Yes, I ran across that 'Fortune' article yesterday. Unfortunately, our current problems can't be solved by education. The problem is systemic.

While education IS important for individual success... if a company can hire a worker with an equivalent education in India or China for a small fraction of the US wage they will do so.

The economic landscape has changed. Over the last couple of decades, the removal of restrictions on international financial transactions, and advances in communications technology, have allowed corporations to operate wherever they can take advantage of the lowest wages - and the weakest labor and environmental laws.

In essence, the world has become one labor market from the employer's point of view. Economic theory says that when you combine labor markets in this way, wages will equalize. That is not a great piece of news if you are an American worker, because it is far more likely that your wages will be reduced in such a situation than it is that the Indian and Chinese workforce will rise to American wage levels.

After all, there are hundreds of millions of unemployed workers in China and India. Even if they were given all of America's blue collar, white collar, and high tech jobs, there would still be a sizable "reserve army of the unemployed" left over to suppress wages.

It used to be argued that the movement of blue collar work to the Third World was part of a natural process that would see US workers moving into higher tech fields. Unfortunately, the idea that high tech jobs would be protected from the same phenomenon was unrealistic.

The solution to this problem would be to regain national control over the actions of our corporations, and to move towards more sustainable trade and investment strategies. Unfortunately, the reverse has happened.