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To: CatInTheBox
all the things that enabled America to enter a period of global dominance were at least partially due to the fact that there was a high supply of cheap, easily replaceable immigrant labor.

Many countries have cheap labor. What fueled America's dominance is the huge wave of new technology that resulted from investments for WWII and the Cold War. That enabled greater automation and new quality of life products such as jet aircraft, computers, atomic power, new materials, GPS, the internet. Easy access to cheap labor is actually a hindrance to improving the quality of life in America.

We are on the cusp of the robotics age that would be further along if we didn't keep importing so much cheap labor. If you are an engineering student, robotics is a promising direction, however most of the cutting edge development will be DoD related. I'm guessing from your pro-foreigner and ambivalent-America bias that you might have a hard time getting an American security clearance.

89 posted on 04/29/2009 10:24:21 AM PDT by Reeses (Leftism is powered by the evil force of envy.)
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To: Reeses

I would hardly call myself pro-foreigner; I’m just saying that this is being blown way out of proportion. If there were thousands of engineers out a job because of globalization, we would probably hear about it from them. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t pay attention to the trend, I’m just of the opinion that ‘the end is not near’, so to speak.

And security clearance aside, there are also a number of applications for robotics in the biotech industry, which may turn out to be more lucrative than the DoD contracts— the government can cut spending on defense, but there will always be a surplus of sick people, and people willing to shell out a substantial amount of money to take care of them.


94 posted on 04/29/2009 11:11:13 AM PDT by CatInTheBox (Protractor-Wielding Love Queen)
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