In addition to the fact that I disagree (actually even OPPOSE) the notion that the only thing that makes a society "better" is its ability to generate GDP and corporate profit, I read this and my jaw nearly hit the floor.

"As long as they diversify their sources so as not to be dependent on one location or country, we’re safe."

Are you kidding me? We've already sold out 99% of our chip-fabrication and electronics manufacturing to (check this out):

China

Taiwan

Japan

Is that "one location" enough for you? If anything went seriously wrong in SE Asia, our entire computing infrastructure is orphaned, and there is no way we'd be able to re-tool in time to keep our lights on and servers running.

Of course, it is not *likely* that China will invade Taiwan, or that conflict between India/Pakistan dumps fallout all over the region, or that a plague or environmental damage would raze the population.

Just like it wasn't likely that the US housing market would collapse in a year.

This already happened, and it made a lot of shareholders a lot of money. You can't prevent it, and not many people even want you to.

The infrastructure foundations of our economy are being held up by toothpicks and twine.

...but given that Robert Reich evidently won't be happy until he's filled the entire Salon Opinion with variations on his "How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love Deindustrialization" theme, I suppose that entitles me to another. Two points:

1. It's perhaps telling that Robert Reich's definition of "the best-trained workers" seems to mean "the workers trained to be most like Robert Reich."

2. If we really want a prosperous economic future, a good first step might be to ignore anything said by anyone who worked in the last four presidential administrations.

The best trained workers to do what?? Wealth cannot be created by the method outlined by Reich, we are doomed because of idiots like him.

we will be a second rate country,fortunatly we are self sufficient on food

Labor only represents about 8-9% of the cost of building a car. It's already as low as it can go, more or less. So if that's too expensive for America then America can't build anything. And therefore it won't. Everyone will wind up in the 'service' economy. Where there are no unions, no benefits, no overtime, no healthcare, no job guarantees, no work rules (other than OSHA), no job descriptions. The future of manufacturing is, it isn't. And 90% of the workforce will increasingly take on temp, part time, contracting or McJobs. The remaining 10% will be the professional class.

"By the way. There isn't an employer in the world that hires "symbolic analysts", because there is no such thing."

I think I figured out what a "symbolic analyst" is - this is one who makes prognostications by divining the symbols embedded in the product of the anal canal much like priest of yore were wont to do with the entrails of beasts.

In plain english, a "symbolic analyst" is a shit oracle.

Contrary to your assertion, we are up to our eyeballs in them and that is a major part of the problem, metaphorically or not.

"By the way. There isn't an employer in the world that hires "symbolic analysts", because there is no such thing."

I think I figured out what a "symbolic analyst" - this is one who makes prognostications by divining the symbols embedded in the product of the anal canal much like priest of yore were wont to do with the entrails of beasts.

In plain english, a "symbolic analyst" is a shit oracle.

Contrary to your assertion, we are up to our eyeballs in them and that is a major part of the problem, metaphorically or not.

As usual, Mr. Reich's heart is in the right place. However, I am increasingly dismayed by his credulous cheerleading for what Jonathan Tasini and other commentators have dubbed "The Education Myth."

As others on this forum have ably noted:

1) Many cannot afford the necessary retraining, and even if they could, sufficient facilities do not exist.

2) Many do not have the *aptitude* for the kind of higher-order "symbolic-analytic" thinking that has a well-paying job attached to it. (You edu-optimists always neglect this point.) This lack of aptitude can manifest itself as a lack of technical chops (my problem) or a lack of scholastic chops in general. Mr. Reich, maybe you think education is the answer for everyone because everyone you know can master technical/academic skills with one brain lobe tied behind their backs. But many, many of us are not wired up that way -- and that leaves you advancing a solution with rather limited applicability and, therefore, limited utility. A solution that only improves things for 20 percent of Americans is an elite solution -- and we've had far too many of those. When a Wal-Mart clerk no longer has to worry about making rent or putting food on the table or paying her family's medical bills -- *then* we'll have a solution that's worthy of the name.

3) Guess what? Not everyone *wants* to do "symbolic-analytic" work, even if they are able. Mr. Reich, are you arguing that, in order to make a decent living, everyone will be forced to reshape themselves to fit into the same cramped vocational hole? If so, it's a dreary, depressing future you foresee.

SLAVE LABOR

"One issue that Mr. Reich does not address is what to do with dumb people. Dumb people and lazy people. It's really bad when they are both dumb and lazy. Then what???"

Give them a job teaching at Berkley and writing blogs for Salon.

That takes care of one of them.

One issue that Mr. Reich does not address is what to do with dumb people. Dumb people and lazy people. It's really bad when they are both dumb and lazy. Then what???

The hospital I worked at -- whose CEO was massively impressed by Megatrends -- had even intention of "coming out on top" by marketing itself in all ways to the rich ... which they had always done in many ways ... that didn't work out all that well with "boutique" and ultra-personalized services (I worked in a couple of these ventures).

Funny thing is "rich people" shop at CostCo too ... When I first started at this hospital, our produce was supplied by a ultra snobby, too expensive for you and me, upscale grocery store in town (probably with a charitable discount, we being "nonprofit" and all), now we subcontract out to a national "service provider" and my limited experience with the food was that it was pretty bad, while the hospital food when we had inhouse food services, was actually quite good. (Believe it or not).

Instead, in the hospital "service" biz, we have been bludgeoned over the head, our jobs threatened by the "need" to be "cost effective" .. when, in fact, "we" have no control over "cost effectiveness" and understaffing makes work, that should be rewarding if strenuous and stressful, a constant churn of resentment and anger. It's why I left.

Reich seems to be talking about "process analysis" as is seen in Industrial Organization and/or Human Factors analysis, which I studied in college and I was part of the quality improvement program at work. Unfortunately, he fails to take into account the "turf wars" and "careerism" that aborts many well-intentioned, possibly productive efforts.

Where I worked it was Demming (quality circles, bottom up) versus Mike Hammer (Re-Engineering the Corporation) which exposed very very unreconciliable core-belief differences wrt "our employees" and what constituted efficiency.

It used to be that the retention of proven quality employees with experience and buy-in to the institutional "mission statement" was seen as "cost effective" ... under the Hammer philosophy, all job can be broken down to simple mechanisms which can be mastered by following the "scripted" process instructions.

The supremacy of the "bottom line" and shareholder dividends as the only "REAL" measure of "success" is a malignancy that got us where we are. When you outsource every ancillary service that can be imagined, you lose your "culture"...

America has largely lost it's soul ... I tremble to imagine the anger and resentment to be carried for the next decade or two by all those young people who made the strategic career choice to go into "finance" and are now high and dry... along with all those folks who got their real estate liscence in the last year or two, like a family member who paid big bucks for an accelerated course a year and a half ago. That "new career" is kaput.