Trust me George, I'm not gloating about this.  Vocational training programs should turn out skilled workers like auto mechanics, welders, or plumbers.  The course work offered by a high school should provide adequate skills for an entry level job at Wal-Mart without the need for a special training program.  America is fucked because our public education system is no longer able to teach basic skills, and there is no point in offering training programs for skilled workers because the jobs don’t exist.

It doesn't surprise me that Walmart would like to have the public sector subsidize its rudimentary training, although I would assume the course can be competed in an afternoon.   Detroit cannot offer the upward mobility of unionized jobs in heavy industry anymore, and the businesses employing the trades that fnord mentions are not in Walmart's economic position and can only offer a job or two at a time at best.  Is open shop a symptom, a disease, a side effect, or a little of all three?

We may not be fucked (at least not often enough), but the yawning gap between have and have-nots is deepening, and all the Horatio Alger talk in the world will not erase the reality.

I don't see how transported religious nuts and criminals are exactly "Go-Getters"...  Don't make me pull out the actual story(ies) about the "Pilgrims" again let alone the general make up of who was chained in the hold on the other ships coming from Britain...  I hate destroying cultural fairy tales. But, I will make an exception for this one.