It seems we are outsourcing too many skilled and unskilled jobs.?

Question

What can we do to create and sustain jobs reguiring skilled and unskilled jobs,job training and turn our economy from a service-oriented economy to a manufacturing thriving economy?

OPM I think I would challenge your statement that education is the predeterminant to a better income exclusively. Also I believe the larger majority of families cannot afford alternative schools therefor widening the gap between the rich and the poor and further eroding the middle class, the backbone of the economy.

Answer 1

Well I live in Michigan - and I see this every day.

Governor Granholm does nothing for us she neglects to do the obvious things that bring jobs, meeting with factory reps while in foreign lands.

She has lost more jobs in the last 4 years than she has brought in. And I mean she looses 100 jobs per month and only gives a hundred jobs to people.

I think her leadership skills are not there at all, she has no idea what she is doing and the state is falling apart at the seams.
She always said there is a plan - but when will it begin? She says that people will be blown away -
by what the lack of work??

There are hundreds of empty buildings that can be used for manufacturing - hotels - or whatever.

I believe that if we get rid of the people such a Granholm there will be a better life for all not just the people with a degree.
Every day I hear that an imigrant is doing jobs that Americans wont do, well I DISAGREE I believe that if given the chance many Americans wold do these jobs, but when your not given a chance how can you??

Job training is a joke, she tried that - there is no work why be trained in it?

Small shops are being shut down by WALMART and the like, nobody ever sees that - most of Walmart's merchandise is made in china but was once made here.

I employ 4 peopl e full time at my shop, and I will do nothing Granholm requests, her tax did me nothing but cost more money - it was supposed to help make things better but now I have to pay more out to the state.

I make more than she does in a year, but I have to work my *** off to get where I did, she is not taking that from me.

Answer 2

As an economist there are only two things. The first and single most important is education. Education is the primary determinant of earned wealth. I would recommend switching to a voucher system to force teachers to have to be competitive to get paid. If parents could pay an alternate school, bad teachers would find themselves in a classroom with no students. They wouldn't be fired, they would be unpaid.

Second, get government out of the business of building business. End "economic development," as it is called. Governments fight one another for the few extra jobs out there at a cost higher than the jobs. Reduce regulation and make harsh competition more common.

You do not want to go back to manufacturing. It does not need people, just like agriculture no longer needs people. I have a friend who automates factories. Except where pre-existing unions exist, there is no need for a workforce of any size anymore. As an example, in one factory he is building, the entire process could be automated, not even a person needs to be there to turn on the switch. However, there is a mean time to equipment failure of 18 months. He needs people there to fix the equipment. The problem is people begin engaging in bad behaviors if they have nothing to do. So he creates what amounts to fake work, so he can keep what is in reality a maintenance staff, but they do work that would otherwise be automated. From a production perspective, they are not necessary.

His only factory he found he couldn't automate was a bucket handle facility. It turns out that cheap labor is a better mechanism to put handles on buckets than machines.