While the issue of immigration, focused on people who come to the U.S. for manual work in agriculture and construction or low-paying sales jobs, has been tearing the country apart, a completely different issue involving immigrants is becoming a problem. Because not enough Americans are studying to become engineers and technical specialists, corporations and universities are worried about the reduction in visas for foreigners wanting to work or study in those fields.
So jobs at the top as well as the bottom of the labor market need to be filled, by Americans or by non-Americans, depending on how you look at it.
The middlebrow character of American society is causing problems that are catching up with us. Americans don’t want to pick lettuce, but apparently they don’t want to be technical specialists either (not only your company’s computer scientist but your doctor is every year more likely to be a person born in another part of the world). So the country becomes less self-sufficient both at the bottom and at the top of the skill market.
Meanwhile the traditional engines of the American economy are slowing down, and we haven’t yet achieved the paradigm shift in our thinking that we need in order to to realize that the economy needs new engines. The housing industry is in a downturn that’s affecting investments; even worse news for a country used to seeing housing starts as a leading indicator of economic health is that that downturn represents a desperately needed new status quo, though the adjustment to that new status quo will force some people in the construction trades to reposition their skills. Climate change is already eating into the world’s supply of arable land and potable water; the relentless march of new McMansions into open land is exactly what the future doesn’t need.
The U.S. will have to develop new economic engines based on concepts that preserve the most vital resources, and train Americans to run them.
