Part of it is that we've stopped training our workforce. I have a friend who has been a machinist his entire life. He taught me a lot, and is one of those gu

Part of it is that we've stopped training our workforce. I have a friend who has been a machinist his entire life. He taught me a lot, and is one of those guys who has probably forgotten more than I will ever know. But when he started, he was an apprentice for 5 years. And he worked with guys who taught him everything he knows. Now, if you want to become a machinist, you have to pay your own way to a community college to become a trained machinist. It'll probably take 2 years. But I hope you've got money to support yourself with over those 2 years. We have almost no real apprenticeship programs anymore. Companies want their employees to come out of the public education system full formed to be exactly what the companies want, but they're unwilling to really put down the cash to train them and educate them. So we've created a system that once again privatizes rewards for the companies (not having to pay to train an employee), but "publicizes" risk (the student/community pays for the training.) That, and we don't want to pay people a decent wage after they've done their training. Why should companies pay them barely more than minimum wage? The same thing is now playing out at the University/4 year degree level.