The "Foreign Threat".

A diatribe this morning on the "Foreign Threat". The Trump administration would proport that foreigners, coming into this country illegally, are the big threat – to jobs, to our security – both physical and social. 

This is rubbish.  

The Foreign threat to US jobs comes not from an illegal source but within business itself and in our ability to compete. In business, services are theoretically sourced at the lowest cost, while still being effective. Right now we occupy  number of jobs that require education and training. We're still cost effective in some of these areas. 

But there is nothing inherently superior intrinsic to the American worker. There are creative, smart people all over the globe. I've traveled extensively and have worked with people from Hungary, India, Russia, Brazil Switzerland, Germany and Suriname (among many others) and they have been brilliant, kind and hard working. To claim ingenuity as our own is to kid ourselves.  

What makes us special to us, is we are our brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles and neighbors. What has traditionally been our strength, in this capitalist world has been access to education and capital. 

This is changing. Every other country on the planet has focused on public education – here we are with an administration that is actively destroying the public education system in order to help "For Profit" education. How? They are changing public school funding. They are pushing for taxes to be moved into vouchers where families choose a school. This seems innocuous but ends up pulling funding from public schools and transferingit to "For Profit".  and the problem with this is, public education needs a base that is funded by everyone – is consistent and predictable, which in turn allows everyone, regardless of economic circumstance an opportunity to get a high quality education. As soon as that is fractionated, we lose critical mass (the same, incidentally goes for all public services, like water, roads, healthcare and many others – privatization ultimately weakens universal access).  And the administration is pushing this down to state and local government. The problem with funding moving locally is that poor communities will have less per capita to spend on students, creating economic discrimination. Deregulation removes the safeguards that ensure standards are met – making some "Pay for" offerings no more than babysitting services. 

Other countries are providing universal access to education. So – our children and theirs will be working at a disadvantage in the competitive marketplace. This means we become less competitive in a global marketplace, full of well-educated people. And money will follow them (access to capital). 

Ansel Adams was once asked how he took such wonderful pictures. He replied (I paraphrase) "I take a lot of them". It's the same thing with innovation. The more scientists, mathematicians, MBAs, artists and musicians we have, the more we will innovate, the more our nation will thrive. 

This is how we let others take over our markets. Not through borders, but through denial of the universal need for education.  There's a phrase that's often used in business (too much) and that is is "Work smarter, not harder" - well, following that logic, one needs the education and training to pull that off.  

And an American, regardless of their country of origin – and arguably regardless of their legality, armed with these tools, contributes to the country and brings in capital and pushes it back into our economy – which, by the way, is still the biggest in the world (but not for long on the current course). 

We need to support public education – fund it and help it thrive. Our very survival depends on it.