My article on this, from the latest Newsweek, is here. HP, the biggest tech company, is ringing an alarm bell about the future of science and technology. It’s scary stuff. We’re already starving science and engineering students of funding. That may only get worse if we spend billions bailing out banks and automakers. Money quote:
Nobody at HP wants to come out and say we should let automakers die. But it must gall them to see bright, aspiring scientists starved of funding while Detroit gets rewarded for its stupidity.
I may be a little bit biased, having grown up in Detroit, but I wish you could understand from my point of view how bassackward your thought process is on this. The auto industry has fueled innovation and pushed technology for the past 100 years. the midwest is filled with engineering schools that focus on science and technology that depend on the big 3. This includes big name schools like the University of Michigan, Penn State, Virginia Tech, Michigan State, and Kettering University, and Wisconsin. Think of the government/auto challenge X program, fuel cell research, literally whole technological school programs created and funded by the auto industry. If you think foreign automakers are going to invest in that you are crazy. And part of your answer to increase science and technology is to simply let these companies die?
@Paulpita with all due respect, I don’t think the NEXT 100 years of innovation will come from the auto industry. Some things must change, and as a sign of that change, we need to change the funding of basic research to math and physics, as opposed to that which is directly applicable to General Motors.
The auto industry needs to innovate or die. Looks like the government will give the spoiled children another chance. Will they take advantage of the grace or simply continue down their failing path?
Detroit is the motor industry, something people will always use. Silicon is more like a virtual industry, which, when it fizzles, will more like, just go offline.
Hey, if an auto company or a tech company dies, another one will rise in its place. No business, school, government or country is too big to fail. It’s only a question of when, how loud the splat, and who is gonna’ sweep up afterwards(an important corollary is which rats ran off the ship with all the cheese they swiped and who is bothered enough to round ‘em up, throw ‘em up against the wall and aerate the bastards?).
One important thing to remember: All of that foreign investment in education, technology, etc., was being fueled by booming economies. While some theorized that those foreign economies could decouple from the U.S., the reality over the past year has been quite different.
I would hypothesize that foreign research dollars are hitting the skids as I write this message. I think I can hear the screeching sounds from here…
The Intels, H-Ps, Microsofts, etc, want a huge bubble of engineering students so that they can benefit from a buyer’s market … ie, hold down salaries.
These same companies are constantly whining about not getting enough lower cost engineers into the USA, under the H1B visa program. They _already_ off-shore huge, and growing amounts, of their product development to the cheap developing countries (mainly India & China).
A modern-day engineer in the US has poor job security, and salary that is no where near commensurate with the many required years of formal and on-going education. A corporate engineer approaching his late 50s is at risk for being laid-off under any number of contrived pre-texts, not because his expertise has lagged, but because his salary has gotten “too high”, in the judgement of the multi-million or multi-deca-million dollar compensated executives populating the C-suite.
If the corporations want to attract more engineers and scientists, economic theory offers a simple solution — increase the pay of the people doing this “indispensable” work.
I think we need to cut taxes for the rich. They, in turn, will invest that money in businesses like AIG and they, in turn, will loan students money through student loans and credit cards at 12% APR. This will fuel massive profits which can be used to bribe politicians into increasing visas for foreigners and we can get the Taiwanese, Chinese, and Indians to come here and work for peanuts and we’ll never have to spend a dime educating our own. It’s working so far.
How pathetic it must be to have had a much talked about and enjoyed blog and them be relegated to shilling for dying inconsequential liberal rag sheet.
Go ahead Dannyboy, head over to CNBC and do the little hair flip thing again. As if you didn’t look vain enough the first time you did it!
I’m a bit biased, because I used to work for HP. The auto makers have no monopoly on stupidity, bad management, or lousy products. The whole technology industry should look at itself. If the U.S. isn’t turning out engineering and science majors, it may not be that Americans are too lazy and stupid to major in these fields, but that they are too smart to do so. Who in their right mind would put in 4 years of college, 4 years of medical school, and years of post-graduation training to become an M.D. specialist, only to have treatment recommendations second-guessed by some idiot business major at an HMO?
Why work to earn a Ph.D. in physics, EE, or computer science, when the career path ensures that the only way to pay off the education loans is to move into management?
There is something wrong with the system, but I don’t think it is on the universities’ end of things.
The really big question is why industries are dying. One reason quoted to death is “lack of innovation.”
Another reason is the Destruction of Business Location. Big automakers are also big on outsourcing. While outsourcing makes sense in the short term and spices up balance sheets, in the long run (and we have been into it for some time now), outsourcing will destroy the location and the brand that comes with location. It certainly does not help Detroit that foreign automakers are making better cars (overall).
This is why we have the “Designed in California” thing.
On that note, I second Bobert. Technical education is too expensive (and requires too much effort) for the long-term payoff – in America, anyway.
In America, we need CSI agents, forensic dudes, lawyers (lots of them) and doctors (even more of those). Technology? Not so much. We leave that to Steve.
Holy Shit Khrisþe!
Who’s seen the pre-release of Google’s online music solution? – everything else gets blown out of the water when this monster is unleashed. Includes managing video, photos, images, games – works on all platforms – but Android works best.
just my opinion….
http://gdpwealth.wordpress.com/
If tech jobs are disapearing and India is taking over, how come I get emails and even phone calls from Indian recruiting companies looking for American talent for American Companies?