The latest "buzz" in politics, both at federal and state levels, seems to be the idea of offering training in "skilled trades." The first glaring hole in this notion is that we have fully converted to a service economy, with very little reliance on manufacturing. As automation becomes cheaper more readily available, fewer and fewer manufacturing jobs, mining jobs, etc., are going to exist. Sure, there will be always be a need for hairdressers, cosmetologists, stockers, farm laborers, etc., but I don't think that these jobs, which typically pay substandard wages, are the solution to either our unemployment or our current financial position.
What we do need is more psychologists and psychiatrists and funding to make them available to everyone, more engineers to design infrastructures that last longer, more chemists and pharmacologists to look for new alternatives to opiates for pain treatment, and other university level degree programs that will help us solve the issues that we are facing.
The truth seems to be that the rich would like to return us to the era of being a manufacturing economy. This is the simple method for them to assure that they are in charge, and that we, as worker bees in their factory, know our place and stick to it if we want to survive. This anti-intellectual, anti-progress mindset seems very popular among politicians and the administration.
To close, if you are in a factory job, are a hairdresser, or do manual labor-God bless you. I wrote this with no intent to insult you. That said, when the best "answer" for our kids and grandkids is jobs that will not pay enough to live or support a family, and will be largely done away with by automation, and are in industries that, despite President Trump's best efforts, are going away, they are not the solutions that we deserve.
Oaks lives in Henning, Minn.
