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As usual, however, the speech does not reflect the reality that I have seen.
Every time our government enters into a new trade agreement, we are promised that it will create jobs. And it usually does. But, unfortunately, each trade agreement costs us more jobs than it gains us.
It looks like we are starting that cycle again.
We need to understand that our competitors, countries like China and India and Germany (where I have lived) invest in the education of their children to a far greater extent than we do.
The personal financial risk that young people in Germany, for example, have to take to become doctors or engineers or teachers, is far, far less than the risk our children have to take. The reduced risks enables German students to concentrate more on their studies and on growing up than our children can while they are going to school. Also, the reduced risk means that a family's financial situation is less likely to determine whether a young person gets a degree than it is here. That difference means that a higher percentage of young people who finish their degrees in a country like Germany actually have the skills and capacity to excel and "compete" internationally in their fields. We produce geniuses and lots of well trained and creative people. But we could do so, so much better if we invested more in freeing our young people from the fear and burden of college and post-graduate debt.
Also, education should be a reward, not a requirement. Everyone should be educated, but not everyone needs to have the same level of education. Learning to make and do things is just as important as learning in an intellectual sense. And many people develop their, let's say, algebra skills working with real things. We should teach our children how to make and do things. We used to do that very well.
Then, older Americans need to go back to school and develop new skills without cost. Because of the speed at which technology is developing, people need to be able to refresh their skill sets, learn new technology and new ways to work together until they actually retire. That would be the easiest way to raise the retirement age. But, an older American cannot afford to borrow money and go back to school and learn, say, physical therapy or laboratory technician or even complex computer work even if the older person could easily master those fields and may have experience already and mostly lack only the degree.
So, Obama's promises sound great, but they are hot air unless there is a real plan there. We have known about this problem for many years, yet I do not hear any definite proposal from Obama except to flatter some fat cats with an appointment to a commission. And the outcome of the commission's work is predictable. Once again, we will be told that Americans need to buckle up and do better.
But fat cats from industry cannot help us. They have a conflict of interest. The only way we can regain our competitive advantage is to invest through our government -- like our competitors do. And the industrial fat cats in America know very well -- and their accountants will tell them -- that for their bottom lines, it is smarter to pay a worker or creative person educated in China or India than to educate an American.
So, as long as the MBA fat cats and trust fund bums are placed on the commissions and running the show, we will not have real solutions to our increasing lack of economic competitiveness.
So, I give Obama again --- an A+ for a great speech and an F----- for innovative ideas and solutions.
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