For a while now, we have grown used to the perpetual wails that there are not enough people to do all the mining work that needs be done. We have heard professors call for more money to train miners; we have seen governments fund glossy brochures to lure kids into the mines; we have even encouraged our son-in-law to go to north-east Wyoming to earn more on the coal mines than he earns as a cable installer for MediaCom in Iowa. Now I wonder if we have all been wrong. Is the writing on the wall? Is the thin edge of the wedge revealed in these two stories in today’s news reports? I quote:
[Read more →]