Berkeley professor and Clinton administration Labor Secretary Robert Reich declared the future belonged to the “symbolic analysts” — people who, in the words of a Steve Earle song, use their brains and not their hands.

Laid-off coal miners in the last decade were contemptuously told to “learn to code.”

But the worm has turned. Google is looking at laying off 30,000 people it expects to replace with artificial intelligence.

The Wall Street Journal reports that large corporations across the board are planning to lay off white-collar workers.

[At some point, we need incentives to shift back to the trades and manufacturing. Perhaps a white-collar wipeout will provide those incentives. We need to return to self-sufficiency not just for a properly balanced economy but also for our own national security. As global shipping becomes more and more risky, Americans need to build at home — and that means reorienting our education system, environmental regulations, energy production, the whole enchilada. Time to get back to a January 1942 mindset for American production. — Ed]