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Whither America's Technological Edge?
baldass_newbie asks: "Ben Stein wrote an editorial titled, 'How to Ruin American Enterprise'. To me, technological innovation is a big outward sign of a successful economy. Sometimes it appears like the U.S. is losing its edge in technology. Well, I was wondering what the Slashdot community at large thinks is wrong (or right) with the U.S. and technological innovation?" The article deals less with technology and more with the society on which said innovation is based, and the problems that may bring it down around our collective ears. Give the article a read, and share your thoughts on whether or not you think it's an accurate assessment on the current and future situation of America's technological advantage.
How long can America keep pumping out students whose test scores are in the cellar for industrial nations and expect to maintain an edge in technology? As it stands, a lot of our brains are already imported from India and China.
I live in CA, which should stand as a dire warning to the rest of the country: They limit their property taxes, their schools go underfunded, and as a result California natives largely end up working to repair the cars and wash the floors of the well-educated from elsewhere.
The US needs to get serious about education, and fast. With the tech boom and the world shinking as it is, this is a really bad time to be stupid.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
Poor Ben Stein.
... "Give control of the coutry back to the rich becasue they know whats best"
Born and raised in privelage then appointed to work for Nixon as an economic advisor. Soon thereafter we had the worst economy since the depression. A lawyer who hates lawyers (except the corporate ones). This is the man who will destroy our nation and destroy any hopes of innovation. "End the common right to sue, then we'll have innovation" "End the teachers unions and privatize the schools"
In essence
Sorry Ben no sale. Even with the accasional liberal attitude your allegiance is clear.
"I pledge allegience to money !!!!"
"Corporate rock still sucks. What are you gonna do about it?"
Ben Stein's comments seem to be reasonably accurate, if you read them. We do indeed live in a country with a crippled education system, general contempt for intellectual activity among the bulk of the population, etc. I don't agree with absolutely everything he said, but overall, it is hard to argue.
All the foul language and no-nothing replies I've seen here in response to his article are evidence for his contentions, by the way.
Ever notice how much our technological edge gets dulled by the fear and power of the religous right? No cloning, stem cell research, animal organ transplant research, all because, "it goes against God's will." To which I say if God had wanted us to be illiterate, cave dwelling, dying at 30 idiots, then we'd all still have fur, and the skyscrapper would be a foriegn as the airplane. Religion has dulled America's edge and will continue to do so, so long as we fail to stop using it for a crutch.
3000 dead over past 2 years, still no free Palestinians, still
Export tech jobs, import people to do tech jobs.
If we look at the economics of the situation, there is no reason for anyone to become a programmer anymore.
There is only an incentive to become a pencil pushing manager or a lawyer.
I'm not trying to troll or to get flamed here. If you think about it, this is a huge reason why we have all these problems!
13) Encourage powerful, monopolistic companies to rest on their fat assets (pun intended) and squelch any competition by their sheer size and market domination. Allow them to stamp out any potential competitors before they become a real threat to the established company. This will discourage innovation and widespread use of better products.
3) Create a culture that blames the other guy for everything and discourages any form of individual self-restraint or self-control this from the man who said mmorpg's should be illegal because his son was 'addicted' to them. cute.
Except for maybe AMD and Apple all the companies you listed are moving as much work as they can in Support/Design/Dev to India/China/Russia because the only have to pay $500 USD per month per worker.
- Mexico
- Germany
- Phillipines
- Italy
- Canada
Not exactly Al Qaeda's hordes there.News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
"Big business doesn't like innovation. They like the semblance (sp?) of innovation to encourage you to buy "new" things, but completely and truly new things cost money, take away from the bottom line, and transition periods are where big companies tend to get replaced."
IBM spent 5 billion dollars last year on R&D. Microsoft just announced a boost to 5.2 billion dollars for next year.
A company like Ford would do anything they could to develop a substantial innovation over GM and DB.
Big business is always looking for an edge just
like the next guy.
This has nothing to do with big business, it is about the leisure class gone amuck.
Most of that article is rightwing propganda with a little on tech to gloss it over. Here is a list of ways we can do to help....
1. The duh answer of them all of course is increased school funding. I relize however, if everyone got a decent education, we would have very few people willing to join the military and those who did would join one loaded with officers, and no cannon fodder, I mean elisted men.
2. Not everyone needs to get a four year degree. There needs to be many more professional opportunities for people with 2 year degrees. It would increase tax revenue to have a better paid population, and reduce the burden on four year universities who can better use the money on people who need to spend the time in college.
3. Companies that spend a sigifigant portion (~75%) of thier R&D money in Univeristy based Labs would recive an huge tax break.
4. Medical Advancement: Place a 20 blackout on the production of generics and in return drug companies must reduce prices by 75%. New drug prices are high in this country because a company must recoup the billions it spent on R&D in the first 3 years to make any sort of profit, because after 5 it can be made by anyone dirt cheap.
This give companies much more capital and incentive to innovate instead of copy what the other guy did and sell it cheaper.
5. Government Funded Hard Science: If we rely only on corperations to fund research, then we are going to be limmited to innovations that will make a profit, and we will be worthless as a civilization.
We see this all the time. People see terrible things going on and think that all they have to do is point at it while loudly raising alarm, and they have contributed to the solution. Well, it ain't true. Yeah, the education system sucks, but it isn't because those running it want it to suck. TV is a vast wasteland, and always has been, but what, if anything, can be done to improve it? Even offering a solution is dangerous enough, but fixing a social problem without a plan will certainly lead to disaster.
Utopians consistently excel in discovering faults, but those who actually try to fix them usually end up with a situation far worse than the one they were so alarmed about.
Information is not Knowledge
Anyway, call me weird, but I'm just not that worried about the Mexican army storming into San Antonio, hell-bent on reclaiming Aztlan any time soon.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
A poor standard of education is just one of the pitfalls of trying to create an egalitarian society. If you always try and create a safety net for the weak, lazy and stupid then you limit your ability to embrace the potential of the brilliant and industrious. This will obviously stiffle innovation, and less socially responsible countries will have an advantage.
What if he wants to be an artist? Why shouldn't he be a doctor?
Your son is not your property.
Wow, I see you give your child all the opportunities a geek's son could want. He's not even out of elementary school yet and not only do you already have his future profession picked out, you know where he's going to go to college! What a lucky boy.
*This page intentionally left pointless*
I work with schools all the time, and I can tell you the problem with education in the United States is not teachers. It's not even the politicians. It's the general population which seems to be schizophrenic about public education. There are referendums on school vouchers popping up all over the place. That means people are bailing out on public ed. We have to decide whether we want public schools or not and act accordingly.
As far as marketeers, lawyers, etc., those are the people who have always been successful in the United States. You can't claim that the captains of industry have been brilliant engineers or innovators. More often it seems they're simply people who are ruthless, unscrupulous, lucky, or some combination thereof.
I'm also a little tired of people bashing the education system without offering any constructive criticism. It's quite easy to scream about how bad the system is and stand silent when asked for potential solutions. In the States, we educate a more diverse and larger population than most people who claim to have better systems. There are individual states in the Union larger than entire EU nations. In fact, there are two or three districts in West Texas that are larger than sovereign European states. So don't tell me we're always comparing apples to apples.
In short, I think there's a lot of panic about a situation that would better be solved by reason and open discussion. Let's pay our teachers better, put administrative power over schools back at the local level, trim the bureaucratic fat at the state and federal levels, and demand more from our kids.
Forgive me...I've had way, way too much coffee.
* Handing out laptops to everyone is not the answer -- most of those countries that beat US schools don't have access to current books, let alone laptops.
* The internet will not teach your children -- while it's true there is a fountain of knowledge at your fingertips, there's a ocean full of crap to sift though.
* Stop focussing so much money on organized sports when your school is graduating illiterates.
* Kids using Powerpoint is not the answer. Unless the question is -- How do we raise a nation of Marketing drones!
I am not a number! I am a man! And don't you
True, I don't think anyone can seriously believe that the public school system in the States is not in deep trouble. We've all heard about the %11 of US students who cannot find *the US* on a map... But this neo-conservative plan for the future would hardly solve the problem.
;)
Apropos of education Stein writes:
"Allow schools to fall into useless decay. Do not teach civics or history except to describe America as a hopelessly fascistic, reactionary pit. Do not expect students to know the basics of mathematics, chemistry and physics. Working closely with the teachers' unions, make sure that you dumb down standards so that children who make the most minimal effort still get by with flying colors. Destroy the knowledge base on which all of mankind's scientific progress has been built by guaranteeing that such learning is confined to only a few, and spread ignorance and complacency among the many."
But later (#10 for all you following at home) he argues against what he perceives to be unfair and heavy taxation. So the US is supposed to improve schools without raising money to do so? At its most simple level, there are two basid problems.
1) Teachers get paid shit in the US. In NYC the average salery for public school teachers is just under $32,000/year (before taxes), which makes it impossible to feed and house oneself in the city (unless there are some other funds coming in, trust fund, spouse, etc). Likewise, a university professor (tenure track) at San Fransico State makes abut $40,000/yr -- in San Francisco! A janitor in a Columbus Ohio high school, on the other hand, makes about $50,000/yr. What does this tell you about the value in which teachers are held?
There are some great dedicated teachers out there, but I have taught more than one, kind well-meaning, and utterly incompetent student who planned to teach high school (and went on to do so). Yes many teachers suck (although I think almost all must be pretty selfless to put up with a very hard job). Look at what we pay them.
Yet Stein is also against those evil teacher unions. I hate to break the news, but most teacher unions are not fighting to lower standards, they are fighting for decent working conditions. Sometimes this involves lowering the bar because standards cannot be held in the conditions in which they work. Bringing us to pt. 2...
2) Given the lack of financial support for education in the US, many schools are falling apart and grossly overcrowded (10% are trying to function at %125 capacity) necesitating teaching in gyms, halls, etc... and creating enormous classes that are impossible for the most dedicated teacher to manage.
So even if we had better teachers, they would have an impossible job to do. So we end up with a nation of illiterates (44 million I think), who don't know anything about the world around them, not to even mention technology or science.
It is all very well to say "Hey we should do a better job teaching our kids," of course we should! But to do that we must spend money. Not that throwing money at the problem will make it go away, but it's a fundamental ingredient for meaningful change -- an ingrediant that the rest of Stein's articles run in the face of.
(sorry for the dangling participle)
Yes, I differ with Stein in a number of ways, we are clearly on different ends of the political spectrum, but I leave it to others to address his other "points to change" in an intelligent fashion. I'm ranted out for the moment
While you may not agree with the ideology of the man, he does make valid points. Many of his arguments cross party lines. Speaking as an Independent (Liberterian leaning) I see myself as someone who agrees, our country has already gone too far down this path. I don't think there is anyway to recover from it. Just hope that enough independent, intelligent, socially responsible people remain to balance out the ignorant masses.
One of the reasons my fare country, the United States of America, sucks is because of education. Our education system is eroding more and more every year.
Why?
That's actually quite obvious. There are people, probably all neo-cons, that want privatization of our schools. They are vehemently against anything resembling socialism and will fight to the death to privatize everything.
Capitalism can only succeed if we have a mix between private corporations and some socialist programs. Schools should be available to everyone without the contamination of corporations, libraries should available to all, health care to everyone.
So the plan is let the public school system crumble to the ground, show the success of school vouchers for private schools, make public schools private. It's so freaking obvious it's not even worth debating. The Republicans want everything to be driven by capitalism and will stop at nothing to achieve it. The Democrats are too scared to do anything about it for fear of not getting re-elected. The average American doesn't have the time to worry about it because they are working 50-60 hours a week with 1 week vacation and trying to figure out how to afford sending their kids to college.
I hate to say it but we are fucked. We are going to be fucked for quite some time, until the average dumbass figures out he's working harder than his dad did and making less money and paying more taxes while corporations don't pay shit in taxes. It's only a matter of time before the shit hits the fan but I am afraid it will be a few years before the dumbasses realize the situation and a few more years to get it fixed.
LoRider
This is kinda scary, but I actually find myself agreeing with an AC. I must be one of the few people in the US who went to a good school before getting to college.
I didn't have to go Europe to take french, trig, beginning C programming, and some elementary biology and chemistry before getting to high school. (i.e., around 12-13 years old) I've tried to maintain this throughout high school, and even though I got a little lazy in college, I still pushed pretty hard. And what for? I can honestly say I know at least a little about just about everything, but what good does it do? I probably would have been much happier goofing off and enjoying life, especially since I would still probably be just as qualified for my current monkey-coding job.....
-Space for rent
Allow schools to fall into useless decay.
.com millionaires and the damage wrought by that economic boom.
Let's first address the physical decay facing our nation's schools. The current conditions facing most students and teachers are appalling. We spend more money decorating the White House for annual holidays than most school districts budget for building maintenance.
Do not expect students to know the basics of mathematics, chemistry and physics. Working closely with the teachers' unions, make sure that you dumb down standards so that children who make the most minimal effort still get by with flying colors.
Standardized testing and federal guidelines must challenge our nation's students. In the last 15 years, federal regulations and state authorities have enacted a wave of PC rules that force schools to combine students of varying learning abilities into one large class. In that class, is expected that a student with a reading ability of an 8th grader to complete the same work as a student with a reading ability of a 12th grader.
What happened to Remedial and Honors classes?
Encourage the making of laws and rules by trial lawyers and sympathetic judges, especially through class actions. Bypass the legislative mechanisms that involve elected representatives and a president. This will stop--or at least greatly slow down--innovation, as corporations and individuals hesitate to explore new ideas for fear of getting punished (or regulated to death) by litigation for any misstep, no matter how slight, in the creation of new products and services. Make sure that lawsuits against drugmakers are especially encouraged so that the companies are afraid to develop new lifesaving drugs, lest they be sued for sums that will bankrupt them. Make trial lawyers and judges, not scientists, responsible for the flow of new products and services.
There is no question that this country needs to address Tort reform. In addition, we as a nation need to recognize that regulation is not what the founding fathers had in mind when writing the Constitution. I don't need the FCC protecting my children or me from televised orgies; I am most capable of regulating my children and myself. I don't need lawmakers asking what is popular with the country. I need lawmakers that are not afraid to do what is right, even if it is not what is popular.
Create a culture that blames the other guy for everything and discourages any form of individual self-restraint or self-control. Promote litigation to punish tobacco companies on the theory that they compel innocent people to smoke. Make it second nature for someone who is overweight to blame the restaurant that served him fries.
We must encourage and teach our children to take responsibility for their actions. Simple as that. If you drink and drive it is not the responsibility of the bartender, it is your responsibility.
Sneer at hard work and thrift. Encourage the belief that all true wealth comes from skillful manipulation and cunning, or from sudden, brilliant and lucky strokes that leave the plodding, ordinary worker and saver in the dust. Make sure that society's idols are men and women who got rich from being sexy in public or through gambling or playing tricks, not from hard work or patience. Make the citizenry permanently envious and bewildered about where real success comes from.
Continue making music videos that display a non-reality. For example, Jay-Z does not make 10 figures a year and selling 10 millions albums does not make you rich: ask TLC. In addition, be honest and open about the
Hold the managers of corporations to extremely lax standards of conduct and allow them to get off with a slap on the wrist when they betray the trust of shareholders. This will discourage thrift and investment and ensure that Americans will have far less capital to work with than other societies, while simultaneously developing that contempt for law and social standards that is the hallmark of failing nations. Hold the management of labor unions to no ethical standards.
Halliburton. WorldCom. Enron. United Airlines. But why are we upset? Why are we surprised? This is not the first time that CEOs have raped us. Oil companies did it in the 70s. Savings and Loans did it in 80s.
While you're at it, discourage respect for law in every possible way. This will dissolve the glue that holds the nation together, and dissuade any long-term thinking. Societies in which the law can be clearly seen to apply to some and not to others are doomed to decay, in terms of innovation and everything else.
I don't imagine that a 31 year-old black woman who shoplifts $5100 in merchandise from Macys would receive probation and community service. I don't imagine that anyone but a star baseball player would be charged and convicted of DUI, possession, and assault 4 different times before seeing the inside of a jail cell. I don't imagine that anyone but a star basketball player could physical assault their coach/boss, and then be offered a 7 figure yearly income with another team/job.
Encourage a mass culture that spits on intelligence and study and instead elevates drug use, coolness through sex and violence, and contempt for school. As children learn to be stupid instead of smart, the national intelligence base needed for innovation will simply vanish into MTV-land.
It is sad when video games outsell books. It is deplorable that most teenage boys can spew more slang for a woman's genital region, than he can name past Presidents.
Mock and belittle the family. Provide financial incentives to people willing to live an isolated existence, vulnerable and frightened. This guarantees that men and women of sufficient character to bring about innovation will be psychologically stifled from an early age.
Why do my wife and I pay a higher percentage of our income in taxes than single people?
Enact a tax system that encourages class antagonism and punishes saving, while rewarding indebtedness, frivolity and consumption. Tax the fruits of labor many times:
First tax it as income.
Then tax it as real or personal property.
Then tax it as capital gains.
Then tax it again, at a staggeringly high level, at death.
This way, Americans are taught that only fools save, and that it is entirely proper for us to have the lowest savings rate in the developed world. This will deprive us of much-needed capital for new investment, for innovation and our own personal aspirations. It will compel us to ask foreigners for ever more capital and allow them to own more of America. It will also promote an attitude of carelessness about the future and, once again, encourage disrespect for law.
There isn't anything I can add here. Ben Stein is dead on. As a young couple and making over $100K a year, my wife and I still don't know how we are going to afford a house, retirement, etc... It sounds far-fetched, but given taxes and more taxes, there is very little that we can save.
Have a socialized medical system that scrimps on badly needed drugs and procedures, resorts to only the cheapest practices and discourages drug companies from developing new drugs by not paying them enough to cover their costs of experimentation, trial and error.
If you don't think we have socialized medicine in the US, then explain to me what an HMO is.
Elevate mysticism, tribalism, shamanism and fundamentalism--and be sure to exclude educated, hardworking men and women--to an equal status with technology in the public mind. Make sure that, in order to pay proper (and politically correct) respect to all different ethnic groups in America, you act as if science were on an equal footing with voodoo and history with ethnic fable.
Because it is important that we return school prayer. Forget that schools cannot afford textbooks and some children cannot afford lunch, we have to work together to return school prayer. School prayer will make everything better.
And make sure that we give equal time to Darwin and the Book of Genesis when discussing the origins of the Universe.
But I stopped at a dozen because I realized that this is already, in large measure, the program of so many of our elected representatives. The debauchery of our tort system is already in place, and the rest of the agenda is under way.
Enough said. Out.
Tell you what, just wait until you have kids, and not only do they spend all day in school, you have to help them do their homework all evening so they can learn what they should have in eight hours at school. It's just easier to homeschool 'em.
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Games is one software area in which a lot of innovation is coming out of Asia (esp. Japan).
People innovate in areas they really enjoy. I wonder if the lack of innovation in productivity software is due to the difficulty of using the awkward asian language input mechanisms along with the dominance of American companies.
Since when do we take economic advise from a man who hosts a game show on Comedy Central?!
Seriously...
Somebody want solutions to the education problem? A few humble suggestions, not easy ones:
1. Require national standard minimum skills tests for EVERY ACCREDITED MAJOR before a degree is granted. Get professors and top hiring managers to design the test. This helps keep our universities from graduating every single person they possible can. Really, where else can we find a financial incentive for our universities to flunk more people and graduate less of them? Degrees should not be a dime a dozen.
2. Make grade school HARD. If it takes little Johnny an extra 3 years to graduate, so be it. Holding back brighter kids so the less able ones don't feel bad has to stop. I honestly want my second grader learning Intro Chinese, Solar System basics, Ecology (where litter goes), math that isn't memorization, etc. etc. No more whole days spent on Red+Blue=Purple.
3. Simple one: Make it VERY HARD to become a teacher. This is what the AMA did for doctors. This gives us better teachers who we know are motivated. It shrinks the teacher pool so we are forced to start paying more for teachers. Sure, it hurts initially when class sizes grow, but it pays off in the long run, and still 40 kids to one great teacher is far better than 10 kids to one lousy teacher.
These 3 steps could be implemented without spending much taxpayer money, and the benefits would be easy to see after a few years.
Operator, give me the number for 911!
When I was dating my wife (who is Mexican), we were on a particularly beautiful vista overlooking the Bay Area in lights, and she mentioned this.
Her: All this used to be ours
Me: So you really want California run by the PRI?
Her: Eeerg.
Believe me when I say that Mexicans don't really covet the U.S. Hell, they'd be glad if they could just have a honest to goodness government running Mexico.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Yuck. It's been a long while since I've read something so mixed-up and vicious. I knew Ben Stein was a conservative, but I had no idea he was quite this reactionary.
...
... except to describe America as a hopelessly fascistic, reactionary pit.
Going blow-by-blow:
Allow schools to fall into useless decay.
I'll give him that -- American public education is definitely on the decline.
Do not teach civics or history
Indeed, far too little of both.
WTF? Have you been in a high-school history classroom lately? Sure, the curriculum now tends to include slavery, genocide against Indians, and so forth, but I've yet to see anything of that caliber in a history text. Even the famously leftist (but wonderful) People's History of the United States comes off making the people (if not the government) of this country look pretty valiant.
Working closely with the teachers' unions, make sure that you dumb down standards so that children who make the most minimal effort still get by with flying colors.
Hold it right there. We all know teachers' unions can sometimes be a little reactionary, but they're not what's ruining public education today. The biggest threat is precisely the implementation of endless "standards," in which pointy-headed administrators tie teachers' hands in the classrooms and turn learning into nothing more than a series of Scantron answer sheets. You want a capable workforce capable of innovation? Good luck accomplishing it by making them into test-taking robots.
2) Encourage the making of laws and rules by trial lawyers and sympathetic judges, especially through class actions. Bypass the legislative mechanisms that involve elected representatives and a president. This will stop--or at least greatly slow down--innovation, as corporations and individuals hesitate to explore new ideas for fear of getting punished (or regulated to death) by litigation for any misstep, no matter how slight, in the creation of new products and services.
Funny fact -- we actually filed more lawsuits-per-capita in the 19th century than we do today. These endless campaigns to do away with our constitutionally-protected recourse to the courts are nothing more than a greedy attempt by powerful corporate interests to make sure they don't have to pay for the consequences of their misdeeds. I suppose you're driving a Ford Pinto to the game show every day, Ben?
Make sure that lawsuits against drugmakers are especially encouraged so that the companies are afraid to develop new lifesaving drugs, lest they be sued for sums that will bankrupt them. Make trial lawyers and judges, not scientists, responsible for the flow of new products and services.
Alternately, use public funds to do life-saving research at the National Institutes for Health, then turn the results over to the drug companies for them to patent and make a killing. Ensure that the FDA is packed with industry insiders who don't understand the very meaning of the word regulation, and then use your profits to engineer a political consensus against any sort of price-controls for prescription drugs. Watch as columnists for business magazines tow the party line.
Promulgate the pitiful joke that Americans are hereby exempt from any responsibility for their own actions--so long as there are deep pockets around to be rifled.
I suppose the fact that the above-mentioned deep pockets constitute Forbes's readership is totally incidental...
5) Hold the managers of corporations to extremely lax standards of conduct and allow them to get off with a slap on the wrist when they betray the trust of shareholders. This will discourage thrift and investment and ensure that Americans will have far less capital to work with than other societies, while simultaneously developing that contempt for law and social standards that is the hallmark of failing nations. Hold the management of labor unions to no ethical standards.
In the interests of fairness, here is one area in which Stein is dead-on. Although the problem goes far beyond the lack of adequate standards -- it is really a structural problem in which corporations are not accountable to their workers, consumers, or the public at large. As for union leadership, the biggest problems with unions in this country is that they're too weak, and their leaders compromise too much and don't represent the interests of their members. Ongoing efforts towards union democracy may help that.
Provide financial incentives to people willing to live an isolated existence, vulnerable and frightened.
This is Republican propaganda. The so-called marriage tax penalty was highly questionable to begin with, but it's now been repealed.
9) Develop a suicidal immigration policy that keeps out educated, hardworking men and women from friendly nations and, instead, takes in vast numbers of angry, uneducated immigrants from nations that hate us. This, too, leads to the shrinking of our knowledge base and the eventual disappearance of social cohesion.
I can't begin to comprehend what the argument is here, beyond racist invective. Most immigrants (documented or otherwise) to this country are hard-working people who do work that most native-born Americans would never care to do.
10) Enact a tax system that encourages class antagonism and punishes saving, while rewarding indebtedness, frivolity and consumption. Tax the fruits of labor many times:
First tax it as income.
Yes, because income taxes are inherently fair, in that those who are benefiting most from our economy are in turn paying a greater share of the costs of making it work. (Sorry, Libertarians, but the market doesn't keep itself afloat.)
Then tax it as capital gains.
Capital gains is income for wealthy people who can make money without working.
Then tax it again, at a staggeringly high level, at death.
Sorry, Ben, but the estate tax only applies to estate in the millions of dollars. Besides, if you're four-square in favor of hard work, why give the children of the wealthy a free ride in life?
11) Have a socialized medical system that scrimps on badly needed drugs and procedures, resorts to only the cheapest practices and discourages drug companies from developing new drugs by not paying them enough to cover their costs of experimentation, trial and error.
A SOCIALIZED medical system? Geez, Ben, what country are you living in? We have one of the least socialized health care systems in the developed world, and as a result it functions extremely poor. It is grossly inefficient (some amazing percentage of our health care dollars go toward bureaucratic overhead), and puts us somewhere behind Cuba, according to the World Health Organization. We're in the middle of a huge health care crisis in this country, and it's been brought to us by greedy HMOs and drug companies. (Also, see above about corporate welfare for the drug companies.)
12) Elevate mysticism, tribalism, shamanism and fundamentalism--and be sure to exclude educated, hardworking men and women--to an equal status with technology in the public mind. Make sure that, in order to pay proper (and politically correct) respect to all different ethnic groups in America, you act as if science were on an equal footing with voodoo and history with ethnic fable.
This country was built by people of a variety of different faiths, frequently persecuted in their homelands, who came here seeking a place to practice their religions freely, and have an opportunity to govern themselves. Our task is allow everyone in America to bring the highest values of their traditions (whatever they may be), to make a society that works for all. Or, we could simply engage in intellectual elitism, pointing and laughing at those we consider backwards.
Never worry, Ben Stein and his ideological allies can bring us back from the brink of disaster, to build a country where everyone is fearful, rule by the rich goes unquestioned, and cultural pluralism is a thing of the past.
Red All Over: Rambling Missives from an Aspiring Revolutionary
- Who invented the transistor?
- Who started the computer industry?
- Who invented nuclear power?
- Who put human beings on the moon and then brought them back safely 6 times
Actually, now that I think about it...
Transistor, the team at Bell Labs. Score one for the USA.
Computer industry? I'd say the team led by England's Alan Turing.
Nuclear power? I'd say the team led by Italy's Enrico Fermi, or if you look back further, New Zealand's Ernest Rutherford.
Putting humans on the moon? I'd say the team led by Germany's Werner von Braun.
OK, that's one from four. Nothing to really brag about. And my comment about "in our lifetimes" still stands.
-----
PGP Key ID 0xCB8FF658
I'm a foreigner (French), so of course my external POV is biased but I disagree on several points on the article:
- point 3. Promote litigation to punish tobacco companies on the theory that they compel innocent people to smoke.
Sorry, but this is very bad exemple, while I agree that in the US there are too many litigations, I also believe that tobacco companies do try to compel innocent people to smoke by running ads targetted to young teen.
In France, after a long battle, the problem has been solved in a radical way: any advertisement for tobacco is forbidden in any media.
- point 12. Uh? I've always seen American people as being in general higly religious which apparently haven't prevented the US from being the richest nation.
I don't really thinks that the nature of the religion is important wether it is catholicism, mysticim, or other things (except sects of course)
But I'm an atheist, so I'm not very knowledgeable into religions and I don't care, to be honest.
Also the article somehow insists too much on the technical side of the affair: US has not have the best student or best researchers for a long time, still the US is still the first nation on a big number of field, why?
Because the transformation of new idea into industries which sells works very well in the US whereas in the other country usually it doesn't work so well.
And another thing: the article didn't list the patents as a highly dangourous thing: they could slow down inovation very much..
Any society will respond to what is valued either through the marketplace or socially. Ours is no exception.
We do not value little smart gadgets like the Japanese do, so we do not make them as well or as consistently. The Japanese do not have per capita square footage like we do, so anything that gives them more capability in a small space is prized. Electronics are also a very profitable item to ship, so it was an excellent arena for the Japanese to specialize in.
Being behind in consumer electronics is not new. Our broadcast standards have been absolutely behind most of the world for decades, for instance. But a clear picture wasn't as important to us and so we have lagged until HDTV.
On the other hand we feel a need to have a strong military. So we put our money into all sorts of hideous toys that are so far ahead of everyone else's that Pax Americana is an absolute fact. No matter how much Japan or France or Russia or China may want to, they simply cannot build an F-22 for a long time to come.
Unfortunately F-22s do not readily translate into consumer products, but items like BOMARC and B-52s translated into the 747, still a world-beater product.
I'm not suggesting that the military-industrial complex is our technical salvation, but since we prioritize and pay for it we get that kind of technical edge. If we want innovation in other sectors of our economy, we will need to prioritize that, either as a government initiative or the natural course of market desire.
And we need to stop whining if we don't absolutely dominate every global industrial endeavor. As long as we can offload the commoditization to Japan or the Little Dragons and keep the innovation in-house, who cares if we all have Playstations instead of Ataris?
________________________________________ History Must Not Fall Into The Wrong Hands ___________________________________
I'm a utopian... Anyway, there are solutions to solve all our problems. Most of them developed over the last 5 years.
Pointing out the problems so loudly that you can no longer deny them is the first step in building a discussion, which is necessary in finding the proper solution. Without discussion, which our current political system discourages, we end up debating the same issues for decades and get nowhere. Why wasn't our school system a hot issue for debate at the last election? Because we're too concerned with money. And I believe if you look at all these problems people keep pointing out you will find that all of them are related by 1 thing, money. People sell out and take the get-rich-quick scheme because that is the goal of American life. If we weren't persuaded by money, if we didn't cater to money or care about money we wouldn't be posting on this article and our school system would be designed properly for our kids. Unfortunately I think the only way to get our minds off of money is to do away with it completely and instead use computers, databases and networks to manage our resources efficiently.
C'mon, this is obvious:
How long can America keep pumping out students whose test scores are in the cellar for industrial nations and expect to maintain an edge in technology? As it stands, a lot of our brains are already imported from India and China.
I live in CA, which should stand as a dire warning to the rest of the country: They limit their property taxes, their schools go underfunded, and as a result California natives largely end up working to repair the cars and wash the floors of the well-educated from elsewhere.
The US needs to get serious about education, and fast. With the tech boom and the world shinking as it is, this is a really bad time to be stupid.
I hear this stuff all the time, and used to believe it myself on occasion. Its simply not true. The educational system was NEVER intended to make people smart, it was intended to make the intelligent human masses comfortable working in factories doing boring, repetitive work and acquiesing to the demands of leaders. Education as we know it, is a system which originated in fascist germany as a way to school better, more obedient and selfless soldiers.
Make no mistake. Schools are doing EXACTLY what they were designed to do. Think about it. Have you ever gone to a neighboorhood in the US which was constructed in the 19th century? How is it houses were constructed to be not only durable, but beautiful as well? The parks, museums, sculptures... All built long before public schools. Have you ever read civil war letters? The average 15 year old infantryman in the civil war writes far better than 99% of the people who post on slashdot. Could you imagine any book by Charles Dickens being on the bestseller list today? Why are so many schools named after the industrial magnates of yesteryear, like Carnegie, Colgate... Why were so many colleges funded by the industrial elite?
If you really think about it, it just doesn't add up. Schools make you DUMB, this is what they were supposed to do. It makes a people easier to control, and less prone to nasty rebellions. Humans are innately intelligent, it is only warping their minds through years of social conditioning they became mad, lost, and inhuman. Carnegie, JP Morgan, Frick, all of them sat around and thought about how to make free men content to work in their god foresaken factories, and like it. They made it so, and now we are living with that legacy.
The forced educational system must come to an end, it is time for this system of class control to collapse and for the average american to recapture the American dream that was stolen from him by the fascist powers of a century ago. We sit here and rip on the US educational system, even though the educational system is the single largest industry in the United States, both in capital expenditures and employment percentages. How is it people in India and China can do as well as us, even in the midst of an anarchy which can barely pave roads let alone build schools. They are better because they are NOT schooled.
To all who are interested, I highly suggest you read the online version of a book entitled The Underground History of American Education by one John Taylor Gatto. The book gives a well written account of exactly how the free minds of the United States were perverted into the drones we have today. It is rare I read a book that is truly eye opening, but this book will make it all make sense.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
The ability to attract foreigners to do tech research within a country is a part of that country's tech edge, and should be counted. Fermi was Italian, but Italy wasn't where he did his work. Von Braun was German, but the Apollo missions weren't based in Peenemunde. Turing gets major kudos for advances in computer science, but you cridited him for computer industry, which is something else entirely.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Two of your remaining four came to America to do their most influential work. Who cares if Fermi was born in Italy? The U.S. had the organization, the funding, and the non-fascist, non-anti-semitic political scene that let him build the first fission reactor in Chicago. Heisenberg, possibly as brilliant (though with hardly the experimental acumen), working in Nazi Germany, got nowhere. Likewise for von Braun--Nazi Germany had him developing penny-ante weapons, the U.S. had him boost people to the moon. (I suppose he helped the U.S. develop ICBMs, but hey, that's technology, too.) Even Einstein died an American.
If the U.S. is still the destination of choice for the best and brightest foreign-born minds, that's going to pay off BIG in the long run. The only challenge I see is Chinese-born professionals starting to feel that China offers enough freedom to make staying there pay off more than coming to the U.S. In order to do that, China has to focus on maintaining its own internal stability, probably liberalize its political system, and will have to take a very calm approach to international relations. That helps the U.S., too, so the downside of being the second-largest national economy won't be so bad.
I'm an mech engr in business running a couple of CNC machines for a living making a variety of parts for local telecom, recreation, and misc industries. I've got all of the cool stuff that you need to be in this business, but I've recognized for some time that the balance of manufacturing power has shifted to Asia. This isn't a bad thing in an economic sense, and Americans and the west benefit greatly from the low priced products originating in Asia, and more specifically, China. One could argue that it is western technology, and a massive Asian manufacturing economy that together fuel this expansion. What does concern me though, is that Americans have come to expect, that we as a people, will somehow defy socioeconomic law and continue as an economic, and singular military superpower, ad infinitum. One need only look at the manufacturing lead that Americans held at the end of WWII, to realize that much of the American Century was fueled by the fortune of a geography that shielded our continent from the massive destruction of both world wars in Europe, Russia, and Asia. This lead has, over almost 60 years time, diminished, with the prospects, if not occurence, of reduction in the standard of living for the middle and lower class. It is not too great a stretch to see an Asian future in which rising manufacturing prowess fuels a greatly expanded appetite for innovation, and wealth creation. How will the people of America respond to this economic and social challenge? My own take is probably not well.
Perhaps losing our technical edge isn't such a bad thing...
Has anyone else noticed how we use our technological edge? Particualarly on a global scale? Things such as Echelon has not made things better.
Don't get me wrong. I am a patriot, but I believe in the Constitution, not the current... um... well, maybe I shouldn't say that, this isn't being posted as an AC.
Maybe we should imagine what would happen if the USA didn't have the edge over the rest of the world. Who knows, without a bully on the playground things might get better.
I think we should- Just a sec, someone's at the door. Hey! What are you doing! That's my cable modem connec-
NO CARRIER
"Logic merely enables one to be wrong with authority." - Dr. Who
It's foolish to think that any buiding in foreign lands somehow indicates the imminent demise of Western civilization (as people do classic, and as ignorant as always, linear extrapolation of trends). Firstly, if there are smart people in India, or China, or wherever, and if they represent a well education population with a stable society, then why can't they contribute in the world economy? I'd set up shop there too simply because it makes sense to have regional suppliers: The Asian area accounts for a hearty percentage of the Earth's population, so you probably should be ready to cater to them. Secondly once these shops move in a funny thing starts to happen: The wealth and wages of the people rise, they start buying the goods that they're buiding spreading the wealth, and it's a better economy for everyone. Already I've heard that a good Indian programmer costs about $22,000US/year: That's a far cry from the slave labour prices in the nasceant days of the Indian tech sector, and it makes it a lot more of a toss up if it's really worth it locating over there, but at the same time when it is it imbues the people with the wealth to turn around and buy those chips and switches and software.
Title has a typo. See above for correction.
I'll address his lists point by point. Probably the one most obviously fallacious to Slashdot readers is "Develop a suicidal immigration policy that keeps out educated, hardworking men and women from friendly nations". So raising the H1-B cap to 195,000 is keeping supposedly educated people out how? I guess he's mad that the H1-B cap isn't 300,000 or 400,000, and that IT wages have only fallen a little, and that there still are a few job openings that pop up once in a while. Stein is nothing other than a commissar for the powers that he serves, of whom they are is obvious from the publication he is writing in (Forbes). Then he bashes Mexican immigration but neglects to mention that Steve Forbes is a big booster of Mexican immigration for a variety of reasons - I guess Stein is smart enough to not bite the hand that feeds him, and try to make people think the Teamsters union was all for NAFTA and all that or something...
1) It's true American schools are bad, although not for the reasons he gives. The US has imported hundreds of thousands of skilled workers from countries who have socialist education systems (mainly India and China) because according to tech business leaders, American schools are not putting out the type of students needed. The fact that hundreds of thousands of H1-Bs immigrated to the US shows that their education system is superior, but their pay system is inferior (e.g. it can't pay the workers what they can get here).
2) He only picks on trial lawyers, I guess corporate lawyers get a pass. Lots of horrible things have been created in court, like the modern corporation with the rights of a person, I doubt he would have a problem with that type of court back door use though
3) Slashdot often posst article where some big corporation sues some individual over some minor infraction. In Stein's world, the corporations are the victims, at the mercy of small individuals suing them. Imagine calling tobacco companies (who are more or less drug dealing mass murderers) victims of the law, tobacco companies are the most lawsuit-happy entity in existence, they prevented Sixty Minutes from airing a piece on tobacco for a long time by strange legal threats. Goodbye open society and free press, stopped by the drug dealers like Phillip Morris and co. It's disgusting how the right rushes to defend tobacco drug dealers and portrays them as victims but then turns around and sends guys selling marijuana on the corner to prison for years on end.
4) Where does real success come from? Look at who has the most important job, the president. He got bad grades, bad SAT scores, got into an Ivy League school anyway, got C's there, got into Harvard anyway and so forth. If you look at the Forbes 400 richest Americans list, the majority got there by inheriting the money. It's true that all wealth comes from as the classical economists said, workers working, and creating wealth, but that is covered up by his buddies more than anything.
5) The rich, who are the controlling shareholders/owners of corporations seem to be unable to control their top executives. The reason for this is pretty obvious, they all want immediate, unreasonable returns from their executives and as time goes by things become more unmanagable. This is a byproduct of the economic cycle as it goes along but people like Stein don't see it that way.
6) Yaa laws like it's OK to drink liquor and sell tobacco but not marijuana. And you're not allowed to get a BJ from your girlfriend in certain states. Plus about one million intellectual property laws. The law is bullshit, it's purpose is to protect Stein and his ilk, if he wants people to respect the law they should stop passing stupid laws.
7) In England television is controlled by the government with BBC, in America it was handed over to corporations, with the help of conservatives like Mr. Stein, so instead of seeing "quality television" you have MYV selling things using sex, violence or whatever. He made the bed, now he has to lie in it.
8) I always hear people talking about how the family is belittled and mocked and how they are all for the family...this is pretty stupid it's like saying you're for mom, God and apple pie and other people aren't...rhetorical masturbation. Even Marilyn Manson got married.
9) Right, the H1-B cap is raised to 200,000 a year but he's not happy. And as I said, the workers must be imported from countries with a socialist eductaion system (China/India) since ours is going down the tubes. Steve Forbes said Mexican immigration to the US was a "good safety valve to quell domestic discontent down there" and factory owners love them and only get a slap on the wrist when caught hiring them. So who is encouraging this illegal immigration. I guess Stein wants the H1-B cap at 300,000 or 400,000, because tech salaries haven't gotten low enough and there still might be one or two job openings till popping up here and again.
10) Stein's president has been telling people to go out and consume, which I presume means spend the money don't save it. So who is doing this pushing to spend instead of save? If Stein is high on saving over spending there's a lot of Republicans he better go talk to.
11) A socialist medical system? What country is he writing from? The US has the least socialized medical system in the industrial world.
12) As far as promoting fundamentalism, Stein should once again look around the Republican party, which through out "E Plurubus Unum" as the national motto and replaced it with "In God We Trust", and which wants to stick the Ten commandments and other crap in every public facility in the country.
Why are you even going down that trail? Talking about Von Brauns weapon reasearch in this context is dumb, especially as the entire "space race" was begun solely with the intention of getting ICBM's! You actually think getting to the moon was the goal here?
Plus, by going that route, you invite people to come up with the fact that Braun and Einsten where heftily harrassed by the FBI...be proud of that one (especially Einstein, a pacifist if I ever saw one). And lets not forget how impossible the US is making it to immigrate. It used to be harsh, but post 911 it's draconian. So don't be too proud.
Truthfully, this whole topic is rather distastefull to me: the one thing all those poeple have in common is that they're human! Who cares where they come from...for that matter, who cares if the US is losing it's technological edge (and judging by the number of people getting a degree, it is), as long as humanity itself keeps advancing.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
I'm also a little tired of people bashing the education system without offering any constructive criticism. It's quite easy to scream about how bad the system is and stand silent when asked for potential solutions.
I'm so freaking tired of this rap on education critics I could scream. We do offer solutions. Thousands of them. The problem is, we recognize that the problems aren't marginal; they're structural (structural is a big word meaning the system itself has problems, not one or two bad apples). This threatens those whose income is derived from the current system. In fact, most of them would make MORE money from any changes, but because it means something different, they freak.
So rather than accept that the system might need changing (vouchers are a way to incentivize change in public schools to make them better, c.f. the EU country Sweden, and "incentivize" is a big word that means "makes you want to get off your arse and do something"), apologists for the current system scream that oh, poor them, they're so beat up, and nobody will tell them how to make it right. Then in the same breath they will exclude all serious attempts at reform, exactly as you have done. You, sir or madam, are a part of the problem.
Your solution? More money. Wow. If only that had ever been tried anywhere. Oh, wait, it has. I notice you say nothing about reducing the non-teaching admin staff at schools themselves, only fat at the "federal" and "state" level. Er, great, but when a kid in North Carolina (bigger than many European countries, since that seems to impress you in a complete non-sequitur, non-sequitur being a Latin word meaning "it doesn't follow, and so you haven't proved anything"). I notice you knee-jerk-ly defend the competence levels of teachers, which study after study has found to be seriouslly wanting, and you don't mention any reforms of the teaching colleges themselves, who spend hours per week on "pedagogy" and usually one to two hours per week on substantive matters--at a lesser level than undergraduates in the same subject matter. But noooo, we can't criticize teachers or the system that makes them.
So what you mean to say is that there are no reforms that you will accept coming from those who criticize American education, not that we don't have any. It's just that "reform" to you means "more money and no accountability", and we've tried that shit and it steadfastly refuses to float.
If the EU member Sweden can do something different, what do you have to lose? Oh yeah, you work "with" teachers, so probably there won't be much demand for you in a system that rewards actual educational results, not simply big budgets. And yes, I worked at a teacher's union so I know that's what it's about.
Don't underestimate the power of memorisation. While of course you need to be able to operate on the facts to do things, you do operate on facts. Knowing them instead of having to look them up is quite a timesaver, leading to increased efficiency. Not only that, but knowing a lot also leads to being able to put seemingly unrelated bits of data together, which is one basis for invention.
A good mix of thinking and knowing is crucial to get a good education.
-- Waht? Tehr's a preveiw buottn?
I think something is broken with the system when it's all the earliest posts that get the most karma - from the exact users that don't read the article!
Confession time: I couldn't figure out why my posts were never modded up, time and time again. Then I started posting early, most often without reading the article. Booya - I was up to excellent karma in no time at all. Does anyone else see a problem with this? What if we tried something like no moderation allowed for the first 15 minutes after a story was posted? Well, I guess we'd have a lot of trolls. How about no positive moderation? Just food for thought.
Random is the New Order.
Following Ben Stein's implied prescription as to the cure to what ails America would do it once and for all. If he'd ever done anything constructive with technology for a living, he might be clued enough to make his perceptions about what makes technological innovation of value. Reading his article makes him wonder what planet he moved to after his job with Nixon quit him. As well as why he returned and why Forbes decided to give him a public forum.
As a casual observer of what makes this country work and what stops it cold, I hereby offer a few suggestions on how we can ruin American competitiveness and innovation in the course of this century.
His suggestions might be worth something if he'd ever gotten closer to real technologists than any article in the financial press could have taken him.
I think the reader will agree with me that we are already far down the road on many of them:
1) Allow schools to fall into useless decay. Do not teach civics or history except to describe America as a hopelessly fascistic, reactionary pit.
He wants schools to leave the Nixon era out of history books? Not that I blame him, he's one of the guilty parties, he was on the Nixon staff. But he isn't important enough to be mentioned by name.
Do not expect students to know the basics of mathematics, chemistry and physics.
A couple of hours ago, I helped an average high school student in an average suburban high school make a model of the sodium atom. In large part, the science textbooks are finally becoming adequate and much better than the ones I used in high school (graduated at mid-term in 1972).
Working closely with the teachers' unions, make sure that you dumb down standards so that children who make the most minimal effort still get by with flying colors. Destroy the knowledge base on which all of mankind's scientific progress has been built by guaranteeing that such learning is confined to only a few, and spread ignorance and complacency among the many. Watch America lose its scientific and competitive edge to other nations that make a comprehensive knowledge base a rule of the society.
We're going to lose our competitive edge to the RIAA/MPAA cartel long before the educational system has time to do what he describes.
While public education is in serious disrepair, the problem (at least in California and other states which are finally enforcing some) isn't standards, it's structure and methods. The standards for high school graduation in a local California school district I reviewed are perfectly adequate. I'm at something of a loss as to how their educational methods are going to accomplish this, from what I've been able to see, the teachers are using homework not to reinforce the classroom instruction given during the school day, but to force parents to provide the instruction the teachers weren't able to provide. The money is probably adequate, but is dissipated in "administrative expenses" having little discernable relationship to classroom instruction.
2) Encourage the making of laws and rules by trial lawyers and sympathetic judges, especially through class actions. Bypass the legislative mechanisms that involve elected representatives and a president. This will stop--or at least greatly slow down--innovation, as corporations and individuals hesitate to explore new ideas for fear of getting punished (or regulated to death) by litigation for any misstep, no matter how slight, in the creation of new products and services. Make sure that lawsuits against drugmakers are especially encouraged so that the companies are afraid to develop new lifesaving drugs, lest they be sued for sums that will bankrupt them. Make trial lawyers and judges, not scientists, responsible for the flow of new products and services.
I'm a hell of a lot more concerned about the unrestrained influence of the lobbyists of the Hollywood content cartel than I am about tort law, which has largely already been reformed in the direction Mr. Stein asks for. The factors that restrain innovation in the pharmaceutical industry are more that companies have found that paying lawyers to build patent portfolios from previous work is more profitable than hiring scientists and engineers.
We're finding that entertainment industry executives are even less safe technology gatekeepers than trial lawyers ever were. If he wants to point a finger, he should look to his own employers.
3) Create a culture that blames the other guy for everything and discourages any form of individual self-restraint or self-control. Promote litigation to punish tobacco companies on the theory that they compel innocent people to smoke. Make it second nature for someone who is overweight to blame the restaurant that served him fries. Encourage a legal process that can kill a drug company for any mistakes in self-medication.
IIRC, the overweight person got his fat ass kicked in court, and he can't name any drug companies that have gone out of business over a patient's fuckups any more than you or I can. However, the evidence is simply inconclusive. I can cite examples where these cases got tossed out of court and cases where the plaintiffs won.
Make it a general rule that anyone with more money than a plaintiff is responsible for anything harmful that a plaintiff does. Promulgate the pitiful joke that Americans are hereby exempt from any responsibility for their own actions--so long as there are deep pockets around to be rifled.
4) Sneer at hard work and thrift. Encourage the belief that all true wealth comes from skillful manipulation and cunning, or from sudden, brilliant and lucky strokes that leave the plodding, ordinary worker and saver in the dust.
Does anyone know of any examples of people who've gotten seriously rich (say, over $100M) solely by hard work and thrift? It's rather telling that Ben doesn't know of any, either. We know this because he didn't cite examples. Hard work only counts when one is doing the right things, and thrift is only a good thing when one economizes on the right things... i.e. don't spend $1K of your investors' money per employee on office furniture in a high tech startup, and DON'T try squeezing nickels when it comes to picking server hardware when your site is already getting 1M hits a day.
Make sure that society's idols are men and women who got rich from being sexy in public
Presumably, he means entertainers. Hmmm... why are we using the badly informed remarks of an entertainer as a basis of public debate?
or through gambling or playing tricks, not from hard work or patience. Make the citizenry permanently envious and bewildered about where real success comes from.
Anybody sufficiently interested in finding out can discover where most individual fortunes came from, including the parts the founders of thse fortunes would really rather we didn't know about. Of course, knowing where wealth comes from doesn't necessarily imply that one can make it even if one has the knowledge and talent to create intellectual capital. Knowing who Ann Winblad is doesn't mean she'll give you the time of day, unless you encounter her through the right "insider" VC community channels.
Hint: If Bill Gates hadn't had substantial family money behind him, would we have ever heard of either him or Microsoft?
5) Hold the managers of corporations to extremely lax standards of conduct and allow them to get off with a slap on the wrist when they betray the trust of shareholders. This will discourage thrift and investment and ensure that Americans will have far less capital to work with than other societies, while simultaneously developing that contempt for law and social standards that is the hallmark of failing nations. Hold the management of labor unions to no ethical standards.
Odd that he got that one almost right. Now why did he personally invest in Enron and Worldcom to begin with?
If he's as well informed as he pretends to be, he'd know that the reason for the spectacular stock swindles perpetrated by Enron, Worldcom, and many other companies was reduced oversight by the SEC, which the Bush Administration insured by gutting the agency's funding. Corporate leaders will cheat if they can get away with it, that's why the SEC was invented in the 1930s. Why is he putting Ben Stein's money into funding the GOP if he really believes there's a problem?
6) While you're at it, discourage respect for law in every possible way. This will dissolve the glue that holds the nation together, and dissuade any long- term thinking. Societies in which the law can be clearly seen to apply to some and not to others are doomed to decay, in terms of innovation and everything else.
No argument here. However, he's a former scriptwriter for Richard Nixon, who left the White House barely in time to avoid public trial for "high crimes and misdemeanors". The GOP is the very center of the cultural imperative that says the law is for everyone except the wealthy. A good argument, but is he really the one to make it?
7) Encourage a mass culture that spits on intelligence and study and instead elevates drug use, coolness through sex and violence, and contempt for school. As children learn to be stupid instead of smart, the national intelligence base needed for innovation will simply vanish into MTV- land.
Still whining about youth culture after all these years. I guess he figures that he fooled the public during the Nixon era with this, (the 1972 Nixon campaign was basically an attack on youth culture) he can still get away with it. He will be happy to know that the current version of youth culture is just as likely to turn out amoral suits to provide the kind of "innovative" business leadership he seems to be looking for as any idealism out of the hippie era.
The PC he presumably typed these grave pronouncements on and the ones we're reading and writing this on are as much a product of the 1960s youth culture as acid rock and love beads. Those of you who are too young to remember this from being there can pick up the history from Hackers by Stephen Levy. Though looking at pictures of Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak around when they started Apple should give you the idea. Those of you who are a bit older will remember when I say Whole Earth Catalogue gave Homebrew Computer Club its startup funding. And the world indeed changed as a result.
What will the current participants in the current revision of youth culture come up with in the way of technology? There are more young computer programmers around than in any time in previous history, and most of you are probably here. Isn't it sad that Ben Stein doesn't like your musical tastes?
8) Mock and belittle the family.
Last time I heard, The Osbournes are still the hottest show on TV... the family might not be the one that Ben Stein grew up with and Ozzy Osbourne isn't exactly Ozzie Nelson, but the family actually seems to work.
Provide financial incentives to people willing to live an isolated existence, vulnerable and frightened. This guarantees that men and women of sufficient character to bring about innovation will be psychologically stifled from an early age.
Let's be polite here and figure that he botched this one on the basis that he stopped doing his own income taxes as soon as he could afford to do so, probably in the early 1970s. The rest of us need only flip through our form 1040 booklets to figure out what tax breaks families get that singles aren't eligible for.
9) Develop a suicidal immigration policy that keeps out educated, hardworking men and women from friendly nations and, instead, takes in vast numbers of angry, uneducated immigrants from nations that hate us. This, too, leads to the shrinking of our knowledge base and the eventual disappearance of social cohesion.
He's never heard of H1B and we're supposed to take his pronouncements on how immigration law works seriously? Perhaps Forbes should have gotten Madonna or Eminem to write the article instead. I don't see how they could have done a worse job. Where the hell does he think the casual labor that keeps his yard in good shape comes from, under a cabbage patch?
10) Enact a tax system that encourages class antagonism and punishes saving, while rewarding indebtedness, frivolity and consumption. Tax the fruits of labor many times:
First tax it as income. Then tax it as real or personal property. Then tax it as capital gains. Then tax it again, at a staggeringly high level, at death. This way, Americans are taught that only fools save, and that it is entirely proper for us to have the lowest savings rate in the developed world.
We also have the lowest total tax rate in the developed world once all these layers are added up, and those who invest as companies in technological businesses can pick up an R&D tax credit. If he were qualified to speak on technological innovation, he'd know it.
This will deprive us of much-needed capital for new investment, for innovation and our own personal aspirations. It will compel us to ask foreigners for ever more capital and allow them to own more of America. It will also promote an attitude of carelessness about the future and, once again, encourage disrespect for law.
Tell that to Bill Gates. Fortunes are still being made in America. Though Gates doesn't have much to do with innovation, there are others who've made high-tech fortunes in the system he condemns, and a whole lot of us who'd be happy to give it a try given access to venture capital.
11) Have a socialized medical system that scrimps on badly needed drugs and procedures, resorts to only the cheapest practices and discourages drug companies from developing new drugs by not paying them enough to cover their costs of experimentation, trial and error.
Which country does he think he lives in? The USA has the most expensive medical system in the world on either a per capita basis or in terms of total dollars. Attempts to introduce universal health care have been uniformly squelched by millions of dollars spent by the US health care industry and in particular, insurance companies who would be forced to stop profiting from health care if the US health care system became "socialized".
12) Elevate mysticism, tribalism, shamanism and fundamentalism--and be sure to exclude educated, hardworking men and women--to an equal status with technology in the public mind.
With the exception of the Xtian fundamentalists, all the groups he's whining about are very well represented in technological innovation. Anyone who doesn't quite get this should try googling for:
technopagan VRML
Make sure that, in order to pay proper (and politically correct) respect to all different ethnic groups in America, you act as if science were on an equal footing with voodoo and history with ethnic fable.
If he'd had the guts to go after fundamentalist Christians pushing "Creation Science", I'd agree with him. As far as I know, this is the only significant example of religion overriding science that's going on right now.
My list need not end here.
Would it be uncharitable to suggest that it ended because he'd run out of ideas? Perhaps a few more hours of listening to Rush Limbaugh would have given him some.
But I stopped at a dozen because I realized that this is already, in large measure, the program of so many of our elected representatives. The debauchery of our tort system is already in place, and the rest of the agenda is under way.
The only agendas I see in progress right now are that of restricting civil liberties in the guise of "protecting us from terrorists" and the Hollywood content cartel's anti-tech agenda. Either are as dangerous to America's ability to innovate and compete as the decline of public education. Ben Stein deals with neither. If Ben Stein got paid for this article, Forbes should retract the article and try to get their money back from him.
Ben Stein was practically the only GOP contributor among the ranks of Hollywood entertainers, look him up. (search under individual donors, enter STEIN, BENJAMIN)
Benjamin J. Stein is a lawyer, economist, writer and actor, and host of the game show Win Ben Stein's Money.
If Ben Stein ever devotes a show segment to public policy and has an honest judge score the contestants, he's going to lose a bunch of Ben Stein's money. The guy does have style, but I never realized before reading his article how little he's got to back it up with.
Tech Public Policy stuff
I think you meant for the company, but I personally think it's going to mean the end of the technology sector as a job option for U.S. citizens...
Firstly, pretend that it was: Do you think that "American" firms loyally staying at home would be the answer? In the world of free trade, such a exercise would be their DOOM as "foreign" companies came in and eat their soup. Having said that, I don't think this is happening whatsoever, and again it's classic linear extrapolation. In any case you are seeing it as zero-sum: Their gain is your loss. What about the billion+ consumers in India, just picking it as an example? What happens when they all get online and need software and computers and chips and support?
North America? I hope that doesn't mean Mexico. I lurk on VW newsgroups, and people claim that VWs made there (vs. Germany) are junk. Maybe Honda has a better track record, tho....
Indeed I have heard that Mexican car quality is horrendous, and Mexico is actually a great example of globilization self-stabilizing: When free trade first took off a tonne of companies ran down there to set up shop envisioning super cheap labour, but quickly came back with their tails between their leg when they found an uneducated, unmotivated workforce with a very low quality standard, and a corrupt and unstable government. They also found that the hourly wages of employees isn't quite as big of a deal when you have a horrendous power system, poor healthcare,etc.
In any case my Odyssey was made in Ontario, though other Odysseys are made in Louisiana I believe.
People have been preaching doom for Western society for DECADES, and apart from internal fluctuations I strangely haven't seen it come to fruition.