A study by a Georgetown University demographer suggests that there may be too many citizen STEM graduates in the US, not too few. STEM means science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
It is "common wisdom" that there is a shortage of STEM workers in the US. But, this is not actually the case, and confirms my own observation of the software development field. Right-wing business lobbyists have simply manufactured a "shortage" in order to justify hiring "A" foreign workers at "C" prices.
Over-encouraging students to go into STEM will simply dilute the wages, making the STEM fields even less attractive. Even the high-end STEM candidates appear to be jumping ship for more lucrative fields according to the analysis.
In an L.A. Times interview, President Obama has noticed an ugly trend whereby technically gifted students often go into the field of financial gimmickry, such as chasing small lags in market reaction to business news rather than work in a field that produces something more tangible, like inventing flying cars or screen-doors that shut right.
We are becoming a nation of marketers and wheeler-dealers. In other words, con artists. We need a wider variety of industries to avoid becoming a one-trick sales pony. Improving economic variety will help economic stability by giving us a diversified portfolio of industries, and improve our morality. Fixing the trade deficit would be a good first step.
Too much salesmanship is bankrupting our morals. The right-wing often talks about morals, but they tend to focus on sexual morals, not business morals, such as honesty toward customers. For right-wingers, screwing too many sexual partners will send you to hell; but screwing customers via clever manipulation is somehow okay with the Big Dude. Would Jesus try to sell a refrigerator with more gizmos than a customer really needs? (Sales is a necessary field, but let's not over-do it.)
Back to STEM, I do agree there are spot shortages in the information technology field; but these are because the field changes so fast, not because there are not enough STEM employees in general. Companies are just too impatient to train talented citizens in emerging trends, opting instead to shop the world for instant experts. Corporations just want to have the up-sides of choice, but dump the down-sides onto citizens
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