The Age of the Free Agent Nation (Part 1)

Welcome to the age of the the Free Agent Nation!!!

HUH? What's that?

I just watched the most disturbing, uncomfortable Dan Rather Report discussing manufacturing jobs in America. In particular, it was talking about the Boeing plant in California that builds the C-17 cargo planes for the US Air Force was in the danger of being closed. The US Congress has kept this plant a float (open) over the pass 10 years, inserting legislation into bills as "pork barrel spending" in order to sustain these manufacturing jobs in America. In these past ten years, the Boeing plant has over-saturated the US Air Force with these C-17 and the Air Force can no long purchase these $250MM planes, so the plant again, is in danger of closing.

So, as I am watching, these unionized workers for this plant are livid that the plant is closing after the have giving 20 - 30 years of service (loyalty for job security). But, wait there's more. President Obama stepped in to save the day (sort of). He was able to negotiate with India to purchase ten C-17 planes from America, which will keep this plant open another year and save over 22,000 jobs in America. This is GREAT news, RIGHT!? Well this deal came at a price. Legislation had to be created to allow India to use our military technology. In addition, unbeknownst to President Obama, the CEO of Boeing plans to downsize by 900 unionized workers, and hire non-union (cheaper) labor to build these final ten planes.

So we are back to square one, but are we? We have failed to realize that the Industrial Age in America is coming to an end. Third world countries around the globe are now having their Industrial Revolution (over 150 years) since we in America have had ours. With newer technology on their side, these third world countries can produce products cheaper and faster, newer technology US companies can't "justifiability" afford. So where does that leave us?

The one thing these third world countries do NOT have is our knowledge of trial and error, our knowledge of failures and successes of our Industrial Age. We call this "intellectual property." A union manufacture worker making $60K in America could probably go overseas and teach these developing countries techniques and hands training on  how to build their products for over twice the current pay. The US (the world for that matter) is now in the Information Age. This blog, the internet, iPhones, Andriod, you name it, information technology has taken over. Remember when? We were still using dial-up modems (some people STILL are) no more than 15 years ago. In 2000, I worked at Motorola, and was using the latest and greatest SKYPager. Streamlined information is EVERYWHERE, thus the birth of a Free Agent Nation by Daniel H. Pink.