We’re Not Number 1!
The 10 Most Educated Countries in the World
Turns out, the military and corps don’t want highly skilled workers.
Tags: Erosion, science and technology
-
“Turns out, the military and corps don’t want highly skilled workers.”
Many of the more enlightened pundits have noted that our employment problem has nothing at all to do with having “prepared” or “educated” workers. We’re in trouble largely because we no longer earn enough to consume as much, and what IS consumed is likely to be made in China or Vietnam.
Yet – what has been a cornerstone of neoliberal policies as outlined by the likes of third way dems such as Bubba and Obubba? Reeducation of workers!
What is ignored is that in a market economy where jobs are at a premium (MUCH more demand than supply), having better prepared workers merely means that at one point you might have to have an MBA to flib burgers at the McLounge.
But it sounds so progressive! “We need to prepare our workers to be able to compete in the future!”.
In reality, we need to pay corporations with public funds in order to give THEM a handout, as other corporations lick their chops at the idea of paying someone with an advanced degree something around minimum wage.
They play us like the fools we are.
-
Well. A good number of folks — such as yourself — say that dysfunction in our government persists largely because of the ignorance of the public. If some of the powers that be really would prefer us not very educated — what’s more likely to make for a successful political campaign for more education — “we need to prepare our workers to be able to compete in the future” — or “everyone should be well educated so we can overthrow the current government?”
I didn’t assume anything about Tim’s post — and certainly not anything about his overall takeaways from the article.
He might have meant more sarcasm than the title — perhaps if the powers that be really believe the rate and rank of education is directly tied to the economic wealth of our country — then why won’t the powers that be invest more in educating America?
As I’ve said before — you’re unlikely to get anybody to support something for reasons that satisfy you. Who cares about satisfying you? You have to make your case to people in such ways that satisfy them.
And BTW — yes — reeducation of workers is a legitimate progressive cause. If you want to decrease oil production in favor of cleaner energy — those former oil workers just might need some training for those new jobs. If we were to have the big government jobs program you’d like to see — of what use would it be to people who don’t know how to do the jobs? If congress passed a big jobs program and much of the allotted funds were unclaimed for lack of trained workers in many areas — then you’d say they did it on purpose — passed empty legislation just to trick us and get our votes.
Perhaps instead of always looking for how something is a bad thing you might take some extra time to consider ways in which it could be a good thing.
-
“I didn’t assume anything about Tim’s post”
I was mostly just being snarky towards the wing-nut “exceptionalism” meme.
You make an excellent point, though, that I’d like to think underlies my particular disgust with the meme. It’s sort of a two-part thing.
1) If we’re so “exceptional”, how come we can’t afford to fix broken shit. Like our bridges?
2) If we’re so exceptional how come Ph.D. and engineering students come here to get an education, then return home to China and India? (I’m not complaining about them coming here, I’m asking why they don’t stay if this is such a great place to live, and I think the answer is they’ll have much more status and money, given the local cost of living, if they go back home. We don’t respect education here, any more, and the internet has allowed “eggheads” to be outsourced, too. Corps have figured out they can pay 3 American-university educated Ph.D.s in India or China what it costs them to pay 1 in America, and they live just fine on the salary because the cost of living is so much lower there.)
So, the competition isn’t just on the back end, after you get your degree. It’s on the front end, getting into the “good” (and crowded) schools, too.
But heaven forbid we help poor kids to compete to get into those schools because (*gasp*) that’d be SOCIALISM!
There’s a point I want to make about how governments aren’t corps, and vice versa, but I think it’d take me about 35 paragraphs and I’ve been writing all day. The punch line, in part, is “that’s why we don’t need a ‘successful executive’ like Romneybot in charge of our government”, but there’s more to it than that. Corps motivation? Profit. A government’s motivation? I suppose we could argue about that, but a simple way to say it is “do collectively what individuals can’t do themselves”. (*gasp* SOCIALISM!) Like fixing broken shit, like our bridges.
One thing I’m REAL sure Alvy and I agree on is that “austerity” is the absolute worst thing we can do, right now. Nothing will send the economy into the crapper faster.
I got really off-topic, here. I’m tired and lost focus. That’s my excuse. So I’m gonna post it.
I think my point was, we might need to “re-educate” some people to, oh, I don’t know, fix broken shit? Like bridges? But we’re not willing to pay for anything any more. This “exceptional” country won’t even pay enough in taxes that we don’t leave our kids a broken country. That’s not the fault of the Democrats OR the Republicans. It’s the fault of a fat, lazy, stupid populace that equates paying taxes with “other people are getting my money”. The whole country seems to be too stupid to realize what “the common good” means (beyond “It’s SOCIALISM!!!”).
I’d say “the common good” includes not being in huge traffic snarls every morning because the road is clogged with the dead bodies of people who died of hunger or treatable diseases, or because that bridge finally gave out, too.
America is no longer exceptional. Some days I think it’s become the home of fat, lazy, greedy people without empathy.
I mean, I’m not rich, but if I met a guy who hadn’t eaten for 3 days I’d buy him a fucking sandwich ferchrissakes.
-
Well, if you want “exceptionalism”, there’s a long list ranging from being the devoloped country with the worst GINI index, with the highest infant mortality, etc, etc etc.
I harp quite a bit on neoliberal economics. I find the “Road to Serfdom” to be one of the most manipulative and mendacious books ever written inasmuch as it pretends to tell us that socialism leads to tyranny. What neoliberalism offers is laissez faire capitalism, and its market-driven approach is far more likely to lead us to serfdom than any putative tyranny.
The middle class, for example, cannot survive a neoliberal system, which tends towards a few haves and a helluva lot of have-nots (those serf/workers that need to be retooled in order to keep from starving).
-
-
Yes, the ignorance – or the outright indoctrination – of our public is a bane on our democracy. And education would go a long way towards remedying this problem.
I too didn’t “assume” anything about Timbuk’s post. he posted a blurb and I made a tangent comment on it, using it as a springboard.
However, both parties have talked about “retooling the workforce”, which is not tantamount to sending more people to college. It is indeed a piece of neoliberal dogma that relies on the “well-sounding message”, while misleading the electorate.
We do not have a dearth of prepared workers, we have a dearth of jobs for prepared workers.
“And BTW — yes — reeducation of workers is a legitimate progressive cause. If you want to decrease oil production in favor of cleaner energy — those former oil workers just might need some training for those new jobs”
Is there a dearth of workers capable of working in clean energy?
Industries are not created because there are people capable of working in them. Create the industries and the workers will follow. Train them when they have jobs available, but certainly don’t train them in order to be better qualified unemployed persons. That just stacks the deck in favour of industry and against the employees.
“Perhaps instead of always looking for how something is a bad thing you might take some extra time to consider ways in which it could be a good thing.”
I try to make a very clear distinction between means and ends. When the ends are -possibly- good, and the means are not, I find it hard to see such things as “good” – especially when there are tried-and-true alternatives.
————
As for “retooling workers”, the Spanish unemployment agency gives thousands of courses with the hope of making the unemployed more attractive. I’ve worked for/with companies that provide such training, and they make a bundle.
The courses are largely useless, of course. Companies prefer to hire people with experience or trained/schooled by more prestigious institutions. So Spain has plenty of “retooled unemployed” and a few chosen companies make a bundle at the taxpayers’ expense.
-
-
-
You want lack of empathy? Check out Santorum:
-
From the link:
“People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad,” Santorum said, “but paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with – it keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it.”
The mother said the boy was on the drug Abilify, used to treat schizophrenia, and that, on paper, its costs would exceed $1 million each year.
I did the math.
So the message is, “Don’t buy an iPad. Buy 8 hours of life.”?
Meanwhile, Romneybot and Boehner don’t care about people losing their homes.
I used to think the GOP didn’t care about the poor and the middle class. Now, I see them as active participants in transferring ALL middle class “wealth” … our homes, our savings, our retirement funds … to the wealthiest few.
-
-
NO CHILD LEFT AHEAD!!
BTW, I am not coming here much these days. I just have not found inclination and time for it,… with the son at home, a amazing new dog who demands I throw the ball so he can run and fetch, then pee and poop, and walks with the dog and gardening in the passive solar area (YAY!) and work, far-off funerals (i am very tired of going to funerals) and going to see mom 6 hours away with gas prices like they are, and ….
Love this forum. Love the people here. Feeling pretty good these days. I am still alive.
-
“I am not coming here much these days.”
That’s cool. We all get busy. Even me.
C’mon back any time.
-
-
We’re doomed if this the new citizens of Amerika. Stolen from huffpost.
-
I’d like to see a similar video, but instead of teemagers with minds addled by raging hormones, ask Teabaggers and OWS people, then compare scores.
-
-
Tocqueville on American Exceptionalism:
“The position of the Americans is therefore quite exceptional, and it may be believed that no democratic people will ever be placed in a similar one. Their strictly Puritanical origin, their exclusively commercial habits, even the country they inhabit, which seems to divert their minds from the pursuit of science, literature, and the arts, the proximity of Europe, which allows them to neglect these pursuits without relapsing into barbarism, a thousand special causes, of which I have only been able to point out the most important, have singularly concurred to fix the mind of the American upon purely practical objects. His passions, his wants, his education, and everything about him seem to unite in drawing the native of the United States earthward; his religion alone bids him turn, from time to time, a transient and distracted glance to heaven. Let us cease, then, to view all democratic nations under the example of the American people”
Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
12 comments
Comments feed for this article
Trackback link: http://www.timbuk3.com/discuss/wp-trackback.php?p=7489