Any Job Can Be Outsourced or Eliminated

It seems many in the blogosphere believe that Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) jobs are secure, hard to outsource or eliminate. They therefore believe that education in such areas is better than art history or literature.

I believe otherwise..

Let us first consider the various motivations for outsourcing.

1. To cut costs and SHOW profit through accounting rules.
2. Because everyone else is doing it.
3. To pump up the price of shares by generating “buzz”.

Did you notice something? Any talk about the company’s future beyond quarterly and yearly financial reports is irrelevant. Nobody who makes these decisions cares, thinks or is concerned with any human /material consequences of their actions.

It is about bonuses, spin, deception and outright fraud. If the loss of your job does not affect their current quarterly report or yearly bonus- it is not safe, and they do not care about long-term consequences.

Now let us talk about job elimination..

Until 2007, being a realtor was not a bad gig. From the beginning of the industrial revolution in the USA to the 1970s, factory jobs were always available and increasing in number. Travel agents made an OK living until the mid-late 1990s. A computer science degree from a good state university could get you a good and reasonably stable career until the early-mid 2000s. State governments jobs were once seen as fairly stable, if not quite as much as federal ones.

Do you think that the glut in students studying to be teachers, nurses, medical assistant types, lawyers etc will not cause down ward pressure on wages? Do you really think some technological innovation might make your skill set useless? Who is going to pay for your retraining and how many times are you going to do it?

Clearly, we require a solution of a type beyond what CONservatives, LIEbertarians or LIEbrals can even being to conceive- Minimal Consumption Entitlement: 1

But YOU are special and things will always work out for YOU.. right?

Comments?