This one is the epitomy of our economic scene in the first decade of the 21st. OK, I get it, we are in transit. The calculus of change and whatnot. Adapt or perish. And I buy it. I really do. The problem is, when GM lays off 25,000 guys who've done nothing but stamp out sheet metal the last twenty years, it's a little disingenuous of Obama/Bush/whoever to claim that "Education is the answer. Retraining is the key". Hey, if it was me, I'd be right down at the APEX School of Hair Blowin' getting me a new career! But not everybody is that motivated and although we can say they should be, it's not practical to expect a lifelong expectation to evaporate overnight. Here's the rub: These guys had kids who grew up WITH THAT EXPECTATION. The same thing. So what do we do? We subsidize and create another group of dependents in the form of the "perpetually unemployable". If you don't believe me, go to Scotland,or the north of England, and look at the situation there. They're experts at it.
So where's its corollary? The 30s. On the heels of the '29 crash came the Great Depression. The background environment for the creation of welfare, the S.E.C., the Great Society and a whole mess of other social failures that didn't lift us from our financial nadir. Nope. That was world war 2 for the record.
This is a cornerstone of our social architecture and I think we need to address it. The auto industry is merely one aspect of the problem, but a quick look at the heartland and we see the dislocation to be widespread.
As the website says "Jacob Mallet never lived, yet he lived a thousand times over".
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