When I was in school there were three options for young men who graduated from high school. One, go to the plant or back to the farm. Two, join the military. Three, go to college.
From memory, it seems like it was about one-third of each back then in 1959. Factories were hiring and family farms could always use an extra hand. The military was happy to get high school graduates. College tuition was cheap by today’s standards and you could work in the summer and part-time at school and pay the freight.
Fast forward to today. Let’s examine options and see what has changed and why.
The family farm is a corporate farm and farm hands are replaced by equipment or migrant workers. Very limited employment options there
The plant is gone. In my hometown there were several options for high school graduates in manufacturing. There was Tyler Refrigeration, National Standard, Bendix, Simplicity Pattern, and Kawneer. Studebaker had already closed in South Bend 10 miles away. None of these plants exist today. What happened?
First it was the Japanese who took our manufacturing. Cheap goods at low prices. Then, higher quality goods at lower prices. The labor unions here fought quality and cost progress. Hence, GM and Chrysler almost fell. They haven’t quit. The UAW tried to unionize a plant in Chattanooga, Tenn. and lost. But, they are coming back and Obama’s NLRB will let them. Then it was electronics, shoes, steel, and everything else. The Chinese replaced the Japanese with questionable quality at even lower prices. And, the cycle repeats.
Besides the labor unions, what else contributed to our manufacturing demise in this country. The Green Movement. No manufacturing is the goal. Just enough fuel to fuel their private jets and Tesla’s.
What party supports the labor unions and the environmentalists while preaching against income inequality? The Democratic party. The party of the people, except when it comes to high-paying manufacturing jobs. Like building a pipeline.
The same party that announced they will cut jobs in the military back to pre-WWII levels. Wow, there goes another option for the high school graduate.
Well, there’s always college. Before the Democrats pushed equal opportunity in college admissions 7% of minorities graduated from college. Now, far more enter college but only 7% of graduates are minorities.
Obama, even after his party preached home ownership in America as a basic right, began preaching a college education as a basic right. Doesn’t that sound great? What a country. A place where everyone graduates from college. Except, Mr. President, only 18% of the jobs in this country require a college degree. Makes for a lot of degreed taxi drivers like they had in Poland when the Russians were through. And, it’s just not possible to get everyone through college. See, some are too lazy to study or even go to class. And, some just can’t cut it academically. Or, do we give them five strikes like we do in kid’s sports today? Lower the requirements to get a degree so all degrees are devalued?
What kind of naïve person even suggests that everyone should have a degree today in America?
The liberal Democrats run the college system in this country and have for years. Just as they run the EL-HI system. How’s that going? Just like manufacturing is going in the United States. To hell in a hand basket. The US continues to drop in test scores vs. other countries. The tuition at colleges keeps going up at twice the rate of inflation. The student loan debt owned by you, the taxpayer,r is over a trillion and climbing with no collateral to back it. The average graduation rate is 40%, so a lot of those who owe us money are flipping burgers since there are no high paying manufacturing jobs to fall back on to cover that debt.
Get the picture? The preachers are the biggest sinners when it comes to income inequality.
When I got out of college my high school classmates were making far more than I did for several years working in the plants with 4 years of seniority. When today’s college graduate gets that first job, if they do get one, they will make far more than their high school graduate peers right from the jump.
Let’s ‘ go back to my hometown where all those plants have closed. When I graduated from high school it was a big class A school. When my brother graduated they had added a second class B high school in town. Today, they are back to one high school, the one I attended, and it’s a class B school. That’s what the Democrats have done to my home town with the labor unions and the environmental craziness and educational mess and the military reductions that are coming. No jobs, no people. It’s a microcosm of Detroit in southwestern Michigan.
Tell me again, who’s for the little guy?
