Surely you’re joking, Mr. Bloom!
There has been absolutely nothing visible to date, in this, or the last few administrations, that has been of significant benefit to manufacturing, or the related educational process, or to the scientific research that enables it all. We have broken that chain, and it is not one that can be mended in a jewelry workshop in Attleboro.
Right now, this year, we’d need to see a grade school curriculum that relates to future manufacturing; federal incentives to retain leading-edge industries, and banking support of domestic manufacturing. We’d need to see some effective restraints on the for-profit colleges that are diverting and impoverishing vast numbers of students, the never-to-be workforce of a technical economy. We’d need to see explicit federal goals for specific industries, as there are in place everywhere else.
Mr. Bloom, most of us have little or no faith in the federal government’s ability to maintain focus, or in fact to be the positive force behind what we might loosely call ‘progress’. However, if we leave it all to states, special interests, and the normal workings of the financial world, we’re done for. We absolutely need a coordinated, systemic approach to the overall task, and we need to fight for the attention and energy of our inert elected representatives.
Submitted by
Dr., Richard Stein
President, Connecticut Vacuum Products
Editors Note: MassMEP is hosting a follow-up meeting to showcase the services and resources available to manufacturers in Massachusetts on October 4, 2010. If you are interested in learning more about this event, please email [email protected].
