Education Isn’t Always the Answer

Here in the Pacific Northwest, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire wants to launch an education initiative that will move our state out of its embarrassing position 49th in the number of people with college degrees. That’s a poor showing for a state that boasts a high tech corridor with aviation underpinnings. We certainly can and should do better.

Part of her initiative repairs the damage done by the un-funded mandate of “No Child Left Behind” which was little more than a ploy to undermine public education in favor of education for profit. Classroom size ballooned and teaching positions were cut.

Education, however, is only part of picture in helping people live better lives and creating a vibrant economy in Washington State. There needs to be enough high quality jobs waiting for those college graduates she hopes to turn out.

A combination of bad policy and poorly negotiated trade agreements has strangled the ability if the US to replace it’s exported manufacturing base with 21st Century jobs.
Job growth in the Bush economy has primarily been low paying employment in the service sector.

In the meantime, high tech has been exporting highly skilled jobs and importing workers to fill jobs that should go to US workers.
Hi tech companies exaggerate the need for imported workers in order to increase visa allotments. They then exploit these imported workers by paying them less and overworking them. If the workers don’t like it, they can return to India or Chile and cool their heels.

Trade agreements encourage the exportation of jobs when they fail to protect either the workers or the environment of the trading partners. Irresponsible corporations are a;;pwed tp externalize the costs of environmental damage and the maintaining the welfare of their workforce when they move their facilities overseas. When trade negotiators neglect these important safeguards, US workers are forced to compete with what amounts to slave labor.

The exportation of jobs goes beyond the nasty business of having US workers training their overseas replacements while their boss is writing out their pink slip.
It costs money for corporations to move jobs overseas. It would be a lot less profitable for companies to do if it weren't for the generousity of working Americans and their representatives in congress.

Shortly after being elected, the Bush administration gave corporations a tax cut, supposedly to allow them to expand and subsidies to create more jobs for US workers were added.
Instead they used this windfall to export jobs. There was a giant sucking sound as jobs exited the US in record numbers.
Since corporations along with the ultra rich, who benefit most from corporate profits, pay few taxes, the burden for the increasing the corporate bottom line is born by middle class and the working poor.

Hard working Americans who are responsible for building the wealth of businesses and are being abused both coming and going. They are forced to subsidize the very system that has put their economic future in jeopardy and lowered their standard of living.

It isn't just the jobs that are being shifted, it’s US born and bred technology. Workers in other countries, after being trained by their US counterparts, are starting their own companies that compete head to head with US companies.

Sadly, the corporate search for cheap labor has done nothing to lift workers out of poverty in countries they exploit, It has only allowed companies to pump their bottom lines at their expense and to degrade their environment with impunity.

If Governor Gregoire's push on education is going to be successful in both human and economic terms, she will need to address the issue of corporate responsibility.
Politically, it’s much riskier than pumping money into yet another education initiative.
But without doing so we are not dealing with the real problem, jobs, it is an empty gesture.

(Publicly funded elections would mitigate political risk for both the Governor and the legislature. However, that’s a subject for another day.)

She will need to figure out a way to reward companies who keep their jobs here and punish those that do not.
Just as we are not going to drill our way out of an energy crisis and we not going to educate our way out of a looming economic crisis.

Businesses have been allowed to operate with impunity in the pursuit of profits. They have been given many rights by society and practically no responsibilities. In human terms, they have been allowed to behave like infants.

It’s no accident so many successful businesses have been created in this country. It's US infrastructure and educational system, funded primarily by hard working Americans themselves, which have allowed so many successful businesses to thrive.

Even in highly developed European countries, industries help bear the cost and responsibility of educating workers.

US businesses and multi-nationals have to be brought into responsible adulthood. They need to be made to realize that they owe a debt to the nation that supported them and the workers that helped build their extraordinary wealth.

CarolDW