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It's not always a lack of productivity that causes a worker to be laid-off...sometimes it's just that they are in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

That's called supply and demand? There isn't an infinite demand for shoes specifically. That's why the market will only bear so many shoe-makers before the rest have to find other demands to meet.

price of LABOR

Cheap labor is unproductive labor. If a person's labor is productive it is worth more. If I owned a farm, I would pay more for one skilled tractor and machine operator than a hundred unskilled laborers. As the owner of this farm, I would be utterly unconcerned with how cheaply foreigners hired labor because my American workers are more productive, by virtue of their greater skill and capital invested in their tools.

His individual labor is more productive, it earns me more money, so I pay more for him (because the market reality is likely that other farm owners also want the services of my skilled tractor operator). The PRICE of labor is set by supply and demand, and demand is influenced in a very large part in how productive the labor is.

Labor prices are, for various reasons that I won't go into, very, very rigid.

They're rigid because the market isn't allowed to operate freely to set the price of labor. If it's otherwise, then please enlighten me (I am ignorant).

So, explain to me, if you could, how does this create a net benefit to the United States of America?

I explained more than once how unfettered trade results in net gain due to efficiency in my first several posts in this thread. There is a chapter of Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt devoted to that very subject. The entire .pdf for the book is linked to in my about page.

Other than healthcare, what field should I tell my children to get into so that they can enjoy at least a middle-class existance? What industry or career field is growing, looking for more people to fill it's ranks? Massage therapy?

I would advise them to suck you dry for every bit of education you can afford. =) In addition, to gain practical experience and real world work experience at every single opportunity they can get it, even trading higher pay for the experience, in every useful field they can get their hand in. It is *really* nice to have the security and support of your family while you learn and gain all this useful experience. Not everyone has or had that. Then they should persue their specific field of interest. Some fields can be entered in just with higher education and common sense, while others you might have to persue on the side and support yourself with the best you can get. Once they're doing the work they love they should expand and innovate in their field. That's the American way.

I definitely would NOT advise getting a rudimentary technical education and doing the same set of mechanical motions for the next 40 years, hoping their pensions aren't allowed to lapse like has recently happened, and praying a glut of equally unskilled foreigners doesn't displace them and their high wages. That's no better than being a human robot in a factory. Why not be the one in charge of building or maintaining various robotic systems instead?

I'll give you a hint, we're not going back to the days where nailery workers cut nails by hand anytime soon, no matter how cheap Mexicans are willing to work. Specializing in a 6th grade education and a set of repetitive motions to work in the same textile mill for 40 years is just plain stupid. It shouldn't be protected by tariffs and the union bosses won't make it less stupid by pouting.

Personally, I find aerospace engineering and the future of private space exploration completely fascinating and very exciting. I will be steering my higher education in that direction while in the meantime I work, gain experience, and improve my life.