Saturday, November 12, 2016

Make Travel Agencies Great Again!



Dear Rust-Belt-Manufacturing-Industry Trump Voter,

There's some tough news for you. Your manufacturing job is not coming back. Period. Just like the horse carriage driver's, or the travel agent’s, or the photo film processor's job isn’t coming back. Unfortunate, yes. But no more unfortunate than every worker through history who has found his/her job rendered obsolete whether through a technology disruption or geographic one. Harsh, I know, but it must be said.

The promised 35% tariff on Carrier and Ford to keep manufacturing local? Retaliatory tariff wars, or eroded competitiveness, sales, margins, and marketshare, will lead us to mass layoffs that will decimate the remaining manufacturing jobs faster than we can say “Drain the Swamp”. You think China and Mexico have it made forever? Nope, only temporarily up until Artificial Intelligence and next gen Robotics replace their cheap labor with even cheaper labor. Countries with the sweat shops of today, will have to figure out how to stay competitive within the decade. Similarly truck and taxi drivers all over America better be preparing for the self driving vehicle tsunami headed their way, again within the decade.

There is a way out of this, but it’s not easy. It needs grit and hard-work, which I have to believe you have in spades. It involves retraining and re-educating yourself to compete in the service and technological innovation industries. “That’s a stupid elitist joke” you say because you can’t afford an indulgent meal let alone college. Well, one candidate had on her agenda “Free College Education”, paid for by that cardinal sin – “HIGHER TAXES” on folks that are upper middle income bracket and above. That was your ticket out. That was your children’s ticket out. You turned your back on it for snake oil.

I’m trying real hard to understand your vote because I know many of you are upright patriotic fellowmen, who didn't vote for bigotry, and are victims of a career bet gone bad which could happen to anyone. But I just can’t shake off the feeling that that’s not an excuse for a terribly thoughtless decision.

Oh, and the Hillary supporting Elitists you so hate? Implicit in their vote was the fact that they were willing to pay a higher tax rate to give everyone’s kids a better shot at a great education, not just their own. If that’s an elitist position, elitism is the new name for responsibility.

So while I give up on trying to understand your vote, I empathize with the challenges ahead. I hope that you don’t hold your breath for a full four years before realizing that you do indeed need to reinvent yourself, and that the promised land was just smoke and mirrors.


Reference links for a deeper look at why manufacturing jobs ain't coming back:

NPR - Bringing Back Manufacturing Jobs Would Be Harder Than It Sounds
Money-'Those jobs are gone and they're not coming back'
Techcrunch - Trump promises to bring back manufacturing jobs, but robots won’t let him