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STEM is shorthand for "science, technology, engineering, and mathematics" — all fields that are growing, providing lucrative jobs, and key to future American competitiveness.

....Each year, American technology and engineering firms push to expand the number of workers allowed under the "H-1B" visa program, a category that allows companies to hire foreigners in roles where they cannot find a qualified American citizen.

STEM anxiety is also an outgrowth of larger concerns about American competitiveness. The growing number of STEM workers in countries like China and India has policymakers on edge.

American students should be doing better in math and science than they are now, and we are arguably producing too few college STEM majors. If the global competitiveness race turns into a numbers game, we're in trouble absent dramatic improvements. Besides, there is little doubt that our own economic future hinges in no small part on remaining a leader in innovation in science and technology. Excerpts from http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,2074024,00.html

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Wanted: doctors, nurses and nurse practitioners. Pharmacists. Therapists. And just about everybody else with an advanced degree—or even an interest—in healthcare.

Unemployment overall may be hovering near 10 percent. But a growing and aging population, the promise of wider health insurance coverage, and advances in medical technologies are translating into attractive salaries and signing bonuses for many of the people delivering care.

For the foreseeable future, "healthcare is going to be a great profession for career stability," predicts Susan Salka, chief executive of AMN Healthcare, the nation's largest healthcare staffing company. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics projects that jobs in the field will grow by more than 20 percent from 2008 through 2018, twice the pace for overall U.S. job growth. More at http://www.usnews.com/education/best-graduate-schools/articles/2011/05
/19/healthcare-jobs-on-the-rise]
I've heard and read that many different places, so I'm not sure where you get the impression we have too many nurses.

From "Jobs in Chicago": Nursing Jobs On The Rise ( http://www.jobsinchicago.com/nursing_articles/nursing_jobs_rise.cfm])

From "Indiana Daily": Nursing jobs on the rise;Employment opportunities to multiply over next 10 years( http://www.idsnews.com/news/story.aspx?id=58955&search=PEO&sec
tion=search)

Googling "Nursing jobs on the rise" brings many such articles. Part of the reason some new nurses have trouble finding jobs could be "older nurses have delayed retirement, often because the recession has thrown their spouses out of work." The same article mentions "We’re now in the sixth year in which health-care employment has far outshone every other sector, and college students have read those tea leaves", so although the supply of nurses has spiked unexpectedly right now, that's short term. The article gives scenarios of both a shortage of nurses in 2020 and a glut (tho' the glut was based on Romney winning and undoing the ACA), and the reasons why.

I think we both might be partly right and partly wrong.

Tit for tat got us where we are today. If we want to be grownups, we need to resist the ugliness. If we each did, this would be a better reflection on Firefly and a more welcome place. I will try.