On Thu, 05 Feb 2004 20:41:57 -0500, RB wrote:

There aren't enough qualified "Murrican IT people....who will work for
the wage that employers now want to pay. They just forgot to complete
the sentence.


Well, that sorta goes to my buried point.

In sectors of the economy that are coming to be ruled by global pay
scales, and where we cannot compete on price and quality, we are
getting hosed.

The manager types who want a global economy, and who may have been put
through bidness school by fathers who worked with their hands, want
access to cheap labor and goods.

There is little thought for the ole neighborhood and what might be
best for it.

We are the largest consumers but we do not protect our market.

I've read enough economics and history enough to be sensitive to the
arguments against protected markets but I've lived in areas that have
been gutted both economically and spiritually by the results of an
open trade policy.

Do we want our standard of living to regress to the mean, in a global
sense?




Thomas J. Watson - Cabinetmaker (ret.)
(Real Email is tjwatson1ATcomcastDOTnet)
http://home.comcast.net/~tjwatson1/