Hmm. Apparently I am blind. I don't see any explanation of why this is a good idea in either of those links.
"increase productivity" from fewer workers can been more unpaid overtime, working at breakneck speed and totally stressed out while too many others are w/o jobs.
The tide does not lift all ships when the money from the increased productivity is put directly in the pockets of executives instead of being re-invested into further economic activity.
NeXT was a smashing success. It's what powers all current Macs, iPhones, iPads and iPods. Wozniak hasn't done a thing at Apple in 30 years.
I didn't read the link, but I'm going to debate your basic premise: that we should be making it easier for Americans to fill those jobs, rather than someone from another country.... Screw that kind of thinking. Bring on the competition. If someone else is better suited to fill a position, then I need to work harder or come up with my own business, or just find another solution. This is what is good for the benefit of society, and it is just fair.
The foreign worker is not necessary better. It is a numbers game. If there is a surplus of workers here, workers lose out as a group. Mass importation and outsourcing change labor shortage to surplus. Makes perfect sense for American students not to take up IT/engineering. You can always always get people from poorer parts of the world willing to work harder for less. Now manufacturing workers have to compete with slave labor in China.
The relative wealth and abundance in the US economy does reflects previous generation's investment in the future coming to fruition. We are happily consuming the rewards and neglecting the investment. A stress is carried through a solid body by the stiffest path. Don't think that by giving-in to short-term objectives one is satisfying some ideological imperative of strong mindedness. If five riveters balk at doing a job based on a safety concern, and you are the guy who steps out-of-line to take the job. That is not high-mindedness, it is just recklessness. There is a great deal more to the economy national/world than the cost of labor. We are heading to a very different world when the American consumer's consumption mimics that of the third world. I say third world, rather than second, because our governance/management seems incapable of doing more than quick fixes. It will take a lot of failure to bring competence back to governance in the United States. It is this same mindset which has cost us our space program. Other countries can deliver satellites (the only profit making business at the moment) cheaper. Knock-offs have lower overhead than innovators, but doesn't the world need innovation? We have become enamored by the software start-ups of our time. Two guys in a garage with $1000 and some credit cards. That model only works on labor-only companies such as software. You can't create a FedEx or nanotechnology using your credit cards as venture capital. The guy who opens a gas station when he is 20 is the guy who has the repair shop at 40 is the guy behind the chain of stores at 60. It is you can I who shape the future. We can't just count on someone else to build the future while we consume. Let's not sell that 20 year old with $200K of student loans, $30K worth of car loans, $600K worth of housing loans, $40K worth of credit card loans, a wife convinced to shop, kids adamant about brand-names, health insurance, bloated municipal bond obligations, neglected infrastructure, overgrown government commitments, and then undercut him in very cost category. This isn't the world of âIt's a Wonderful Life.â We are eating our seeds, living on our investment capital, and congratulating ourselves for being tough-minded.