going back to Ford and the assembly line. Mfg businesses try to divide jobs down to small components. One person putting one screw in, over and over, is the most efficient use of labor. And guess what? Robots are really good at repetitive work. And they are getting better at non-repetitive work by leaps and bounds, which is the next step forward. Think bricklaying, carpentry, self-driving cars, etc. Those are the next frontiers, and it is coming faster than people can generally imagine.
unfortunately i have to agree—
during the fall ’16 election i posted an article here when trump was talking about bringing jobs back here–
wolf richter had an article about an industrial plant somewhere in the midwest that employed 600 people but was closed because of foreign competition–
it was re tooled and opened back up w/under 20 people doing the same amt of production–
i do not have the answers other than destroy the other guys’ industrial capacity–
Well, I have an answer. Stop making the cost of living so goddamn high for American workers and businesses. The REASON the globalists (at least the ones motivated by greed, not politics) began moving labor to other countries in the first place is because wages in this country HAD to keep going up to keep up with taxes, government deficits, local government regulations, money printing inflation etc. America will always be more expensive than other shithole countries because we like a clean environment, clean / safe working conditions and don’t steal peoples land to build factories, but OUR OWN government contributes A LOT of fat to the reason why an American worker is so noncompetitive with a foreign shithole worker. Remember, if a worker is able to KEEP more of their paycheck, and an employer is able to KEEP more of their profits, and you reign in trade deficits, it is not nearly as attractive to send your work overseas. If nothing else, because you can control your product much better. And, that is something well within OUR control to do. Also, start firing (not reelecting) this idiot politicians that keep pushing nonsense. Automation did not hit mainstream fast food until the idiot social justice warriors got the idiot pols to ram through ridiculous minimum wage increases, and at the same time, those same idiot pols were allowing the fed to keep jacking up inflation by running trillion dollar deficits. That kind of thinking is the reason why we fail compared to China, NOT because our workers are less talented.
Very good points. Most people commenting on this post only focus on one point. SMH.
the forbes annual list of billionaires just came out and a local internet paper did a story about the floridians on the list–
it’s striking to me that these people became so wealthy in what are basically non essential businesses–
https://patch.com/florida/carrollwood/s/gdd51/51-florida-billionaires-make-forbes-2018-list?utm_source=alert-breakingnews&utm_medium=email&utm_term=weather&utm_campaign=alert
To the 500 steel workers returning to work in Illinois bravo good for them . It is not even a drop in the bucket though . This nation has 94 MILLON idle or grossly under employed working class individuals . The steel plant in Baltimore employed 28,000 people and 3,500 in its shipyard . I realize those numbers would shave down due to higher tech modernization but let’s take a shot at being realistic . In a nation of 330 MILLON people with 94 MILLON idle 500 is little significance . That does not produce a tax base that modernizes a water or waste treatment public service . This is window dressing at best like the carrier air conditioning plant jobs . The carrier people played the game got the headlines and 90 days later , SWOOSH the Ross Perot giant sucking sound . Destination south of the border !