Pierce, I just have to disagree. As the economy picks up and in the long run you will outperform your brothers will be making less over your lifetime. Most of the statistics show this to be true. Although the entry level is now a BS or BA as a minimum and if you want to make any real money you have to have a masters degree. As the economy picks up it should all improve over time. That is if it ever picks up and if we can avoid the coming socialist revolution plans of the Obama Administration and Dems.

Heh, it really depends. You can accidentally pick an engineering field that goes out of style, and then you're fucked. Ask the nuclear engineers...

Or you can pick a field that goes wildly INTO style, and then everything changes and you're fucked again. I remember thinking in 1995, boy I'm ahead of the curve learning about these great new technologies like DNS and email and the web... I'll be the expert. And for a while, I was. But a few years later, it all became so important and universal that large sections of my advanced knowledge were being broadcast on national TV. Ads during the fucking Super Bowl for domain registration... things only geeks like me were supposed to know about!

But ya know, water still goes through pipes... and the rules of electricity are permanently fixed in physics.

GM stifled innovation (except that required by government regulation) some 30 years ago. How long did it take for spread sheets to finally report the resulting failure? How long does it take uneducated students today to finally create a second class nation tomorrow? How many decades; because an uneducated population decreases living standards only decades or generations later. By then, it is too late. They did not get the education necessary to be able to learn.

Much of what becomes America's most productive people do not exist for maybe 10 or 20 years after being educated. Education is necessary to become productive 20 years later. America that was once #1 in advanced education is now 12th - and falling. Where will America be in 20 years? (Fox News will then blame evil foreigners.) When not educated, then hate and anger are a usual response. How many Japanese cars got bashed in the late 1970s. The least educated cannot ask damning questions necessary to ‘think outside the box’. Will blindly believe everything said by a lady in a GPS. Will blindly think only what a service manual tells them to think. Remember this classic example?

An Idle Control Air Valve system was only three parts. So a tech kept replacing the same computer - four times.

In My check engine light is on, he blindly did what told to do (as any uneducated person would do). He could not even ask what the service manual was doing - could not ask a damning question. When the procedure replaced the same non-defective part four times, did he bother to think? No. Learning to think requires basic knowledge obtained from education. For example, to understand how electricity works. His entire thought process was, “do only what the manual orders”. (All praise our mighty leader – the service manual!) Welcome to communism. We will tell you how to think. Best you don’t get educated.

Education is about learning what is necessary to think for yourself. Nobody can do that thinking without first learning the basics. In America, a majority of students not getting educated are males. How many expect to be taken in by cougars?

Ask your computer tech what a surge protector does. Most have no idea. Most will only recite lies from retail advertising. Most computer techs are so uneducated as to not even know how electricity works. So uneducated as to also get angry because he need not know how electricity (or a computer) works. "I fixed a computer by replacing parts on speculation until it worked. I am smart!" Nonsense. Any 12 year old can shotgun.

America became a great power when Hitler drove 'thinkers' from Europe. America continued to prosper when so many 'thinkers' came to America to be educated - and then stayed. For example, who created Intel? America's recent contempt of immigrants has even diminished that source of educated thinkers. Made worse when America, at the highest levels of government and industry, stifled science: stem cells, wasted money on the Constellation after failing to make a decision until the last minute, drove out basic research (ie quantum physics), wasted tremendous men and money on mythical threats (Saddam), and even sold some of this nation's once most innovative institutions to foreigners (because research is an expense; not an asset).

Who owns the Bell Labs? The French. How quickly does the Silicon Valley go through one year of H1B visas? To find employees with sufficient education, 60% of new employees now come from India and China. It would be higher. The need for educated employees is that large. But the entire one year's worth of visas are gone in the first week. Finding educated Americans has become that difficult.

He could not understand what the service manual was doing due to insufficient education. Could not even understand how three simple electrical parts worked. To 'think outside the box' means one must first obtain basic knowledge. Too many just know they are smart because they feel - rather than learn how much they did not know. Then get angry when America needs educated immigrants.

Let's see. CFL light bulbs were created in GE in 1973 by Ed Hammer. Why was the design finished by Ellis Yan - a Chinaman? Why do virtually all CFL bulbs come from China? America no longer has the education necessary to make the next generation light bulb even 35 years after it was invented here?

Government had to require the innovation. "GE balked at the standards at first, knowing that they could impact their U.S. manufacturing. But the company also saw that with restrictions gaining momentum in more states and other countries, some kind of legislation was unavoidable." GE would not innovate until forced by government regulation? GE is mostly a company of finance people. A symptom of a slowly growing problem in America - people without education that makes them innovative. Finance guys - also called uneducated - could not see innovation in a light bulb for 25 years?

The question was America verses Germany. The Economist has recently discussed GE verses Siemens. Remove GE’s finance division to learn what is slowly over the decades happening to America. GE is mostly a finance company. Little in GE today is from innovation. Where would GE be if they manufactured those innovative light bulbs 25 years ago? A world leader. GE has fallen significantly behind Siemens. Because Siemens at the highest levels of management is about product and innovation. GE does what any dying nation does - less innovation and lots of finance. Don’t worry. Be happy – says a nation of communication majors.

I know, it's the damn teacher's unions. :lol2:

Notice anything here ?

Yeah yeah, every tech company is like the UN now... meanwhile, here I sit trying to get web development projects so I can keep my house, while the IT jobs market doesn't really need those H1B people any more. They needed them in the 1990s, but IT jobs have fallen by almost a third in the last decade... here's the graph.

http://cellar.org/2010/itjobs.png

Bullshit. Real money comes from selling an idea. It could be selling the pet rock to the general public or selling the idea that you can run a company to your Yale roommate's rich father. It could even be selling the idea that your plumbing skills and prices are better than the plumber down the street's. You don't need any degree for that.

As IT jobs dropped, the Silicon Valley increased its needs immigrants to due jobs Americans can no longer do. The Valley needs ICs. That is not integrated circuits. This demand for 60% of new employees is recent - as is the resulting IC joke describes the problem.

:corn:

Article in the Post this morning is saying that it's more than just labor that makes manufacturing jobs head overseas. Many countries offer subsidies to woo companies . The Post used the example of a LED light bulb manufacturer. This guy from Florida has innovated a new light bulb using LEDs, he's got a small factory in Florida, but is ready to really ramp up production. So he's considering where to open a big new factory. Not only is labor here more expensive in the US, but he's being offered about $4 Million in subsidies by countries like Mexico and China. They are trying to woo him, and the US is offering him pretty much nothing to stay.

Modest personal gain doing something that is also good for his country vs greater personal gain doing something that doesn't help his country at all. It's a difficult decision.

As a product of the Capatalist system surely the choice is simple.

When he's rich the benefits will trickle down , right?

When he's rich, he can piss on everybody else?

Trickle down went out the door with all the factories that did too.