Monday, March 10, 2008

How does the US look to a Venezuelan ex-pat?

excerpts from a letter from Luis, a former student now working in Nashville:
At the turn of the century, it took 40% of the population to produce enough food to feed the [United States]. Today it takes 2.5%. That is an amazing growth in productivity. Does anyone think that the loss of all those farm jobs was bad? Not to say that it was not difficult for people to change their lives. Those people who came off the farm had to learn how to work in a new environment. It is no different today. As Rod Hunter notes:

" ... Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama ... are tapping into popular anxiety about the economy. Rather than trying to shut the world out, however, the next administration needs to pursue the domestic reforms necessary to ensure that American workers can thrive in the knowledge economy. These include shoring up our education system, clearing obstacles to worker mobility by making health care and pensions portable, and replacing the hodgepodge of displaced worker assistance programs with a single support, training and relocation system. The American worker, not the job, is the national asset."

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