[Logophile]

THe greed merchants outsource all our jobs to Mexico, India, Malaysia, the Phillipines, and every other third-world squat hole, then complain that our workforce is uneducated, disloyal, and incompetent. I know if I was a high school kid, I'd be rushing into debt so I could train only to be dumped the next time an outsourcing rush struck some bean-counter's fancy. . . . . In business-labor relations, you truly reap what you sow.

I think perhaps you have confused cause and effect here. Companies are going elsewhere because our workforce is "uneducated, disloyal, and incompetent," not the other way around.

You may be right that high school kids do not want to go into debt to prepare for manufacturing jobs. But that does not explain why they do not learn math and science (or something worthwhile).

[IronJack]

Companies are going elsewhere because our workforce is "uneducated, disloyal, and incompetent," not the other way around.

Hardly. Yes, we are graduating idiots and yes, students in other countries demonstrate better aptitude for certain jobs (on average) than the average American student. But that doesn't explain the rush to outsource jobs that have been mainstays of America's economy for half a century: first textiles, steel, and electronics; now research, medicine, technology, and computer programming.

Those are expensive trades, jobs that can be done much more cheaply elsewhere. Of course, the price of the commodity being manufactured doesn't ever decline, meaning that the benefits accrue to the Third World worker and the profit-monger in the corporate office, but not to the consumer.