Our nation lacks a sufficient pool of qualified labor.

[My particular interest is trade deficits' detriment to the purchasing powers of nation's median wage and their numbers of jobs is due to my confidence that a solution has been found but we have no intention of enacting it.
[Refer to
http://conservativepoliticalforum.com/financial/trade-deficits-are-always-detrimental-to-their-nations-gdps/
and
http://conservativepoliticalforum.com/financial/reduce-the-trade-deficit-increase-gdp-median-wage/ ].

I believe that our "weak bench" of persons qualified to do the jobs that remain unfilled is a greater (than our annual trade deficits) drag upon our economy.

I not written of this topic because I have not encountered any proposal that would substantially improve, (if not to a great extent solve) this problem.

I suppose that it's not a single "magic bullet" solution enacted by a single or multi-entities working in concert. but requires many differing attacks and bites into the differing facets of the problem.  Additionally requiring some degree of co-operation between government, private enterprises and organized labor.

[I realize that the mention of organized labor is completely unacceptable to the vast majority of this group's membership.  Those members cannot accept that the evil harm due to employers activities have been certainly no less than those of organized labor].

Among the many forum groups I participate in is one named "PoliticalHotwire".  This is a transcript of a post
I encountered this post written by Galatin within the PoliticalHotwire internet group's economic forum board.  He doesn't offer a specific and explicit solution but he does describe other nations' more superior efforts to address this problem.

Respectfully, Supposn
///////////////////////
"Europe tries to train people even in blue-collar jobs when they are still teen-ager for example through apprenticeship...... there you have schools and structures which enable young people to get technical skills which fill the vacuum between labourer and engineers.

One example I can give is in the dental field. I am member of the board of a Swiss company specialized in the dental field. We have 2 different markets the US and Canada. In the US we have a hard time selling high level products because there is no school training dental technicians in sophisticated prothetic devices and it is a very small market because our customers are mainly dental technicians from Europe having settled in the USA.
On the contrary Canada is a good market because you have schools where students are trained to use the type of products usual in Europe. In the US oral surgeons offer services which in Europe are offered by dental labs and since dentist are not craftsmen they offer more simple devices or solutions.
It is perhaps a spot but it demonstrates how important it is to have trained people if you want to offer high quality products or services. Furthermore if you want to stay ahead of the ordinary services anyone can provide you need to be able to offer more sophisticated products or services.

Quote from: Supposn on January 13, 2014, 08:44:00 PM


I believe that our "weak bench" of persons qualified to do the jobs that remain unfilled is a greater (than our annual trade deficits) drag upon our economy.

What planet are you living on?

There are plenty of qualified people, the problem is the Marxist in the WH is doing everything possible to stifle growth!

Supposn, what in the hell are you talking about?

Of the many problems with our educational system, one of the very biggest is the way we do not match the resources we spend with the needs of our economy.

We devote all this money to letting all these people get fluffy liberal arts degrees like Art History and Sociology for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars they will never be able to pay back and that will not prepare them for any of the jobs needed in our 21st century economy.

Not only do we need to fofus more resources on more technical degrees like Engineering and computer science, we also need to focus more money on trades and technical schools. Look at the German model? Their apprentice systems competes with their top universities for the best and brightest because they can compete both in terms of prestige and lucerative jobs. And that is the backbone of their export driven economy.

Quote from: taxed on January 13, 2014, 09:12:36 PM
Supposn, what in the hell are you talking about?

Something tells me, he doesn't see Obozo as a hindrance to the economy, because he thinks Keynes was right.

Quote from: Dan on January 13, 2014, 09:51:01 PM
Of the many problems with our educational system, one of the very biggest is the way we do not match the resources we spend with the needs of our economy.

We devote all this money to letting all these people get fluffy liberal arts degrees like Art History and Sociology for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars they will never be able to pay back and that will not prepare them for any of the jobs needed in our 21st century economy.

Not only do we need to fofus more resources on more technical degrees like Engineering and computer science, we also need to focus more money on trades and technical schools. Look at the German model? Their apprentice systems competes with their top universities for the best and brightest because they can compete both in terms of prestige and lucerative jobs. And that is the backbone of their export driven economy.

Dan, we're often in contention upon the issues of my posts; but not this time.
You may wish to re-evaluate your position because we share the same opinion.

You've described part of the problem and I believe what's part of the remedy.

Respectfully, Supposn

Quote from: Solar on January 13, 2014, 09:03:49 PM
What planet are you living on?

There are plenty of qualified people, the problem is the Marxist in the WH is doing everything possible to stifle growth!

Solar, to a hammer, everything is a nail.

To you, anything and anyone you disagree with is left wing, or socialist, or communist, or possibly immoral.  You consider ever shadow, breeze of air upon the grass, and the contents of every closet as a definite left wing threat.

Respectfully, Supposn

Quote from: Supposn on January 14, 2014, 08:05:21 AM
Solar, to a hammer, everything is a nail.

To you, anything and anyone you disagree with is left wing, or socialist, or communist, or possibly immoral.  You consider ever shadow, breeze of air upon the grass, and the contents of every closet as a definite left wing threat.

Respectfully, Supposn

And just like a leftist, you completely ignore my post and attack on a personal basis.
Try explaining how we don't have qualified people, especially when considering, we are the go to country for education of the worlds best and brightest.

Supposn seems to be dancing around the edge of the government deciding that individuals should enter training/educational programs based on the government's criteria as to their ability. Of course, that is totally unacceptable. I do think we should go back to offering some vocational training in high schools for those students who do not have the desire and/or resources to go to college. I believe our current education system is misleading people into thinking everybody is qualified for college and not to go for higher education is a stigma. Then, the  people who go onto college are being mislead into thinking they need a liberal arts degree that actually does not train them for anything that helps the overall economy and their well being. This another reason the federal government has no business involved with local schools. The people in each community knows best what educational needs are for their own locality. A perfect example is my community where Sierra Nevada is building their eastern brewery in my county and they are working with the local community college on courses that will prepare local folks for the job needs of the brewery.

Quote from: supsalemgr on January 14, 2014, 10:15:32 AM
Supposn seems to be dancing around the edge of the government deciding that individuals should enter training/educational programs based on the government's criteria as to their ability. Of course, that is totally unacceptable. I do think we should go back to offering some vocational training in high schools for those students who do not have the desire and/or resources to go to college. I believe our current education system is misleading people into thinking everybody is qualified for college and not to go for higher education is a stigma. Then, the  people who go onto college are being mislead into thinking they need a liberal arts degree that actually does not train them for anything that helps the overall economy and their well being. This another reason the federal government has no business involved with local schools. The people in each community knows best what educational needs are for their own locality. A perfect example is my community where Sierra Nevada is building their eastern brewery in my county and they are working with the local community college on courses that will prepare local folks for the job needs of the brewery.

As you can see college did not help Supposn, it was a waste of time and money. 

[quote autho

Quote from: Dan on January 13, 2014, 09:51:01 PM
Of the many problems with our educational system, one of the very biggest is the way we do not match the resources we spend with the needs of our economy.

We devote all this money to letting all these people get fluffy liberal arts degrees like Art History and Sociology for tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars they will never be able to pay back and that will not prepare them for any of the jobs needed in our 21st century economy.

Not only do we need to fofus more resources on more technical degrees like Engineering and computer science, we also need to focus more money on trades and technical schools. Look at the German model? Their apprentice systems competes with their top universities for the best and brightest because they can compete both in terms of prestige and lucerative jobs. And that is the backbone of their export driven economy.

I tend to agree with Dan and Supposn.  Not all students qualify for college, nor do they have the desire to go.  We really need to focus -- our administration needs to focus I should say on more vocational and technical schools which would provide grants or loans, same as colleges.  It seems that Obama voted against a bill from Congress which would have provided more money to this end.  My grandson is taking an engineering major when he goes to college.  His teachers assured him that there is a shortage of qualified engineers and he would have no trouble at all finding a job.  Some skilled workers in sheet metal fabrication, mechanical design, graphic design, etc are also badly needed.   

It seems to me that Obama only wants to throw money at liberals to "fix" the economy.  It seems wiser to re-educate or retrain those long-term unemployed and stipulate that once trained, if they are offered a good job in their chosen field and if they refuse such job, no more unemployment benefits.  Does this sound reasonable to anyone else??   I think many of these unemployed are so used to taking free money, they have become soft and certainly not motivated to work.   Duh, who would ever think that!!!!!!!

We do not need to spend 80K per pop to keep churning out more sociology, art history, gender studies and french literature majors. Ditto for lawyers. We already have more than enough people in these labor categories.

First, lets stop giving free and easy money for people to get degrees that are effectively useless to the economy. If someone wants to take 4-5 years and 100K to find themselves or broaden their horizons or whatever other euphamism makes them feel good about being a slacker then they can do it on their own dime. Don't ask the taxpayers to underwrite it. Then, and only then, can we talk about sensible taxpayer support for educating our workforce in jobs that will actually drive a strong economy.