L.A. Brain Drain

Raytheon Space and Airborne Systems, in El Segundo, laid off 210 employees Friday, the Daily Breeze reports. The 210 were "mostly engineers with some support staff."

In 2004, the Los Angeles Daily News reported on a study that classified 3.8 million Los Angeles County residents -- 53% of the workers over age 16 -- as “low-literate,” meaning they could not write a note explaining a billing error, use a bus schedule or locate an intersection on a street map.

The obvious solution? We need to train more people to read and write Nahuatl. That ought to make us competitive.

Check this out, from Rediff.com:

"China is today the largest producer of engineering graduates in the world, with some 600,000 passing out of its colleges and universities last year.

"India, it seems, isn't far behind.

"According to the All India Council for Technical Education, India produced 401,791 engineers in 2003-04, 35 per cent being computer engineers. In 2004-05, the number of engineering graduates increased to 464,743, of which 31 per cent were computer engineers.

"Compared to India and China, the United States produces only 70,000 engineering graduates every year. All of Europe produces just 100,000."

Bear in mind that China and India have much bigger populations than the U.S. and Europe, but even so . . . .