Slashdot Mirror
US Losing R&D Dominance To Asia?
bednarz writes "U.S. companies are locating more of their R&D operations overseas, and Asian countries are rapidly increasing investments in their own science and technology economies, the National Science Board said in a report released this week. The number of overseas researchers employed by U.S. multinationals nearly doubled from 138,000 in 2004 to 267,000 in 2009, for example. On the education front, the U.S. accounts for just 4% of undergraduate engineering degrees awarded globally, compared to China (34%), Japan (5%), and India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand (17% collectively). 'The low U.S. share of global engineering degrees in recent years is striking; well above half of all such degrees are awarded in Asia,' NSB said in its report."
And most of that 4% in the US is Asian anyways. Just hope we can keep them here in the US after graduation instead of shipping them back to China because our fucked up immigration policy.
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
This is simply the race to the bottom that corporate America is pursuing writ large. When we traded our democracy for a corporatocracy, this was the inevitable result.
...we're the leader in Human Studies diplomas. We're all set for the future.
Who needs to build something when you can manage someone else doing it.
I am not. And if you start to count the USA engineers that are USA born and educated, it will be ever more stunning. But who cares, the SOPA will take care of it.
When we learn to make something new and innovative, when they will just copy it anyway?
While this isn't unexpected, I don't see who they'll be selling to if they move ALL the jobs. Maybe I don't understand economics, but as far as I can tell, you either have a business or a job if you want to have money. The jobs are going away. Welfare is paid by taxing jobs, so welfare is going away as well as a direct consequence. No money, no food or housing. I don't see the US going the way of the Zeitgeist any time soon (that's so anti-American), but I would see the US going the way of Zimbabwe. I can generalize this statement for the entire western world.
America's got patents. We can trade those for Asian R&D.
I personally know people in industry who have been warning of this for the last 20 years. The "new economy" of that era promised to reduce costs by moving manufacturing overseas while keeping R&D in the USA. People who knew how R&D worked said that the manufacturing was, if nothing else, necessary to the local support (machinists, PWB fabs, etc.) that support R&D.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
I'm going to say that Degrees are quite the "meaningless" quantity - I work with a number of "engineers" who graduated in Asia (China/India Specifically) who barely qualify as high school graduates let alone college gradutates. The standards for degrees are not really very comparable across some borders.
They shouldn't be here in the first place if they're taking slots that belong to our own citizens. Save the trip and help our own citizens.
No sense in not training our own versus helping the enemy.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Most American parents can't or can hardly afford to send their children to University anymore.
Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with Asia having well above half of the world's population.
China and India have had massive, massive pushes to educate engineers, medical workers, technology workers, etc. The shift is the pay off.
A couple decades ago my brother, an engineer with Dow Chemical related the project he was managing - an project would be begun in North America, passed to a team in Japan or Oceana, then passed to India, before passing along to Europe and back to North America - each location meeting its objectives as part of the project. That was two decades back. So you can see there are people capable of engineering, research, medical discoveries and such in abundance by now. No doubt someone in Thailand is waking up about now and will correct any spelling errors I have made in this post.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
If it is indeed so, get rid of any means to facilitate it - offshoring being the primary offender. No different than stopping blood from a wound versus allowing someone to bleed to death.
This is one of the better cases for why we should train our own instead of everyone else. If there's any spare room after the least capable citizen has been trained, only then should the US consider friendly internationals - for which are not generally found in Asia.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
How many DECADES have reporters been saying that losing the edge has been "right around the corner". This is just another example of a reporter who is too lazy to do a real story drumming up some sensationalism to get page views. Next.
Monstar L
No.
But it can happen sooner than we expect, if we allow people with radical ideologies to wage "War on Science."
Of course this has nothing to do with the anti science movement that took over when W was in office and is still a matter of fact for half the population.
Half the american public are against "intellectuals", against evolution, deny climate change and think that investing in science is against God or is far to great a burden on the economy and you're surprised at this?
The low U.S. share of global engineering degrees in recent years is striking
Americans don't want to learn science and engineering, because it's hard. It takes years of extremely hard work.
I went through university with a business major. I saw the kind of work he did because he was asking me for tutoring help; the "hard" things he was learning were unbelievably trivial. I'd estimate his degree was a factor of 50 easier than mine; I could have taken all his classes, not studied for shit, and come out with straight A's, all with less effort than I was spending on a single difficult engineering class.
Of course, he now makes more than I do. So why on earth would anyone want to go through what I did, when you could go through the far, far easier thing HE did, and be more financially rewarded for it?
In the end American's lack of interest in science, technology, math, and engineering will sink the ship. You cannot compete in today's global world unless you (as a people) understand how that modern world works, and Americans don't wish to understand, because it's hard work. You reap what you sow. I've been saying this for the last 30 years, and now here we are, going down in flames to better educated countries. Surprise surprise. I used to give a shit, but then I learned there was nothing I could do to make people care, so I just gave up. No point in getting upset over it. I'm resigned to my country falling out of its former place as the world powerhouse of science and engineering. In the 50's, 60's, it was very much the USA, and everyone else a distant second. Now, that's reversing. So be it.
I have a relative who works as a researcher for a major drug company. She had to move laterally in the company after they announced they were moving all new drug discovery work to China.
As a senior Computer Science PhD student, this has me worried. I also know of a few recent American CS graduates that have gone to China to work as researchers for a particular American software company because that company's US research offices weren't hiring. I still know plenty of other graduates who had no difficulty finding research positions in the US, but it seems that a few major players are shifting their work to Asia. Hopefully the rest won't follow.
We need a new standard for what a company has to be like to call itself a U.S. company and be eligible for any the benefits of such title. Multinationals with little U.S. corporate responsibility need not apply. If corporations are people, then let them take a citizenship test.
Strange things are afoot at the Circle-K.
We're not losing out on anything. This is a deliberate corporate decision to put short-term profits ahead of long-term growth. As long as your options vest before the shit hits the fan, what could possibly go wrong?
Most American parents can't or can hardly afford to send their children to University anymore.
That's what college loans are for: so that you can start your working life far enough in the hole that you could have bought a house with the money. It saves you from buying a house, freeing you to pay rent on top of the loans until you can finally buy a house later for your grandchildren to visit you.
Or at least that seems to be the theory. Me, I paid for all of mine so they can start out clear. That's more important to me than retiring to a place within golf cart distance of the clubhouse.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
Asian do group work on solo projects and there high / college is all about the test and cramming for it.
Well, um, I guess that's all there is to post on this particular topic....
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If that's the case, US citizens should be able to be given preference based on minority status - a statistical one - while the Asians would be stripped it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
We have to many people in college and a lot of the tech fled needs apprentices systems AS CS IS NOT IT. So colleges are being dumped down to fit in people who are not college material but can do good a apprentices system. Also lot's of jobs don't need college and alot of people don't belong there.
I say have more tech schools / apprentices systems and for IT you need to people at all levels but CS for all does not work CS is to long and to much high level for most IT jobs when a apprentices / tech school is a much better fit.
When I got my master's degree (EE) back in '85, there were about 130 advanced technical degrees given. Compare that to the 370 jurisprudence degrees handed out, and I think you can see where we were heading. Now lawyers are everywhere, and especially in politics where they can pass laws written to assure full employment for the members of their profession.
Well it could be cheaper that way -- instead of China hacking into US companies for technology, in the future we'll have US hackers breaking into Chinese companies for technology. That was tongue in cheek, but I do wonder what the most vocal people on slashdot would say if that would ever happen, would they change their tune and accuse the US of unfair practice, or would they continue supporting which ever one is the underdog?
The Soviets produced many more engineers than the United States throughout the entirety of the cold war. Today it's India and China. Same old story. I don't think it really matters.
Look at China high speed rail systems it's a cheaper but unsafe ripoff of the japanese system that has no passenger fatalities due to derailments or collisions.
Technology is so XX century! What matters in XXI are patents and lawyers and US has an abundance of them... No one else has something like SOPA or PIPA! US is years ahead in laws race...
Of course the US is losing R&D ground to Asia. R&D takes money, but in the US huge salaries are paid out to executives and the rest tends to go out as dividends. R&D implies a company's management and owners have the ability to defer gratification. Something that is sorely lacking nowadays.
In my recent (and extensive) experience with interviewing people who are recent graduates, I am finding a very large percentage of people with bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science who can't write even the most simple scripts in any language... people with "expert in TCP/IP networking" in their qualifications, or who have three years testing routers and switches listed as experience who don't know what NAT means or what a MAC address is... people who don't know how to list running processes on any platform. These are people who are graduates. They have their degree. And those degrees are worthless. We've had half a dozen positions open where I work for a long while, the bar just isn't set that high, but we're not finding qualified applicants.
It doesn't matter what nationality the school or the "graduate" is. Poorly-prepared graduates are a world-wide phenomenon. Sure, Asia is producing a large number of graduates, but the majority of them aren't going to be very useful. The U.S. is producing fewer engineering graduates, but they're just as useless.
Yes, the universities are to blame. I don't know what they're teaching but it has little to do with reality and doesn't prepare the students to be employable. But the students are also to blame. Surveys show that between 75 and 98% of students admit to cheating, and don't feel particularly bad about it; the universities also don't seem to think that cheating is anything to get worked up over either. No wonder nobody is learning anything.
All of this is why I don't think that it's a big deal that the US produces only 4% of engineering degrees; 4% of "nothing useful" is no worse than "35% of nothing useful". If those degrees actually meant something, or correlated in any meaningful way to success (both for the individual and for the employer), I'd be more concerned. My real worry is that Westerners aren't even interested in engineering any more; they all want to be in sales and marketing and other nontechnical fields (or "soft" majors like political science or humanities, followed by whining about how nobody will pay six figure salaries for their chosen field). I'm not sure why this is,,, given how little tech work someone with a tech degree seems to actually be required to do, it can't be because of academic workload. Mind you, the profound anti-intellectualism that is still the rule in Western society may have something to do with it.
-sigh- Kids these days.
Everybody gets what the majority deserves.
Nuclear power and is a shit load of natural gas in the US
What is the point of cracking open a science textbook when you are going to be competing with people in Asia who can produce the same level of genius for pennies on the dollar?
I don't care what you can learn here in America, someone in China can learn the same thing and apply that knowledge for far lower wages than you.
These people are willing to live in cages. Literally. Look.
http://www.weirdasianews.com/2009/11/21/hong-kong-citizens-living-cages-literally/
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Really, we are a nation that wants a "free market" well.. unless it's working against us.
I commend them for taking advantage.
We don't need laws, or restrictions, or anything other than a reality check for the business majors. Supply and demand. We demanded high paying cush jobs without much on the requirements sides other than "a degree" regardless of what it was. So we got em.. specialized jobs went elsewhere, we were the "big picture" thinkers, don't talk to me about the pump being backwards, there are people for that.
I've always noticed it in corporate america.. but it's been slamming me in my face more and more as I discover to be considered "good" at my job, I need to properly explain what something does, and direct questions about "how it does it" to people who will explain the "how", rather than learn the "how" myself.. if I learn/do it for myself.. I have failed, and probably won't be getting the next project I request.
Be prepared to be ruled by GOOKS, JEEVES and TERRORISTS. Once the last alcohol metabolizing xanthochroid is eliminated from the species, all will be well, all you who bear PLAQUES ON THE WALL!
Waste them mod points for the sake of being seen "doing the right thing"
Try moving to China to get a job. I dare you. Good luck with that. Then come back and tell me how artificial those borders are.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
If your own citizens are inept, uneducated and incapable of doing the work required, companies have to fill the skilled positions somehow
Then you train said people to correct for such deficiencies - should they really exist. Invoking the words global, competition and skilled are just code words for expressing contempt towards US citizens.
Having a "made in the US" label on every employee might sound cool to America in times of high unemployment but it would kill businesses or force them overseas. And that means losing even more jobs, not to mention both corporate and income revenue for the government.
Yet you underestimate the power of the US Government and its ability to make an overseas move unprofitably painful. Or if they wish to prevent an overseas arm from trying to make a transplant.
Do you really love this country, or do you have some wish to have the US bow before the world?
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Why would we want dirty manufacturing and industry in the US??
Better that we have lawyers and doctors and movie directors and investment bankers and graphics artists and social workers and compliance officers and other good clean people like that.
What makes you think that the world wants to buy the services of our lawyers? Or the doctors? Are you expecting the lawyers to sue the world to support the movie directors, even when the movies are made overseas (to save costs, if nothing else)?
American investment bankers are not in great demand either lately. The world seems to value Japanese graphics artists more than American ones. The Government is cutting back on the social workers -- we need to save money. The rest of the world doesn't seem to want American compliance officers, either.
However, the rest of the world does pay for American coal. We have the largest proven coal reserves on the planet, and if we don't manufacture finished goods to ship overseas to pay for our imports we'll just have to export coal. Well, that and cut our standard of living back to the level that we can afford as a country whose primary enterprise is digging holes in the ground.
Lacking <sarcasm> tags,
We can be prison guards, drive armored vehicles to transport prisoners, work building more prisons, cook food for the prisoners. There'll be plenty of jobs. Relax.
there are a lot of law school graduates who are overwhelmed with debt and cannot find a job. a lot of their work has been computerized and a lot of them wind up being 'click monkeys' making barely enough to ever pay back their loans.
After engineering something, then it has to be manufactured. This works better if the engineers are near the production facility. American industry used to know this.
Who in the US studies production engineering today? How many people here even know what it is?
If these companies want to be a thorn in the side of the US and its citizens, the US Government can make a case to not flee.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Education is certainly a big concern, but it's also other things. We have lost a commitment to leadership in R&D in America. We've basically *voluntarily* shutdown some important research in America.
As an example, from the 50's to the 90's there was a LOT of research going on in advanced nuclear reactor designs. Molten Salt Reactors, Liquid Metal Breeder Reactors, Pebble Bed Reactors, etc. We basically shut all that down, and when we were frustratingly close to having some practical, useable designs for truly "next generation" reactors.
They're doing this because they have to live with the problems of coal plant pollution every day (people are *always* complaining about air quality problems in China) and they also face energy constraints on their economy the same as the U.S. They know the coal will only last them so long, and they need something else when the coal starts to get scarce.
Now, China is leading the world on advanced reactor R&D. They're working on MSRs, Pebble Beds, and I think LMBRs too). In 20 years, we'll all be buying our meltdown-proof 4th Gen reactors from China. More than that, China will be selling small reactors to everyone - developing nations that just want a 100-200MW plant, developed nations that need many GWs of power.
I'm pretty sure Nuclear is not the only area of R&D where this is true. Since much of the manufacturing has moved to China, I believe much of the manufacturing R&D has moved to China too.
What else would you expect? We have a dictator in the White House that just killed the possiblity for over 20,000 more jobs making an oil pipeline. They have fought Boeing tooth and nail to prevent them from opening a new plant in the Carolinas. Meanwhile, they are taking literally billions from those who are able to make anything and hand them to campaign donors who open solar companies to get the billions and suddenly go bankrupt the second they get the "loans".
As long as the DNC thinks its ok to punish success and reward failures in such a spectacular fashion you would have to be a moron to put heavy investment into the US at this point (Unless you helped Obama get elected and he is going to pay you back with taxpayer money)
I understand you /.ers are all liberals and the DNC can do no wrong, but how much purposeful destruction of the economy do you have to witness before you will even begin to question it?
All of the manufacturing has moved to China because of the numerous cheats that China employs. As such, it is better to have engineering close by manufacturing. Yet, so few in the USA seem to understand this.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Do you really love this country, or do you have some wish to have the US bow before the world?
Quit being an idiot. Pointing out problems does not give any indication as to whether someone doesn't like the country or not.
First, not a single bit of bravery in you. Must be a neo-con. Most of the companies have been moving to China over the last 30 years because of you GD neo-cons. I am not the least bit surprised. With your tax cuts combined with running deficits during good economic times. No doubt that jobs will go.
You neo-cons are just as cowardly as ever.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
A number of ppl still do. The problem is that tuition is slowly being raised, while stipends are being gutted. China then sends their ppl here, but they take American stipends and add their money to it to make it palatable to their citizens. Our politicians FROM BOTH MAJOR PARTIES are destroying America.
We need ROOT STRIKERS.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
If the production (now), design (mostly now), and basic R&D (very soon) are all done in some part of Asia, how long before the shareholders realize that they can temporarily bump the stock price even more by paying some Asians 10% of the compensation that the American executive team is getting?
R&D is alive and well, it just evolved.
R&D exists to give you something new to sell. Actually being the creator isn't important. Come up with and patent ideas, then sue whoever later builds whatever you thought up, but not until they work the kinks out.
Wait until a small startup makes something you like, then threaten legal action unless they sell, probably at an unfair price.
The initial grunt-work to create is a cost for someone else, only the lawyers can do R&D cost-efficiently... in the eyes of those budgeting.
I went through grad school at Cal Tech in the early 90's. Half of my department went straight to Wall St.
30+ years chiseling away at workers rights, outsourcing skilled trade to other countries, and eviscerating education funding only to reflect upon your work and remark, "gosh, people arent that smart and we dont do much with technology but consume it"
you chose it as a model of hypercapitalism. when we agreed to shuffle the working class, the middle class, into early retirement, fast food dead end jobs, and bankrupted private pensions it was a choice. when we caved the stock market and drained dry the last cent from the 401k of the middle class, we did so knowing it could only make the rich richer, and the poor poorer. as we danced in our lemon socialism and hapilly bailed out the wealthiest conglomerates and banks, we were instructed that the hardship would be socialized and the profit would be privatized. "americans," the ones that do most of the living and working in our society, dont do much because they cant do much; this has been assured by the government of the people, for the people, and it has no right to question its work.
we are reaping the benefit of generations of obscene wealth, fueled by trickle down reagonomics and stoked by politicians who consider market capitalism a golden calf that does no evil. Our society is driven by profit, and so long as the goal is profit, the outcome and returns will be consolidated to a plutocracy that doesnt care if little johnny learns to read or write, so long as he works enough hours at the walmart to consume the products at the walmart. --
Good people go to bed earlier.
Suck it up, quit your whining, and LEARN and WORK. If you have no faith in your ability to outperform anyone else, why do you think you deserve a higher quality of life than these people who are forced by economics to live in cages?
The ways that the US are being criticized are not constructive. They imply that the job is done when the US is finished off.
What defects are alleged to exist with US citizens are not as deep or as wide to cast them aside.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
They shouldn't be here in the first place if they're taking slots that belong to our own citizens.
1. Those slots aren't being filled by native-born US Citizens.
2. Those foreigners who come to fill those slots overwhelmingly become US Ciitizens.
So, what's your gripe?
Save the trip and help our own citizens.
How, by telling them to study what they don't want to study (but that everyone else in the planet wants to study)? You can't help people who do not want to help themselves and who are more than content with a) either a HS degree (and without the ability to add fractions) or 2) pursue a degree in business, law or psychology.
No sense in not training our own versus helping the enemy.
1. You can't train people who does not want to be trained (after all 39% of US citizens do not believe in evolution, so how the hell do you think they'll wake up one day and say "gee, I want to study in a STEM field.")?
2. People who come here (with either a STEM degree or to get one) and get a unfilled STEM slot (and who more often than not become US Citizens), they aren't the enemy. Our own people, those who know who Snooki is but Carl Sagan, they are the enemy, their own enemy.
I remember one time I was having lunch with a fellow computer scientist at a mall, an Indian immigrant with multiple degrees who came to the US, got another one, 4.0 GPA, became a citizen and did a hell of a work. At the food court, one of the cooks was complaining rather directly towards my friend about "foreigners coming here to take our jobs". As if people like them were in direct competition with foreign-born professionals like the one I'm describing.
Seriously, the stupidity is strong in this one.
Then why was literacy so long the domain of Monks? Who were not known for their richness...
Even back then an education was of limited wealth. A person needs a baker each and every day but how often do you need a letter written when you are a lumberjack or a small farmer?
Star Trek never touched upon the problem of what all those billions of people making up the rest of humanity were doing. It had some episodes with miners in them but they made no sense if you wondered why people would mine for stuff in a world with replicator technology. Count the number of episodes where they still desperately need a part despite a working replicator sitting in every cabin.
The simple fact is that the western economy post WW2 survived on the factory worker and the harvester (miners etc) when those jobs disappeared entire regions grew depressed and never really recovered. Meanwhile modern media kept showing "Friends" with people with jobs that never require them to simply be in from 9/5 doing just average not very interesting work. The entire economy (if you believe the media) runs on odd jobs paying enough to afford gigantic flats in the heart of New York and more time off then a Greek working for the state.
Walmart is celebrated by these people as offering very cheap goods without anybody wondering that if nobody local gets payed to make these goods and if the people selling them don't get payed much either... then who can afford these goods in the long run?
Go ahead, go to a store and try to buy western made goods... oh, they still exist, somewhat... e-reader. Name one made in the west. Tablets? MADE in the west? Where is the factory with the production line paying dozens if not of hundreds of people funding an entire large city producing iPads?
It isn't just about engineers who make iPads, it is about engineers who make brake pads. Just as most scientist end up working in a production facility doing the same tests over and over, most engineers do not make ground breaking tecnology, but keeping that development on break pads going with all the production know how, that can keep an entire town in business. Jobs for the average person, a reason for the highly educated to come back to their home town.
Remember a little game called SimCity? Fun game right? Do you remember how it was very easy to create slum areas by accident because there weren't enough jobs near by?
Okay... now enlarge SimCity to SimWorld and remove all the factory from that little corner of the world called the west and put all the work and housing the "Asia"... what happens? Do the endless living areas with only shops become an affluent area or ,,, do they become Detroit? Manchester? De Bijlmer (pure living area now being torn down in Amsterdam Holland, do you think bad planning are a US problem only?)
Douglas Adam spoke of three arks, what were the A and C arks again? And what ark are we keeping here? Think about it, we outsourced production (c ark) and now the research is following (a ark)... that makes us the B ark... better start collecting those leaves.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Do you really love this country, or do you have some wish to have the US bow before the world?
I'm more annoyed by those who wish the world to bow before the US.
All the world's a CPU, and all the men and women merely AI agents
You cannot train people to correct for such deficiencies if (a) the universities aren't there and (b) the workers aren't interested. The original article states both problems exist, ergo training is not possible.
I have no contempt towards US citizens, or citizens of any nation. We are all equal, even if some nations like to think of themselves as more equal than others. I have contempt for attitudes, inflexibility and the popular desire to remain ignorant.
I have no desire to see any nation bow before any other. If I have a desire, it is that ALL nations of the world play to their strengths, develop themselves as fully as possible, and mutually form a mesh in trade of goods and knowledge that is impervious to the boom/bust cycles we see too often. That is my desire. It's wholly unrealistic - no, not impossible, it's perfectly achievable and requires no utopian dream to do, but it is unrealistic. Nationalism, greed and xenophobia are not subject to logic and no amount of rational explanation of why a heterogeneous world might be a good thing will ever reduce these.
A more practical goal is to see at the very least the US, or SOME nation in the world, adopt the philosophy of doing best by their citizenry and have the citizenry respond by becoming as highly educated, as mentally flexible and as dextrous in work environments as possible. This would still be incredibly hard to achieve. Your own post shows why - you're not interested in being at the top of the heap by being the best. "you underestimate the power of the US Government and its ability to make an overseas move unprofitably painful" is another way of saying you're only interested in being at the top of the heap by impairing others.
No. A competent athlete does not need to shoot his or her opponent in the foot in order to be competitive or to win. They compete by being the best they possibly can be against competitors who are also being the best they possibly can be. They win by virtue of merit, not by virtue of destruction.
I want the US to be the best it can be on merit and merit alone. No harassment, no abuse, no government shenanigans, no strong-arm diplomacy, no gunboat diplomacy either. Merit. Your post makes it clear you do not believe that the US can compete on merit. If you did, you would not talk about the government needing to threaten people, or nations bowing to others. There are no threats in a system of merit and there is no power domain in a system of achievement.
I, therefore, am not the one in contempt of US citizens. You are. You are the one who is holding that it is only at knife-point that the US can achieve a damn thing, that it cannot succeed by competency alone. I am the one who is saying that it CAN achieve everything through competency alone. That isn't contempt for Americans, that's admiration for their sheer potential intelligence, their potential guts and their potential determination. The only contempt is for why it's potential and not realized, and therefore contempt for your notion of superiority by force.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Once Japan was the cheap knock-off country copying the west.
And don't you think it is VERY telling that China is copying the high speed trains for Japan... NOT from the USA.
Oh, and how are those US trains doing by btw? Amtrak still the non-running joke?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Nuclear power and is a shit load of natural gas in the US
This sentence sense no.
That is all.
local passenger rail is good and has high ridership but all the stops limits speed (get's to about 69 MPH) (but it's easier and less to deal with then driving) and locally the only deaths lately have been from dumb ass diving around the gates and getting killed.
This is simply the race to the bottom that corporate America is pursuing writ large. When we traded our democracy for a corporatocracy, this was the inevitable result.
You are mistaken. It is Consumer America, not Corporate America, that is responsible for the race to the bottom. Corporations do not care where things are made or who makes them. All things being equal they would have things made locally by locals. There are coordination and transportation costs when you move manufacturing or development to some distant place. These additional costs would have to be offset somehow.
Corporations primarily care about sales, costs are secondary to sales. Cost cutting is only desirable if it (1) generates new sales or (2) preserves existing sales but increases the profit margin. Now consider who controls the sales, it is the consumer.
Consumers are responsible for the current situation because the consumer preference is for the lowest priced product or service, the consumer does not care where manufacturing or development takes place. **If** consumers did care where manufacturing or engineering took place and **if** this preference was reflected in buying decisions then corporations would not engage in off-shoring since it would hurt sales.
In other words the U.S. experienced a lot of off-shoring because consumers rewarded those companies that off-shored with sales. **If** consumers had punished those companies but buying domestically manufactured/engineered products from competitors then off-shoring would have been a failed experiment and not have become a major trend. It was all in the hands of the consumer, it still is.
While much manufacturing has moved off-shore the web has made it easier than ever to find domestically manufactured products. If consumers start showing a preference for such goods then off-shoring can be reversed. The power is in the hands of those making the buying decisions, the consumer, not the corporation.
You'll just end up training your H1B replacement.
Then everybody wonders why Americans don't want to study for STEM careers.
Before the H1B flood, Americans built the computer industry, and the internet. So don't try to give us that pure bullshit that Americans are not willing, or able, to to do STEM work.
Which of these companies started in India, or China: IBM, Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, Intel, Google, Oracle, or I could name dozens more.
Seriously, other than cheap labor, what has China, or India, ever done?
So with this we can conclude that you either are not a US citizen, or your statement is wrong. It can't be both.
Not all engineering jobs can or will be sent overseas.
No, the rest will be filled by H1Bs are trained by the Americans the H1B's replace. Unless you have a top-secret clearance, or something.
Why compete with 3rd world wages? Train for a job that won't be taken by a foreigner.
The Asians aren't taking away anyone's jobs.
No American wants to compete with 3rd world wages. Other countries protect their workers, not the USA.
You are being trolled hard... I respond to this fuckwit as anon to blow off steam, but you're not going to make some fuckstick like this see the light.
Funny that this fuckwit links to this site: http://www.ohioinfosec.org/ on his twitter..
Wonder what he thinks about this "rule" they have: No discrimination or restriction based on sex, race, religion, or ethnic/national origin.
Not impossible this guy was spurned by an Asian chick, or something equally pathetic that I can't imagine. Pity is probably the only response.
Whatever, the global village is full of assholes, and slashdot (which for all its problems back then, is just not the same place as 12 years ago) is a skewed subset.
1. Those slots aren't being filled by native-born US Citizens.
Bullshit. Americans are forced to train their H1B replacements all the time.
2. Those foreigners who come to fill those slots overwhelmingly become US Ciitizens.
Have a source on that? The H1B is a temporary work visa. According to experts, like Norm Matloff, and Ron Hira; H1Bs are used to help more jobs offshore.
How, by telling them to study what they don't want to study (but that everyone else in the planet wants to study)? You can't help people who do not want to help themselves and who are more than content with a) either a HS degree (and without the ability to add fractions) or 2) pursue a degree in business, law or psychology.
Bullshit. Americans would love to study for STEM careers, if Americans didn't have to compete with 3rd world wages. Americans built the computer industry, and the internet, before the flood of H1Bs. Do you think Americans just -all the sudden- lost interest in computer jobs, for no reason at all?
How many major computer companies, or internet companies, where started in China, or India?
How about the USA? Apple, Microsoft, Cisco, IBM, eBay, Google, Amazon, Intel, Dell, Oracle, and I could go on.
Seems like a lot of Americans need to go back to school and take basic English classes. It's hard to be productive in an IP-driven economy if you can't handle the most basic communications in your native language.
Top quartile 2002 EE/CS grad here, from a prominent top-20 school. US tech firms, for the past decade, haven't even bothered to give the 'time of day' to domestic grads who apply. Job descriptions have been subjected to a steady creep where even entry-level positions are demanding 5-10 years of experience. There is plenty of US tech talent; employers just need to open their eyes, look at more than 1% of their resume queues, and start using it. Instead of throwing away the resume submissions and merely going with low-bidder foreign guest workers.
It doesn't matter if there is sufficient US engineering talent or not. The fact is: its tainted. Even Americans, working overseas still fall under the thumb of the US judicial and tax system.
Every few years, the IRS offers 'tax amnesties' for all the overseas earnings of multinational corporations if they would only declare them and bring them back in. And every time I hear that, I have to laugh. The goal is that the money is out where it can be invested and do some good. Knowledge is going the same way. Live with it.
Have gnu, will travel.
The U.S. doesn't have people living in cages... the homeless people live outside instead, and shit on the sidewalks.
If you ask me, I would say I prefer the Hong Kong solution.
The ways that the US are being criticized are not constructive. They imply that the job is done when the US is finished off.
Absolute bullshit.
If all your factories moved there,
and all your component suppliers moved there,
and all your raw materials suppliers moved there,
and all your delivery stages moved there,
and all your support efforts moved there,
and all their managers moved there,
and much of your R&D exists to improve all those,
how much pressure is there to move R&D?
I find it tragically amusing that the feds are talking about censoring the internet to crack down on piracy because "it costs American jobs", and you know, the congress is all about keeping jobs in America. Where was congress when the big corporations were shipping jobs overseas for the last 30 or 40 years? And who's been cutting education funding and even talking about closing down the Dept of Education?
We need a CEO to run the government like we need more tax cuts for the rich.
In a top 10 univ, most of the profs for EE are foreign. And when it comes to admission selection for grad school, most that get selected and fully funded are foreign. At least 70% (according to ASEE) are foreign. I don't see how that isn't taking up slots from locals when theres only x amount of seats available. Sounds like a good way to keep the US down.
A trade school is designed to give you exactly what you need. A University is for the guys that determine and write the standard operating procedures for the guys in the trade school to follow.
OK, so I left University unable to use a milling machine effectively but I'd have a shot at designing one that could work. It's different thing so of course degrees are useless to you as an employer if you just want somebody that has a specific skill that isn't taught as part of the degree.
If PCB design is indicative of the R&D done in the Electroncis Engineering world, then I say this article is full of s**t. In my business, I look through average of 2000 PCB designs each month . (70% from North America and 30% from the rest of the world) . As an EE in my past life, I can tell 80% confidence the end application of the PCB design. In my personal opinion the real innovators and true risk takers are North Americans. For example, back when RFID as rising technology , the only groups of people actively developing solutions for this technology are the Americans. If was not until RFID became *obviously profitable* (3-4 years later) that the Asian designers focusing on developing RFID solutions.
Do I see Asian companies taking on R&D on unproven technology? Never in my 12 years running a PCB company . Do I see Americans doing R&D on unproven technology? All the time - they can spend upwards of USD 50k on just the PCB services, alone in the *prototyping phase* on unproven technology . So my conclusion is, without the all-out , risk-taking entrepreneurship spirit of American company bringing new techonlogies to commercial sucess (or failure) , there won't be so called R&D happening in Asian to commercialize already proven technologies. Just don't expect Asians to risk it all on unproven techonlogies. We don't do take risk , we only *copy*
Gary
Malaysian PCB factory owner.
As an American with a PhD in Engineering I have to say that it is really easy to get a job. However, long term stability in those jobs is hard to find. Most companies in America either A) don't know the true value of having someone with an advanced degree who communicates clearly in English working for them and don't want to learn, or B) don't offer any opportunity for advancement, or C) are driven by bean counters who are constantly pushing to take your job away and ship it overseas to someone that cannot communicate technical ideas clearly. Often you'll experience all A, B, and C at the same time.
I worked for a few companies where I was severely underutilized and the positions where I could have done some good were held by MBAs (who weren't going anywhere anytime soon). Another hired me on with the hopes that I could save a product that they were developing which they didn't understand at all, because the group was a bunch of 2 year engineering tech grads led by an MBA. The product was due to ship THE WEEK I WAS HIRED. I spent 3 months teaching them Engineering 101 course material so they could begin to comprehend how deeply flawed the product was, then I split before the company tanked. 2 other folks hired when I was followed me out the door. I read yesterday that they are having sweeping layoffs. The surviving functional groups are relocating to, wait for it, China.
I finally landed a full time position teaching engineering at a state college. I love it - it is stable, socially interactive, and professionally interesting. My degrees really haven't gotten a great return on investment - the only thing my PhD did was enable me to become a professor which is a lifestyle decision, not a financial one. I really don't know what to suggest to my students for their careers. I lean toward NOT recommending that they pursue advanced degrees, as in general they don't buy them anything in the long term.
The U.S. is dumbing down because it doesn't pay to do anything else.
I could not help but notice how many posts from seeker.dice.com forums, and elsewhere, are of the same nature. Below are just a few recent examples:
(btw: dice did a relaunch of their message boards yesterday, so I am not sure if the links will work. But I promise you, these are all from 100% real posts).
“Recently I graduated from the Network Engineering program at Trios College in Ontario, Canada in September of 2008.”
“It's a shame that I spent $18,000 on this college program that should have guaranteed me instant employment in a very high demanding industry, yet I can't even find even a basic entry level position to start a new career.”
http://seeker.dice.com/olc/thread.jspa?threadID=11819&start=0&tstart=0
“I will graduate in 3 weeks with a AS degree in networking. and a MCP certified, I have been have trouble finding any kind of IT jobs.”
http://seeker.dice.com/olc/thread.jspa?threadID=11290&tstart=0
“The problem I'm having is that no matter how many jobs I apply for, and no matter how well-written my applications are, I can't seem to get further than the first interview. For some reason it seems a lot of employers will completely overlook my degree in computer engineering . . .”
http://ask.slashdot.org/askslashdot/08/09/29/1926216.shtml
“Being educated, with a 4 year bachelor's degree in engineering (non IT), I want to start a career in IT. I have been a learner all the time, educated myself on various computer subjects. I tried applying for various entry level positions, got two calls but failed to even get to the interview.”
http://seeker.dice.com/olc/forum.jspa?forumID=5
I graduated from the Universty of Missouri in May of this year, with Bachelor's Degrees in CS and IT (took me 5 years). . . And now here I am, 4 months/200 or so apps in. I'm trying to find a job in the Chicago area, or here in St. Louis as a backup. I've had one phone interview . . It's like I'm not even being considered, and I have no idea why.
http://seeker.dice.com/olc/thread.jspa?threadID=10251&tstart=0
“Not been able to find anything in the IT/ICT field since my graduation from Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (BS) in 2002.”
http://seeker.dice.com/olc/thread.jspa?messageID=71731
“I let my now ex-wife talk me into going to UoP for my BS in IT (circa 2002/2004). What a waste. $20k of debt and the degree is virtually worthless. Dumbest thing I've ever done!”
http://seeker.dice.com/olc/thread.jspa?threadID=9209&tstart=0
“B.S. Electrical Engineering, M.S. EE, and M.S. Applied Math(currently attending),last two form US University. GPA 3.55.
“I came to US in 1998 , and I have been looking for the job 10 years,as you can see! Live in South New Jersey, where you cannot get a job without connection, even it is $9. Third shifts,$7-$9 they want to hire you, don't ask many questions but for everything else, it is a rocket science to get hired!!”
http://seeker.dice.com/olc/thread.jspa?threadID=8949&tstart=0
“He's a pretty sharp kid, just graduated from a small liberal-arts school that has a computing program. He just got a job in Chicago, $12/hr, no benefits . . . ”
http://seeker.dice.com/olc/thread.jspa?threadID=8649&tstart=0
“I have been looking for a full time job for about a year since I graduated from my college with a B.E. in computer engineering.”
http://seeker.dice.com/olc/thread.jspa?threadID=8302&tstart=0
“I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science from New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) back in January 2005. After I graduated, I was unable to find a job . . . so in order to pay bills and student loans, I had to get a temp job doing customer service, making $12 an hour”
http://seeker.dice.com/olc/thread.jspa?threadID=6562&tstart=0
“I have bachelors degree in computer science. I have 10yrs of experience in softwar
Your average American, regardless of racial heritage, just copies everything from the smart kid.
What qualifications? How much pay? Where did you advertise? Can you provide a link to the job ad?
If you have the intelligence to be a decent engineer, you can make an order of magnitude more money by going into investment banking, creating some fancy new backwards upside down derivative swap, and milking the rest of us dry. The fact that this is centered in NYC makes it a real drain on smart people going into other sectors in the US at the moment...
MBA and JD are sinews of our economy. Scientists and engineers are the peons. Value is added with high prices, overpricing is optimal, and is an important wellspring of power. More laws can microscopically manage and improve our economy. The US elite will fake the world out and rule supreme. Pigs fly and s--- smells good.
Because the 20-30 something people that I run into day to day are MORONS. They can't say two sentences together without "bro" "dude", nor can they write anything down without using "@, 2, U" for words. Hats on backwards, baggy pants, an attitude that gives the impression they are entitled, no manors, an education system that is more involved with outcome based education, political correctness, and brainwashing kids into thinking that they are entitled to everything, capitalism is bad, and socialism is good, then what would you expect businesses to do?
The US is graduating way more Ministers and Pastors which is the true measure of advancement for of a God fearing society.
Undetectable Steganography? Yep, there's an app fo
As far as I can tell, the news here is simply that "China is developing". The number of degrees being awarded in the US per capita is not changing significantly:
http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/digest12/stem.cfm
(graph 3)
While when you look at the 2nd graph, you see how China's numbers are shooting up nicely. Given the population of China, and it's culture's relative favoritism of engineering and medicine over arts and humanities--bolstered by a generally high value placed on education (compared to US)--one might expect to see a developed China produces on the order of 10 times the engineering degrees of the US.
Well, there is that whole "Pursuit of Knowledge" thing. And while things might be on the move, they haven't left yet.
For most people, the first priority is to pay the bills: food, clothing, housing, health care. While a good laymen's knowledge of science and technology is a good thing it is a challenge to get much beyond that with the time and energy that remains after working a full time job. And that's for the fields where it practical at all to pursue as hobbies. Many fields have no effective "cottege" form. Without a lot of money, a lot of time, and quite a few people, you can't build anything.
The investment banking outfits only take a small trickle of the overall level of STEM talent out there. Outfits like Goldman Sachs receive thousands of resumes for each position they actually fill. It is rather misleading to suggest that the banks are sucking up all the talent. In fact, given the performance of the financial industry, they probably aren't hiring enough STEM talent.
"...The U.S. is dumbing down because it doesn't pay to do anything else."
The sheeple.
The US has increasingly rewarded talent diverted into MBA and JD for a generation to wring nominal profits from stagnant industries. I figure it will end badly over the next ten years in the US.
Cause we're all about the free markets here, right?
No, locking the H-1B's out would be a far better thing to do, as it would force the US employers to actually open their resume queues and start considering US technology and engineering professionals in good faith, matching their qualifications to the positions they have open.
H-1B's are generally used for entry-level, relatively low-skilled labour. H-1B pay is usually based on some of the lowest entry level professional rates.
Once all the US STEM talent is absorbed into the sector, and all the domestic talent settles into jobs that fully make use of their talents, H-1B's may be considered, subject to the provision that firms interview and treat all US candidates for positions in good faith. Instead of doing the Microsoft or Google nonsense thing of throwing out 99% of resume submissions un-read by humans.
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13924_3-20021804-64.html
Table-ized A.I.
If your own citizens are inept, uneducated and incapable of doing the work required, companies have to fill the skilled positions somehow
Then you train said people to correct for such deficiencies - should they really exist.
This won't happen because correcting those deficiencies isn't in the interest of the establishment. An uneducated voter is easily swayed with bad arguments and silly wedge issues, and can be led to repeatedly vote against his own interest. That's why education is consistently attacked by the right-wing sound machine, and educated people are consistently presented as "elitists", "out of touch", and somehow not "true Americans". And it works. For a terrible demonstration, see how the Republican contenders had to affirm their disbelief in evolution at one of the first debates. For another, think about the way Romney and Huntsman were attacked for speaking more than one language (Chinese for Huntsman, French for Romney). That's why the situation won't be corrected anytime soon.
Another result of the vilification of education is the loss of quality teaching. While most politicians express very vocally their support and concern for education, in reality quality education becomes more and more difficult to access. The salaries in teaching are already rather low (a quick check on Payscale.com shows K12 teacher median salaries to be under 45k, comparing unfavorably for example with a journeyman electrician's median income), and there is a nation-wide effort to reduce them even more (see how many of the cuts envisioned by the Republican candidates come from the Education budget). The social respect for teachers is also really low (compared to other countries). As a result, good performers don't go into lower education (maybe excepting a few really dedicated people who sacrifice their lifetime earnings for the responsibility of teaching, or the ones that manage to get a position at a high tier university).
Invoking the words global, competition and skilled are just code words for expressing contempt towards US citizens.
Not really - global competition is a reality. American companies need skilled employees, but can't get them in the USA because of the above. The establishment helps companies (via mechanisms like elimination of trade barriers) access skilled employees outside the country, where they won't vote in the US elections.
The laws of physics are the same in Asia, so it's cheaper to do engineering research there. The cost of brain-work-per-hour is simply lower there. It's not that America is "not producing enough engineers", it's that we cannot compete with brain-power on price.
From a student's perspective, the non-STEM options look more attractive in US compared to STEM than in Asia.
In math form:
(as/ans) > (us/uns)
Where:
as = Asian STEM job pay
ans = Asian Non-STEM job pay
us = US STEM job pay
uns = US Non-STEM job pay
(For degreed workers)
Table-ized A.I.
...litigating is better than innovating.
Meh.
Corporations have no nationality any more. They wrap themselves in flags of convenience, and play nations against each other in much the same way as they did US states to get wider and wider charters.
Face it, we are heading towards a time of corporate aristocracies.
comment first, facts later. http://chem.tufts.edu/AnswersInScience/RelativityofWrong.htm
Tell Chinese/Indian companies to share % of profit with their employees.
Include that clause in your Outsourcing agreement and see the result.
Casteism
Wow, you're barely literate.
I'm proud to be a US citizen, and that statement can't be wrong.
There's a difference between "there's a problem, fix it" and just saying that the US citizen can't do right.
At least I'm willing to put a name to my words, and stand behind them. However bad some coward thinks they may be.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
They simply stole ours.
We can (and will) do the same to them. It will be humorous to see the howls of how "Amewicans canna innovrate" from the Chinese here on Slashdot when Apple simply copies the cool new Chinese gadget (and has it manufactured in Brazil).
I am very small, utmostly microscopic.
Not really - global competition is a reality. American companies need skilled employees, but can't get them in the USA because of the above. The establishment helps companies (via mechanisms like elimination of trade barriers) access skilled employees outside the country, where they won't vote in the US elections.
Only if national policy resigns to it. Once the US is willing, it can override the "global competition" herpderp.
There needs to be a willingness to combat those that won't train US citizens for actual deficiencies (as opposed to those claimed by business).
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Is there anyone that can invent anything in the US now outside of the huge companies, when you can expect getting yourself sued before you release anything? The US ia legislating themselves out of competition.
Spend time on invention instead of legal battles and the young people will return and invent.
Of those listed, Microsoft, provides a net drain on the economy. Lost data, malware, inferior productivity tools, all add up. The others on the list are quite good, in contrast and make the point. It's just that the one stands out as wrong.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
Be the one that causes those deaths, preferably of those who send work offshore.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
This is fun to watch. Technological dominance moves as a wave, from east to west, and has done so for quite some time. Occasionally, it tarries, but once the host country gets full of itself, it moves on.
Asia is enjoying it now, and soon after, the Middle East will be enjoying it. Then Europe again. Then the Americas again.
Which reminds me. I need to move out of this country before they decide to take revenge for the (pending) war on Iran.
I am John Hurt.
You cannot train people to correct for such deficiencies if (a) the universities aren't there and (b) the workers aren't interested. The original article states both problems exist, ergo training is not possible.
The universities are there, and the workers are interested. It is business that is at fault.
A more practical goal is to see at the very least the US, or SOME nation in the world, adopt the philosophy of doing best by their citizenry and have the citizenry respond by becoming as highly educated, as mentally flexible and as dextrous in work environments as possible. This would still be incredibly hard to achieve. Your own post shows why - you're not interested in being at the top of the heap by being the best. "you underestimate the power of the US Government and its ability to make an overseas move unprofitably painful" is another way of saying you're only interested in being at the top of the heap by impairing others.
It's national defense, something the US does quite well at. If someone wishes to fundamentally destroy the US through some sort of departure - it should be thwarted.
Merit is nice, but it's always good to have a backup when it fails or is structured to fail. Whether you consider that a negative or positive, is your opinion.
I, therefore, am not the one in contempt of US citizens. You are. You are the one who is holding that it is only at knife-point that the US can achieve a damn thing, that it cannot succeed by competency alone. I am the one who is saying that it CAN achieve everything through competency alone. That isn't contempt for Americans, that's admiration for their sheer potential intelligence, their potential guts and their potential determination. The only contempt is for why it's potential and not realized, and therefore contempt for your notion of superiority by force.
When businesses refuse to realize it in the US or cultivate it, they are at fault. I do not have the contempt for Americans in general, reserving it for those that hold back work or use the excuses of skill and competition to not build citizens up.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Yesterday on NPR, a commentator talked about how in the US, R&D has moved from the corporate world to universities.
Being a cynic, I would attribute this to the fact that R&D is expensive, requires a long-term investment, and doesn't increase profits in the short-term. This makes it unattractive to many public corporations, which must beat Wall St. expectations every quarter.
My opinion is that this trend contributes to both a brain drain and a drain of ideas from the US. When the corporate world was funding more R&D, that R&D was protected as trade secrets and used to make the corporation more competitive. If the commentator is correct in that more if this research is moving to the academic world, then that R&D is easily adopted offshore either by foreign entities that don't suffer from the "not invented here" mindset, or by those that simply hire the international grad students that did the research in the first place.
In over twenty years working in prototype development, I saved for being laid off instead of retirement. Anytime there was a hiccup in the economy, the first thing that management would cut from was R&D and product development. The mentality of a business focused management -- as opposed to a product focused management -- was since they were already manufacturing product, they could delay the release of new product for a while. As any idiot with half a brain can figure out, when you stop or delay developing new products or improvements to existing products, your company can quickly fall behind the competition and become irrelevant.
As a testament to that, most of the companies I used to work for no longer exist. One was bought out by their primary competitor. Another still struggles to exist.
Hand-in-hand with this was the fact that the moment they put someone with an MBA in the role of CEO, the company was doomed. Because these people had no concept of what it took to develop and manufacture product, they would start making cuts indiscriminately in order to increase the profit margin -- not profit -- of the company. They would cut a few thousand workers from the payroll in order to "save" $3 million and then pay the CEO a bonus of $5 million for saving the $3 million by putting a few thousand people out of work. Immediately after, the CEO would pull on his golden parachute and jump the company, leaving it to fail.
Anyone in doubt of a business-focused CEO vs. a product-focused CEO need only look at the most perfect textbook example company: Apple Inc. After they ousted the product-focused Jobs from being CEO, they stuck business-focused men at the helm. Apple all but failed until product-focused Jobs retook command of the company. The first thing Jobs did when he returned was immediately put a stop to the financial dealings and focused the company on producing product again. The rest is history.
Business people do not value their creative staff. I remember listening to a vice president complaining about the salary that a particular engineer was being paid, saying the guy brought in no business, didn't sell anything, didn't spend any time on the phone talking to customers and just sat quietly in a corner all day doing nothing. The VP felt that any engineer being paid more than $60K per year was being overpaid. The engineer in question was the very man who designed and developed the technology behind the product the company sold. The very reason the company existed! The VP made life very unpleasant for the engineer and eventually the engineer gave up and quit. Over a short period of time, most of the people who worked with him left as well. The VP reported to the Board of Directors that he had managed to save nearly $1 million in 'administrative costs' (the salaries of the people no longer there) and successfully campaigned this into a six-figure salary increase. What this VP actually did, without realizing it, was effectively scuttle the company. After I left the company, I learned from others it was well over a year before the CEO and board members of the company discovered what had happened. By then it was too late. Lack of improvements and enhancements to their product made them irrelevant in the market. Their competitors, on the other hand, suddenly exhibited a surge in improvements and enhancements to their products, as well as the introduction of new products.
This was not an isolated case! One of the best examples of management not understanding or appreciating the true assets in the company was the case of Motorola vs. Intel. The Motorola PowerPC processor was the first mass produced CPU chip to break the 1 GHz barrier. The PPC was making inroads against Intel's Pentium line of processors and was rapidly moving ahead as the microprocessor of choice for new computers. Intel's line, on the other hand, had reached its theoretical maximum speed and was not moving ahead. Then, just as it seemed the PPC was about to truly gain momentum, things ca
Whew! This water sure is cold!
And where's the money going to come from? Government hasn't got any, consumers buy the best (and to hell with who makes it), so that leaves you with two choices -- be the best or rely on pixie dust.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Only if national policy resigns to it. Once the US is willing, it can override the "global competition" herpderp.
Well, that's exactly my point. The national policy doesn't just "resign to it", it pushes in this direction. The "US" that's willing is actually a comparatively small group; what I believe is a greater group is suspicious of educated people, and lots of politicians pander to them, by cuts to the education budget, by painting educated people as not "real Americans" and so on.
What the fuck is R&D ? typical Slashdot post: bunch of Letters piled together with some numbers and some percentages to look good. Why in the god's name editors don't use the common accepted fucking language? are you too lazy ? are you too self important ? do you even know the meaning of the letters you move from one article to another?
I've been reading news on this site for 12 years but I had enough of the crap that lands in the mailbox, fuck you and good journey to the land of the short words, smaller brains and even shorter vocabulary, I'll just take the other road thank you.
Give business no option to go offshore, reward them with tax incentives for staying onshore, and then deeper incentives for retaining people on a directly hired, FTE basis.
I'm sure there'd be plenty of room if the government didnt have to administer a guest worker program, much less worry about the obvious fraud and waste in it.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
N/T
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Qualified to them could mean "non-US citizen described in a legally compliant way".
That, and if they're really hard up for finding US citizens, train them.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
So how much do you want taxes raised so the US can track and verify the pedigree of every product coming into it? Are companies manufacturing in China bad? What about a Chinese company that makes a product no one else does? What about manufacturing in Germany? What about Spain which has lower costs than Germany to a German company? Poland, an upstanding EU member?
All evaluated on their impact on the US. No impact, no tariff. Any front companies in the chain, as the US determines them, get evaluated as the worst possible country.
And in fifty years the US would be a shit hole separated from the global economy and running on technology decades behind everyone else.
Only in your dreams.
Look what happened to American car manufacturers when they had no competition. The Japanese manufactured cars in the US and still killed those companies. That's what your holy protectionism leads to.
Insufficient legal coverage. Had there been a push to include transplants/contracted manufacturing in the quotas, they'd be shut out.
We'd have wonderfully large & reliable cars and you'd have to pay tons to get a golfcart - instead of the other way around.
The US is not the center of the world, many other countries have companies perfectly capable of shipping goods into the US.
They still have to play by the US's rules. That, and the legal toolbox that the US has is quite unfriendly to those opposing the US.
The US has plenty of resources to prove you wrong.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.