Some sort of retraining/rapid skills development program is needed to meet rising demand in the manufacturing sector:
Strange as it may sound, America’s manufacturing companies are struggling to find enough qualified workers. In fact. over the last two years the number of manufacturing job openings in the U.S. has more than doubled.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were 264,000 job openings in the manufacturing sector at the end of last year, compared with approximately 100,000 two years ago.
I’m wary, and have concerns about the environmental impacts of fracking and other methods, but this would be quite a remarkable story if it happened:
"This is really the classic success of American entrepreneurs," he says. "These were people who saw this coming, managed to assemble the capital and go ahead."
Small energy companies using such controversial techniques as hydraulic fracturing, along with horizontal drilling, are unlocking vast oil and natural gas deposits trapped in shale in places like Pennsylvania, North Dakota and Texas. North Dakota, for instance, now produces a half-million barrels a day of crude oil, and production is rising.
"The submerged state" is Cornell professor Suzanne Mettler’s term for the slew of government policies that most Americans don’t know exist or don’t realize are government policies. As part of her paper — gated, sadly — exploring how these invisible programs affect the politics of social policy, she designed a study asking people first whether they’d ever used a government program and then later whether they had ever taken advantage of 19 specific programs. The percentage of people who didn’t think they used government programs and then admitted using government programs is shockingly large.
So, yeah. Contrary to popular rhetoric, government does good, and people benefit.
I’d love to see something like this for Canada, in advance of our upcoming austerity budget.