Now we're trying to live in wealth without creating wealth. We see a reflection of the problem in our universities. Too few Americans study science and engineering. The ones who do usually stop at a bachelor's degree. We have to seek out immigrants to take up the advanced intellectual work that we aren't doing ourselves.
Management leads to seven-digit salaries and power.
Making things, it seems, is a dead end. The high-pay road leads to investment banking. Industrial production jobs mean second-class citizenship in the business world. America was built on making and doing. But now we've quit asking where the cement comes out.