On Sat, 10 May 2014 08:14:26 -0600, "WW"
wrote:



"woodchucker" wrote in message
...

SNIP


We are in danger, no doubt.
What's worse is the kids today are less capable then we were. There
reading and math scores are very low.
The loss of vocational schooling in the middle and high school (wood
shop, metal shop) leave no where for these less educated kids to go.

One thing the county where I lived in Vermont did really well was
vocational education. They didn't do wood shop or metal shop for the
"college bound" kids, rather had a complete school for vo-ed, complete
with plumbing, electrical, and carpentry. IIRC, they built a house
every year. It was a separate county-wide school, though shared the
high school property and some facilities.

Add to that our lack of making hard decisions and you have a firestorm
brewing.. of catastrophic proportions.

True that. The tipping point can't be far away with 1 worker per
person on the government check. Demographics isn't going the right
way, either.

In the old days, people were more adept at adapting, today, less so.

That's been happening since at least the middle ages.
Industrialization, if not civilization itself, demands specialization.
OTOH, I've think been successful in finding work easily because I
prefer to be a generalist in my profession. I've rarely done exactly
the same thing in any two (consecutive, at least) positions. On the
down side of that, I'm in mid-level rather than management (though
it's the way I like it).