Putting My Big Foot In It

There's a joke that's going around here, and I'm sure it's out west as well.  It goes:

Do you know what the difference is between the 1970's and Today?

In the 1970's we had Steve Jobs, Johnny Cash and Bob Hope.
Now we have no jobs, no cash and no hope. Sigh

We went to a dinner party the past Friday and the talk was all about the Occupy Wallstreeters.
As you can guess, the majority present had very little sympathy with those camping out in city centers across the country.  Those of us in our fifties, myself included, worked our way through college, started out in crumby jobs and saved to get where we are today. While those lazy lay abouts would rather camp out singing peace songs than work.

Then I got to thinking.  I worked my way through college answering phones in a call center.  The only way someone could do that today, is if their name is Indira or Ramesh and they live in Bangalore. My husband worked construction and that has dried up.

And then I was talking to another friend who has a multi site practice and he was bragging that he has sent all of his bookkeeping to Pakistan and his billing to India, because it saved him a lot of money.  I felt like jumping for his throat and asking if being a bazillionaire wasn't good enough?If he honestly felt that if he wasn't a gazillionaire, he was nothing. So, instead, I asked him, what about the kids graduating from school.  What jobs are going to be there for them if people like you send everything offshore? And he said, "Well I guess they're going to be in a lot of trouble.

So as calmly as I could, I told him I had been a classics major in college and would he like to take a guess as to why Rome fell. Then I gave him a hint, and told him that it had nothing to do with gladiatorial games and debauched sex. When he came up empty.  I said well, the Romans had put all engineering, all manufacturing and everything else in the provinces and the only folks living in Rome were the very rich and the very poor, who lived off the government.  So the when Barbarians took over the provinces, it was all over.

Sound familiar?  When Obama talks about creating jobs, I wonder how many college and graduate school graduates want to work on road crews? Why isn't anyone saying anything about how most of our manufacturing is now done in China and most of our IT is in India. And now bookkeeping is going to Pakistan? Why isn't any politician gutsy enough to say "tax the hell out of companies that take their jobs out of America."  Whatever happened to "made in America." We don't have to create new jobs, we just have to bring the ones we used to have, back.