Many of you are going to scream and shout about the fact that I am talking about The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 (H.R. 4170) again, however; I have good reason to. We did this to ourselves. There it is the admission that no one wants to believe. I’ve said it and if you don’t believe me they you may as well light up that crack pipe you’re holding because you obviously have your head in the sand.
It began with an act that helped Corporate America in too many ways to count. I remember distinctly hearing our president decree that NAFTA would ultimately help the middle class by creating a service driven society. In reality all that it did do is siphon jobs manufacturing jobs out of our country. Initially to our neighboring countries however when they became to expensive these jobs were off shored to even cheaper locations like China at such a rate that we no long produce anything.
In the 1990’s we did eventually see a brief period of service related growth that was unfortunately fueled by the internet bubble that burst most explosively by the end of the decade. The annoying point of this is that every administration since NAFTA has pitched the illusion of a ‘Good College Education’ as being the way to succeed in lifting our country out of it’s economic trouble. Yet in each case this did not happen.
The problem with a none producing service based economy is that only the higher end of the service fields can survive in the environment. In the late nineties I recall seeing numerous entry level white collar jobs being outsourced to cheaper regions. A perfect example was paralegal and associate legal research work. In New York City law firms began outsourcing their due diligence work to foreign off shore outfits at pennies on the dollar. Honestly, what incentive do you have to higher local talent for $150 per hours when you can get the same thing for less than half?
This sort of treatment of our intellectual workforce occurred across ALL industries. All the while each administration proclaimed that the way to succeed was by acquiring a good education for jobs it knew were not going to be there when these folks graduated. The only way to right the ship is to make Overseas Offshoring of our jobs less attractive than hiring local talent. End of story!
Yes it is that simple the government has to impose a tariff on ALL jobs outsourced to overseas firms. The money collected from the tariff must be put into rewarding companies that hire local US citizens in lieu of outsourced talent. It should be also used to help fund the student loan relief as I mentioned in the previously under a government sponsored deferment program.
It’s time to send a clear organized message to our government that we will not allow our jobs to be shipped off to other countries. This is but one idea on how to correct the course plotted by our ineffective leadership. If you’ve got a better one then please let’s hear it. I just don’t know if I can sit through another 4 years of some puppet saying, “Go to college and everything will be ok.” The only one who wins in that course are the colleges and banks because there aren’t enough jobs left to sustain the bubble.
Related articles
- The Student Loan Forgiveness Act of 2012 (H.R. 4170) (jafdip.com)
Comments added by signers include stories of financial hardship and tough choices. One woman commented that her student loan debt has doubled since she was forced to choose between paying her loans and feeding her children. Scores of commenters wonder how they’ll ever pay off their student loans with the low-paying jobs they were able to find after graduation (“ Campaign to Forgive Student Loan Debt Gains Momentum Online ,” WTOP, Sept. 18, 2011).