The jobs tide threatens an American industrial tsunami (John Ratzenberger)

The Daily Caller ^ | January 31, 2011 | John Ratzenberger

[FreedomPoster]

That last can’t happen soon enough.

[Jack Hydrazine]

America has been exporting our manufacturing base to other countries since after WWII. Government regs are the main culprit but there is also the social aspect to it with the war on masculinity. Men have been the main inventors, entrepreneurs, and other risk takers that bring products to market. If government isn’t scaled back and our country de-Socialized you can ever forget about America being a first world country.

[Arrowhead1952]

and the promise of “green jobs,” all of which have some merit.

Our neighbor is in the solar power panel industry, and he told me that affordable solar panels are still a way off. They have improved several types, but storage of the power is lacking.

The old “shop class” model has essentially disappeared. Let’s develop and promote hands-on learning at home and in schools.

I learned most of my mechanical experience on the farm repairing farm tractors and improved in the shop class of the high school FFA. There was an engine in the shop that you could break all the bolts loose and take them out with your fingers.

[DesScorp]

While I agree that we don’t put enough emphasis on skill training and too much on college, it’s just not true that America doesn’t build anything anymore. We have a huge manufacturing sector. It’s just looks small in comparison to our gargantuan service sector. In the recent employment report, 34K of the 39K new jobs created were in manufacturing.

[OneWingedShark]

In my experience about half of them can not add fractions. In fact this is the single question I used to place students.

You just multiply the numerators by the other fraction's denominator, push the plus above the division bar and turn the denominator into the product of the two denominators. What's so hard about that?

  12       3       12(11)+7(3)       132 + 21        153
_____ + _____ =   ____________  =  ____________  =  _____
  7       11         (7)(11)           77             77

[InvisibleChurch]

yes

[Rockitz]

Personally I am well versed in operating lathes and milling machines, but I also have a three engineering degrees that make me a lot more money. Possibly the few on the thread you mention are correct since most of the manufacturing has already been off-shored and those jobs are long gone anyway.

[beaversmom]

Thanks for the explanation :)

[Pining_4_TX]

I know exactly how you feel. This happened to my brother and my husband. The conditions at my brother’s place of employment became insufferable. There was so much nepotism (some of it was the “hire the lady with the largest breasts” variety), and my brother was demoted without explanation and a less experienced person put in his place.

My husband was laid off from a large oil company after the brainiacs in management made some bad decisions that led to their having to cut costs. Naturally, they laid people off - mostly their most experienced employees. The layoff was announced at a Christmas townhall style meeting where the hatchet man wore an elf hat and had everyone sing carols together immediately after he announced the layoffs. There were some other dirty tricks they used to avoid the appearance of age discrimination. One small consolation was that many huge errors were made after they booted their experienced employees, but it still stinks. My husband found a new job (and we thank God for that blessing), but it meant a big cut in pay. Bitter? I try not to be, but it’s hard.