So from what I read on the previous page, America has no skilled workers and Everyone in China is a skilled worker.
Sure we do, I meet them all the time.
The majority of people who put the lovely iPhone together have no idea what they are doing.
Boss man says put that there, then screw it in. If y'all think we Americans can't put something together with instructions, you got another thing coming.
No argument there either - we're probably better at coming up with different ideas since there's less restrictions on improving the workplace and soliciting ideas.
There is no quality products coming from China. They slap the cheapest crap together, put together by someone in extreme poverty with little to no education and ship it out at a ridiculous price.
There's some pretty good stuff, but why do you think many companies moved manufacturing over there? Some accountant announced it was cheaper to pay someone $2 an hour rather than $5 an hour (or $7, nowadays), and pay the shipping costs and any tariffs.
Or at some point, the old facilities were out of date, out of specs, out of room, too expensive to maintain. Thus, building a new manufacturing facility near a port city or international airport was a cheaper in the long run, than some shop that was located on some two-lane highway in Calhoun County*, Somethingsvillle. Or the land was scarce for improving the factory in Big City, because...urban land is scarce and other things built around it or near it. So they sold it off or let it decay in the urban core.
So they built a new one overseas, or in Mexico or Canada. And they weren't going to just hinge sales on a single nation, but also become players in a global market...The XYZ Coropration might have reasons to do business in Australia as well as America.
At some point, there was more profit to give back to the shareholders and venture capitalists than any fear of lost profits from consumers (who largely didn't care so as long the products were the mostly same). Point was, someone got greedy...unions, owners, shareholders, political changes and clout. Or just one day, the typewriter, lawn dart, long-playing record, and DDT industries just collapses rapidly over time. It sure as hell wasn't the workers fault.
The only problem might be is America has kinda forgotten how to work.
Labor laws, safety laws, insurance purposes, hazards...and that technology has made things less maintainable, but replaceable. Generations of advertising and attitudes of "just buy the latest" because "you only live once" and "fear of fitting in" don't really help matters. It's easy to tune that out as you get older and wiser, but some folks still play the game.
There's changes in the way kids grow up - I surely wasn't going to learn a trade from my parents who both couldn't do a whole lot with their hands - an art teacher and an investment broker are a variety of different skills, just not elbow-grease jobs. I figured things out for myself when I had time for it, but no...I'm going to let the professional handle that timing belt job. Or just buy a new one because it might take me eight hours of frustration and conspicuous lack of tools to repair an outdated $132 doo-dad.
Once the big factory moved out of the city, what comes next? Bigger cities can get by on a service-based economy, but the smaller towns cannot. There's only so many services needed in those areas. Either they find jobs in medium-sized towns and decay the others around it. The lunch counter is dependent on the factory workers and the grocery is dependent on lunch counter, and the repair guy is dependent on all of those businesses. Drop the biggest employer, and the rest tend to collapse, unless there's tourism and/or other reasons to stay open. It's no secret that Wal-Mart comes in and knocks the competition out, and they started in small/medium-sized towns. They hire, but the other industries go away. Who signs off on that but the local politicians?
But mark my words we can make everything China makes and we can make it better. Stop this common core education bs and bring back trade schools!
I don't think you understand what Common Core “is”. For one, it puts many states on the same page. It means that in time, an education in one state is as valuable as one in another state or school district. That's not so much for people who move frequently, but when one industry improves in one area, there's changes and improvements in another. That makes a difference when someone wants to attend a secondary education in a totally different place because they a have a specialty in a certain degree or field.
Second, it gives different methods to solve problems, especially in mathematics. There’s different ways to tackle a long division problem, and carry that knowledge into algebra, into calculus, and later physics, dynamics, and this way one can be adept and flexible when the workforce changes (because it always finds a way to do it). We have a complex and clumsy language, and there’s methods for understanding sentence structure, etymology, spelling, grammar, different and varying story outcomes.
It doesn’t reward a localized nor immediately-specialized education. It means that benchmarks have to be hit, and that means you can’t always go into the intricacies of local history, how to repair a toilet, regional agricultural changes, explain the differences between Brutalism and Gothic Revival architecture styles, et al. But it does give the tools for students to immerse themselves into discovering those things for themselves. An education is a set of tools, they need sharpening and maintenance, and occasionally…replacement. Education is not an executable file that just works when it shows up and operates by itself when prompted.
Now, if you want to really look at Common Core with a fine-toothed comb and argue that it doesn’t go over religious education, give light to every conceivable political viewpoint, explain cooking techniques, or tell how the Cosworth DFV V8 wasn’t designed for endurance racing, then you have realize some things are learned later in life, in specialized education, or at home.
There's still trade schools. Like any other secondary education, you pay to get in. Many schools no longer have shop class (I liked it, we certainly didn't have a drill press, table saw, nor router at home), courses in electrical repair (got to play with a soldering iron and buy bits at Radio Shack), home economics (sewing!...but no cooking due to a broken oven and budget cuts), and auto repair (wanted to take that, but it was at another school...BYOTransportation). Maybe some schools still have it, I just know one high school I went to had it, and later, they were phased out.
* As a county-collector, I always seem to notice respective Calhoun Counties seem to be a bit off the grid, away from major interstate highways...or just plain off-the-itinerary.
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