Theory says people will figure out ways to become qualified for those positions unless they are actively prevented from doing so (presumably by the government,

Theory says people will figure out ways to become qualified for those positions unless they are actively prevented from doing so (presumably by the government, which would be a market distortion). That's why the market idea is so seductive, things take care of themselves. I think there is definitely an argument to be made that the current education system could be considered distorted, but that's not the point. The point is that if CEOs are out there begging the government to intervene to increase the supply of worker type X, it means that they are either admitting that the labor market is fundamentally broken, or they are just trying to artificially lower the wages they have to pay (or prevent them from rising). In the former scenario, we've got a broken labor market, and in the latter scenario, those CEOs are trying to break the labor market. I'm not sure which it is in the case of the STEM fields.