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.
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,
Gee, I wonder if that has anything to do with Asia having well above half of the world's population.
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?
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.
"Enemy"?
I happen to believe that there is no sense in paying the Chinese to build products that we are going to buy. Especially when we're just supporting the mistreatment of their workers.
On the other hand, there's every reason to have Chinese and Indians and Iranians and Nigerians, etc come to this country to learn. Because they raise the average.
My daughter coasted through high school, even though both of her parents are professional academics. She had little ambition and little direction. Her interaction with foreign students who actually place a very high value on their education has had a great effect on her. When she got to college, she saw how hard some people work as opposed to some of the kids she hung around with in high school. She saw students helping each other with study groups, tutoring, even sharing books. It took her a while but now she studies with a group of kids that includes Chinese and Korean and Eastern European students, and in Mathematics, when you hook up with smart people, it's a big help, as opposed to many American students who come in as big swinging dicks and think they've got an A coming as a birthright.
National borders are artificial. Cultural borders are not. There may not be a reason to see research and development as some grand competition, or the moral equivalent of war, but there is every reason to start spending a lot more money, public money, on R&D. Not because we have to "beat" the Chinese, but because we have to beat a whole lot of problems right here at home, and over-come the increasing anti-intellectualism of many Americans. Of course, I don't think that's going to be an applause line at the South Carolina Republican debate tonight.
You are welcome on my lawn.
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!
Uh, how about you and your company try the novel idea of TRAINING people how to do their job, instead of expecting them to do your job for you by training themselves. If companies would quit expecting their employees to walk in already trained on their specific skill needs and actually get down to taking 1-2 months of training their employees, they might actually solve the problem of not having enough skilled candidates. Use their major and them having a degree as a screening criteria for work-ethic and overall ability to accomplish tasks put to them under a deadline, but don't expect them to be tailor made to suit your field. -rs
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.
A lot of times, if you get a TA or RA assistanceship, your tuition is paid and you get a monthly stipend, in effect paying you to go to school. Yes, you'll have to do research (more likely do grunt work for your prof) or teach undergrad classes (more likely do grunt-work homework grading and study sessions), but it's better than tripling your student loans.
The downside is that you're stuck in school for 2 more years, making no real money, while you could be going into industry and getting real-world experience while making close to 6 figures. You probably also would be building up more interest on those undergrad loans, though you can usually defer payment. Once you get out, you will get a higher salary generally for an MS degree, but not so much more that it makes it worth it, most likely (this is debatable). But for a PhD, it's much worse; it takes even more time than the MS (compounding those interest and no-pay factors), and you don't get any more salary for it except for a few select disciplines, and in fact it'll disqualify you from a lot of jobs because they'll think you want more money (which you will), and they don't want expensive workers, they want cheap ones. Generally, PhDs in engineering fields (and most others) are only useful if your career goal in life is to become a university professor.