American Politics Journal -- Welcome to 2000...

Guest Editorial

Welcome to 2000...
Now Get Off Your Butt!

by Renick Taylor

Jan. 22, 2000 (AmpolNS) -- I was sitting back watching my network monitor as the Ethernet processed live data from the outside into our servers. Our software must handle all telephone calls for whatever telecommunications company is using it. The network processes vast amounts of data per second. The company I work for has been attempting to hire Power Builder programmers, but the market is too tight... and we can barely keep the ones we have.

The biggest problem the US faces is a lack of technically skilled people. I know we have other problems: hunger is still rampant and our political process could use some fine-tuning. But really, though, did you see the latest consumer confidence poll? It’s a 70% record breaker. Americans are generally see in in one direction: up. Things are looking better all the time.

The number of people in poverty is shrinking. A 2 million reduction in that number isn’t much, but it’ll drop faster as we move forward. But move forward doing what? Replacing their jobs. Granted, there will always be some need for menial labor -- but we can shrink it to an insignificant portion of the population. I’m talking automation.

Recently a bank data processing center here in Jackson replaced 10 workers making minimum wage. They worked in physical processing where bills were printed, folded, stuffed, sealed, stamped and bundled for the post office. All of their jobs were automated out of existence. They may have cut the payroll by 10 minimum wage workers -- but the bank did not fire them.

It put them in school.

Programmers, data processors, and network administrators are in heavy demand. Really heavy. Ask any small sized software/telecommunications firm: most would hire as many of these people as they could get their hands on. The bank was acting in it’s own self-interest. To them, signing these people to contracts was a bargain. They get skilled data processors, something they were unable to get from the labor pool. The bank was helping to balance an unhealthy market -- because we need more technically skilled people and we need them now.

Automation can help solve this problem. Unemployment is staying below 4%, which is the lowest traditional economist thought it could go before inflation really started to kick in. Boy, are we making fools out of them. As automation replaces the menial labor they will be trained, by government or market means, into a higher skill category. Why? Because the technology sector needs people!

The stock market has given the technical sector the funds needed to start this, but now the tech sector needs people. There is big work to be done, most notably the infrastructure of a Planetary Information Network. The Internet is just the beginning. We have the technology to increase speeds of 56K connections to over 30 times that without rewiring anything at home or work. We can merge TV, Phone, and Internet under the PIN. We can set the world on fire over how cheap we can make. The market is leading the way it but we can’t do it without people.

What happens if there’s a deep recession, you may ask? Well, what happens if there’s not one? We have never experienced technological advances at the pace we are now. It’s not going to stop for sometime. Really, it won’t stop until everyone on earth has 24 hour, 7 day a week access to the sum of human knowledge via the PIN no matter location. We’re not slowing down for sometime, America pulled this planet from its last recession without even a hiccup.

What I’m trying to say is we need technically skilled people, a lot of them. Lower immigration barriers for skilled foreign nationals! Overseas they are starving for English teachers so they can speak the language of telecommunications. Our product is in demand. This is what America will be known for in the year 3000: we cried freedom at our birth, liberated the earth from tyranny and united the planet through telecommunications.

We’re here, this is the time, here’s the door -- get skilled! It’s time to build the PIN; it’s time to unite the planet.