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America's Tech Decline: a Reading Guide
ErichTheRed writes "Computerworld has put together an interesting collection of links to various sources detailing the decline of US R&D/innovation in technology. The cross section of sources is interesting — everything from government to private industry. It's interesting to see that some people are actually concerned about this...even though all the US does is argue internally while rewarding the behaviour that hastens the decline."
When you repeatedly elect people specifically because they hate the government, then why would you expect them to do a good job?
A large portion of my family is machinists. We own a machine shop that makes special order components that require a lot of precision. Parts made from the shop have ended up in all manner of plants and ships, including the recent USS Reagan.
The general sentiment of my relatives that own the shop is that the US doesn't actually make much anymore - we have become more of a consumer and middleman than a producer. A lot of their competition used to be in the US, and a lot of their customers as well. Now their competition is outside the US, and their customers are more often just a middleman for overseas customers, countries that are going through their own technological / industrial renaissances. Their only real big US customers are GE and the government. They, at least, are convinced this is at least part of the reason for our recent declining relevance in industry.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
The shop is not dooing poorly at all - if anything, new technology has made the quality of product go up and revenue with it. The customer base and competition has changed.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
Aaaaand... the second result from a google search. By far? Look at more than the first google result and try again.
How does it feel to be a liar with pants constantly on fire?
This is the problem, not the other things.
Modern western economies have such a high GDP because, on avergae, each worker is more productive than those in developing countries.
Yes, the US (or my native UK) workers can't compete with Mexico, India and China when it comes to unskilled work. Basic factory work, low tech manufacturing and industrial work, etc. is most efficiently done by unskilled cheap labour and we should take advantage of this by hiring the most efficient labour we can.
US/UK/French/German workers are best placed doing skilled work. The average western worker is more skilled than the average developing world worker. So they can earn more, and create/produce more, than others.
It is the simple theory of comparative advantage.
The policy implication is that western economies should focus on moving as many people as possible into (highly) skilled employment. Complaining about the fact that they can't compete with unskilled labour is just pissing in the wind.