As a professional coder who also trained as a machinist I think it's worth explaining what CEOs mean when they say that they can't make goods in the US because there aren't enough machinists, engineers, suppliers, etc.
In Seattle, a coder with a few years of experience and a few management skills can easily earn $200k/y. A good machinist with the same years of experience and solid management skills earns maybe $75k/y. Of course there are exceptions on both sides, but this is the trend. /thread
Since the 70s the US has transitioned from treating the trades as a valid career path comparable with knowledge work to treating the trades as the also-ran category for people who couldn't get into or afford college. We defunded many shop classes in high schools and we amplified the message that after high school *all* of the smart kids go to a university to study some sort of knowledge work.
So what CEOs mean when they say that the US doesn't have enough machinists, engineers, automation experts, etc for manufacturing is that for decades they've avoided paying taxes for schools that teach the trades and they've avoided paying salaries competitive with expert knowledge work and they also don't like the direct consequences of their actions.
@trevorflowers That's a really top down authoritarian view of the country that doesn't really reflect reality.
There's not really a the US at all. There are who knows how many different governments, local, state and federal, involved in education making those decisions, and each government is composed of countless bureaucrats and politicians making their own decisions.
Further, you seem to be suggesting that throwing money at the problem would fix it, but that's obviously not true. We spend tremendous amounts of tax dollars on education, and those countless politicians and bureaucrats probably waste a good bit of it.
So it's an unhelpful over simplification to describe the country the way you do, the state of education the way you do. It's neither true nor does it present us with any real solutions.
In the end it really doesn't matter what CEOs say. Here. We keep electing and re-electing bad politicians who keep directing education to be mismanaged.
That's not all CEOs. That's on us.
@volkris @trevorflowers Any CEO who complains that he/she can't hire X but neither partners with trade groups, local schools or runs their own in-house apprenticeship program is an entitled child and should be ignored.
CEOs get to choose their own business model, and they have full control about whether they'll train their own workforce or rely on someone else to do it for them.
@grumble209 I honestly don't know why you're so obsessed with CEOs here.
But no, in general CEOs don't get to choose their own business models. That's just not how corporations operate in the real world.
@volkris @trevorflowers Those poor CEOs. I pity them and their unenviable plight.
@volkris @grumble209 @trevorflowers they have a real hard life! Thats why we must pay them so greatly, only like this can they bear the incredible load of not being responsible for any problem.
@trevorflowers @grumble209 @volkris yes i‘m paying at least one CEO with everything i buy - so actually i pay hundreds of CEOs.
@lazyb0y unless you're buying CEOs... you're not.
These companies are the ones buying CEOs. You're just buying their products when they make things you judge to be worth buying.
@trevorflowers @grumble209
@lazyb0y but it's not though.
Once you bend over your money to someone else, it's not your money anymore, it's theirs.
That's the whole point.
Anyway, whatever, my point still stands: If you are overpaying CEOs you should stop. That's really up to you.
I would say that you are probably not paying CEOs at all, but again, if you are paying CEOs too much money, stop it.
@volkris @grumble209 @trevorflowers
my money is used to pay CEOs.
i pay CEO‘s within one level of indirection.