The most common shibboleth, bordering on Goebbels' "big lie", is that education is the key to the United States economic future.
The fact is that we already do more education than we need to do. We graduate more people from college who end up "flipping burgers" than any other nation.
No amount of training or education will convert a person of ordinary ability into a "high earner". The bottom 2/3 of the "ability" curve has to be productively employed.
If education won't do it, what will?
Capital investment in factories that produce products with high "added value" are the real hope of America. What can enable a high school graduate with an IQ of 100 to add as much value to society as a dentist? Two to three million dollars worth of capital goods that can be used by said high school graduate to produce products. It does not matter whether the products are particularily innovative. Most economic activity is centered around established goods.
We still lead the world in innovation. But money is not made by creating innovative products but by manufacturing them. The percent profit on a factory is a very small percent of the societal economic benefit of a factory. Right now, China gets 90 to 95% of the economic benefit of factories that produce various products. Meanwhile US society is decaying due to lack of jobs.
Allowing our capital and industrial base to migrate to foreign societies is stupid. Stockholders who think they are getting value from executives who outsource are stupid because they CANNOT really "own" anything outside the soverign boundaries of the US.
If outsourcing were good where are the "big profits"? S&P flat for a decade!!!
-- Edited by BigG on Sunday 30th of January 2011 06:56:37 AM
-- Edited by BigG on Sunday 30th of January 2011 07:01:11 AM
