The United States has a "we don't want tax dollars to go to anything useful" problem. If we decided to start really taking infrastructure upgrades seriously the amount of middle-skill jobs we could create lasting decades would be pretty damn impressive.

The people I feel the worst for in the current job market are the young men and women trying to start/raise families and willing to work very hard, but incapable of finding enough truly rewarding work. When our tax dollars go to "public works" projects, the public works.

We can outsource manufacturing all day long, which is why politicians love talking about it as if it's some unsolvable problem that only they can do something about (but they won't - because it's not really a problem). Good luck outsourcing fixing the damn roads and bridges. There's a lot of necessary work to be done in this country that nobody wants to pay for, and a lot of really - really cool shit we could have if we were willing to invest in it. All of that leads to decent wages for a lot of people.

Everyone wants to pretend that tech jobs are the only "living wage" kind of jobs for the future - as automation replaces a lot of what we currently do. I think they vastly underestimate how long it's going to be before we can replace skilled construction workers, or how much construction needs to be done in this country.

While we're at it can we please get some sort of high speed rail going from NJ to Brooklyn directly so those of us who don't need our cars once we get to Brooklyn don't get caught in the damn Staten Island traffic. Getting across Staten Island takes between no time and all and "Never mind, I'll go to work tomorrow." depending on how many people decide to rear end one another on the Verrazano.