When a less-qualified student is admitted to a medical school he takes a classroom seat that would have been occupied by a more-qualified student. That less-qualified student will lower the achievement level of all students in the class. When this less-qualified student graduates -- assuming he is capable of passing, or the school lowers its standards -- he will be a doctor less-qualified than the better-qualified student he displaced might have been. Is he the doctor that you want to greet you while you lie in a hospital bed with a serious illness? Or, would you prefer a better-qualified doctor to decipher your symptoms and administer treatment?

This same logic applies to all work. We should want the most qualified auto workers, engineers, management, and scientists. When each of these job categories is infiltrated with less-well qualified workers, the output of companies will be less than it could have been if the company had hired based solely upon the most qualified being hired. These companies will sell fewer products if competitors are hiring only the most qualified workers.

The better-qualified student who lost his seat in medical school will be forced to go elsewhere, perhaps into a different career. He may not perform as well in his second-choice career and may not amount to as much as he could have as a doctor.

The entire society loses.  If he graduates and has the fortitude to work in the career that follows from his academic education, he will be less productive. The less-worthy student will  provide less-competent service to the society than could have the more worthy student.

This same loss of the most qualified to their second -- or third, or fourth -- choice careers will result in a nation's productivity and product quality decline. It may be slow and subtle. It will require decades to become obvious to the common man and politicians who mandate such hiring of the less-well-qualified instead of the most qualified. But one day, Americans will awaken and realize that they can no longer buy American electronics products and do not want to own American automobiles.

Over time, foreign-based producers will achieve a major US market share over the remaining US-based employers. At that point they will have a reduced incentive to hold quality high. They are free to raise prices and decrease quality and cut employment.

Should you be capable of comprehending the above paragraphs, you should understand why the US is in a relative decline within the global economy. The US is in decline because its corporations that produce have been forced by law to hire less-qualified workers instead of more-qualified workers over the last 40 years. Companies' labor costs have increased due to the over-staffing required to supplement the less-qualified workers' production with qualified workers' production.

As has been publicly demonstrated before the US Congressional auto industry hearings, this industry has reached a point of no return. Either it is allowed to hire only those needed, pay only those for actual work performed, or the US auto industry will shut down just as the US electronics industry has.

The US has reached a tipping point. US industry cannot be forced by unions, by Congress, by cultural do-gooders to hire under-qualified workers for irrelevant reasons. Only the most qualified workers should be hired. Only the company-determined number of workers should be hired. When the workload decreases, workers must be laid off and their pay should go to zero.

Imagine that the most productive workers went on strike to protest not being compensated fairly and having the government dictate how the companies should run, how their jobs should be performed, who may be hired, and who may not be fired. Effectively the US government has for over 40 years forced the more-qualified workers out of their positions and replaced them with lesser-qualified workers. The government mandated these destructive changes using its invention: Affirmative Action. Our government-managed, passive-aggressive command economy is now broken. We should all wonder if it can be repaired.

If not, how do Americans -- and the politicians running Congress, few of whom have ever worked for a real paycheck -- expect nearly all American workers to earn high wages by performing only services and working for foreign companies? There will come a time when few Americans will be able to afford a Toyota and General Motors does not exist. Then Toyota Corporation will be forced to cut prices and quality. Americans should ask themselves how long it will be before the disappearance of more good jobs becomes reality and the American factories really do shut down permanently. It has already happened to the US electronics industry.

It is actually possible. The US can become a non-developing nation with a permanently shrinking GDP. Yes, that includes you and you and Pelosi, Reid, Dodd, and Barney Frank who will continue in their jobs presiding over deflation, a deflating economy, and a growing labor force demanding unemployment benefits and food stamps for life. Then the US government will be able to save money by closing all schools.

There will be no need to get educated since there will be little real work. Potential workers will come of age and simply start collecting benefits. Instead of joining the labor pool, they will automatically join the beneficiary and entitlement pools.

But then who will be working and earning and be eligible for the government to tax? And if there is only a small taxable base of workers for the government to take money from, how will the government pay all those beneficiaries and entitled people the money they richly deserve?