Well, it's too soon to say what the intentions are, but I do believe that NASA was long overdue for a shake-up. Although I disagree with the Bush administration on just about every other issue, I have been pleasantly surprised by their space policy.
I strongly support a return to manned space exploration. If this shake-up clears the way for manned missions to the Moon and Mars then it is a positive. Manned exploration of space is about returning NASA to the glory days of the Apollo missions. Bold goals will produce great science. That was the experience of the Apollo programs. Also, manned missions inspire the public in a way that robots never can. Speaking personally, it was my love of the Space program that made me choose engineering as a profession.
That said I do have a lingering concern that this purge could be clearing the way for the militarization of space. I don't want to see NASA become a branch of the Pentagon. NASA is a civilian agency dedicated to the peaceful exploration of space to benefit "All mankind."
All the things I am reading these days are very reminiscent of the days in the '90s when Apple was in the dumps. Back then everyone was saying Apple's days were numbered, the company would be bought, the company would go bankrupt, etc., etc. Like Apple, SUN has great technology and a golden brand name. Sun's real problem is they have lost their way and their business model is floundering. An example: One of the SUN administrators at my company was complaining of SUN's current bewildering product lines. There are too many models and many of them overlap. Just like Apple. One of the first signs of the turn around at Apple was when they began streamlining their products into clear low- middle- and high-end machines. I'm a big fan of Java and I don't want to see SUN go under. Maybe they can borrow Steve Jobs for a couple of years.
When an employer hires an H1-B worker they are getting to have it both ways. They get all the benefits of doing business in America without having to pay American wages. That amounts to a massive subsidy. The H1-B program needs to go, but we should not stop there. H1-B is symptomatic of a wider problem with our immigration system.
For years immigration has been driving down wages for working class Americans. We are now seeing the condition of the "working poor", where a person can hold down a full-time job and still be earning less that the poverty level. How often have you heard the argument that immigrants do jobs that Americans will not do? That argument is applied today to the meat packing industry, yet 30 years ago Americans used to line up to work the formerly high wage unionized meatpacking jobs. Over the intervening years the meat packing industry has used mostly illegal immigrants to break unions and drive wages down to the minimum wage. You do not have to take my word for it. In Eric Schlosser's excellent book Fast Food Nation he documents in detail the conditions in today's meatpacking industry.
Now this wage depression is reaching the middle class. How long before we here the same cries that formerly high wage IT jobs are "jobs that Americans are not willing to do"? A lot of news reports have talked about the widening gap between rich and poor and the shrinking middle class. I would argue that the current immigration system constitutes a massive wealth transfer from the middle and working classes to corporations and the wealthy few. This is not class warfare. I a capitalist myself, but I think in the long term. A Brazil-ification of our economic system into a small number of wealthy, a small middle class, and a large under class is not healthy for our economy or our democracy.
I want to stress that this is not immigrant bashing. I support the kind of reform to our immigration system that will return immigration to a benefit for our nation and the immigrants themselves. I support going over to a points style immigration system like that used by Australia and Canada. We should emphasize skilled immigration. If we as a nation decide that we really do need skilled immigrants we should give them green cards so that the immigrant technical workers can be paid American level wages. The H1-B program creates a condition of indentured servitude where the H1-B worker is afraid of asking for more money lest they should be fired and expelled from the country.
Second, immigration numbers need to be brought down. Currently America is accepting over one million legal immigrants and hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. All illegal immigration needs to be stopped and legal immigration should be reduced to around 250,000 per year. This combined with a points style immigration system will protect middle class wages and increase wages for working class Americans.
I have no regrets about choosing engineering as a career, but I do see some disturbing trends in industry. America needs to reconsider its H1-B program and do more to support engineering students.
I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering and I worked for three years in the aerospace industry. During the height of the dot com boom I switched careers to web development. I really enjoy working as a programmer; it is a lot more like what I though engineering would be like (nothing like working at an Aerospace giant to give you a bad impression of engineering). I've been lucky and have managed to stay employed through most of the recession.
When I got my degree I did not know what I wanted to do with it, I just wanted to work in technology and to have options. My degree has done both for me. I feel the rock solid education I got as an engineering student has been a benefit to many areas of my life, not just my professional life.
As much as I like programming, I will admit that if it were not for the high wages I would have not made the effort to change careers. It was a lot of work to teach myself programming. Industry complaints about IT worker shortages are bull. What they really mean is there are not enough workers willing to work long hours for low pay. Anyone with a degree in the sciences or engineering can make the switch to IT with relative ease. As long as wages are high there will be no shortage of IT workers in America.
The H1-B program has got to go. This is not immigrant bashing; I don't blame people wanting to come to America for a better life. This is economics 101. If you flood a market with workers willing to work for less then you are going to drive down wages. Do you think the Wall Street Journal's unwavering support for unrestricted immigration is because they want high wages for American workers? No, the WSJ supports immigration as a way to drive down wages. Personally, I'm not against immigration, I just think current numbers (over 1 million every year) are way too high.
There needs to be more scholarships for engineering student. Many of my high school teachers and college professors were students when the Sputnik scare prompted congress to offer generous scholarships to anyone going into math/science/engineering. When I was a student I could not find any scholarships for engineering students.
Importing foreign engineers/IT workers is a vicious cycle. The more of them come, the lower the wages in America get. The lower the wages, the less likely that American students will go into those fields, thus creating more demand for foreign workers. This needs to stop now. This is no kind of future for America.
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Well, it's too soon to say what the intentions are, but I do believe that NASA was long overdue for a shake-up. Although I disagree with the Bush administration on just about every other issue, I have been pleasantly surprised by their space policy. I strongly support a return to manned space exploration. If this shake-up clears the way for manned missions to the Moon and Mars then it is a positive. Manned exploration of space is about returning NASA to the glory days of the Apollo missions. Bold goals will produce great science. That was the experience of the Apollo programs. Also, manned missions inspire the public in a way that robots never can. Speaking personally, it was my love of the Space program that made me choose engineering as a profession. That said I do have a lingering concern that this purge could be clearing the way for the militarization of space. I don't want to see NASA become a branch of the Pentagon. NASA is a civilian agency dedicated to the peaceful exploration of space to benefit "All mankind."
All the things I am reading these days are very reminiscent of the days in the '90s when Apple was in the dumps. Back then everyone was saying Apple's days were numbered, the company would be bought, the company would go bankrupt, etc., etc. Like Apple, SUN has great technology and a golden brand name. Sun's real problem is they have lost their way and their business model is floundering. An example: One of the SUN administrators at my company was complaining of SUN's current bewildering product lines. There are too many models and many of them overlap. Just like Apple. One of the first signs of the turn around at Apple was when they began streamlining their products into clear low- middle- and high-end machines. I'm a big fan of Java and I don't want to see SUN go under. Maybe they can borrow Steve Jobs for a couple of years.
When an employer hires an H1-B worker they are getting to have it both ways. They get all the benefits of doing business in America without having to pay American wages. That amounts to a massive subsidy. The H1-B program needs to go, but we should not stop there. H1-B is symptomatic of a wider problem with our immigration system.
For years immigration has been driving down wages for working class Americans. We are now seeing the condition of the "working poor", where a person can hold down a full-time job and still be earning less that the poverty level. How often have you heard the argument that immigrants do jobs that Americans will not do? That argument is applied today to the meat packing industry, yet 30 years ago Americans used to line up to work the formerly high wage unionized meatpacking jobs. Over the intervening years the meat packing industry has used mostly illegal immigrants to break unions and drive wages down to the minimum wage. You do not have to take my word for it. In Eric Schlosser's excellent book Fast Food Nation he documents in detail the conditions in today's meatpacking industry.
Now this wage depression is reaching the middle class. How long before we here the same cries that formerly high wage IT jobs are "jobs that Americans are not willing to do"? A lot of news reports have talked about the widening gap between rich and poor and the shrinking middle class. I would argue that the current immigration system constitutes a massive wealth transfer from the middle and working classes to corporations and the wealthy few. This is not class warfare. I a capitalist myself, but I think in the long term. A Brazil-ification of our economic system into a small number of wealthy, a small middle class, and a large under class is not healthy for our economy or our democracy.
I want to stress that this is not immigrant bashing. I support the kind of reform to our immigration system that will return immigration to a benefit for our nation and the immigrants themselves. I support going over to a points style immigration system like that used by Australia and Canada. We should emphasize skilled immigration. If we as a nation decide that we really do need skilled immigrants we should give them green cards so that the immigrant technical workers can be paid American level wages. The H1-B program creates a condition of indentured servitude where the H1-B worker is afraid of asking for more money lest they should be fired and expelled from the country.
Second, immigration numbers need to be brought down. Currently America is accepting over one million legal immigrants and hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants. All illegal immigration needs to be stopped and legal immigration should be reduced to around 250,000 per year. This combined with a points style immigration system will protect middle class wages and increase wages for working class Americans.
I have no regrets about choosing engineering as a career, but I do see some disturbing trends in industry. America needs to reconsider its H1-B program and do more to support engineering students.
I have a degree in Mechanical Engineering and I worked for three years in the aerospace industry. During the height of the dot com boom I switched careers to web development. I really enjoy working as a programmer; it is a lot more like what I though engineering would be like (nothing like working at an Aerospace giant to give you a bad impression of engineering). I've been lucky and have managed to stay employed through most of the recession.
When I got my degree I did not know what I wanted to do with it, I just wanted to work in technology and to have options. My degree has done both for me. I feel the rock solid education I got as an engineering student has been a benefit to many areas of my life, not just my professional life.
As much as I like programming, I will admit that if it were not for the high wages I would have not made the effort to change careers. It was a lot of work to teach myself programming. Industry complaints about IT worker shortages are bull. What they really mean is there are not enough workers willing to work long hours for low pay. Anyone with a degree in the sciences or engineering can make the switch to IT with relative ease. As long as wages are high there will be no shortage of IT workers in America.
The H1-B program has got to go. This is not immigrant bashing; I don't blame people wanting to come to America for a better life. This is economics 101. If you flood a market with workers willing to work for less then you are going to drive down wages. Do you think the Wall Street Journal's unwavering support for unrestricted immigration is because they want high wages for American workers? No, the WSJ supports immigration as a way to drive down wages. Personally, I'm not against immigration, I just think current numbers (over 1 million every year) are way too high.
There needs to be more scholarships for engineering student. Many of my high school teachers and college professors were students when the Sputnik scare prompted congress to offer generous scholarships to anyone going into math/science/engineering. When I was a student I could not find any scholarships for engineering students.
Importing foreign engineers/IT workers is a vicious cycle. The more of them come, the lower the wages in America get. The lower the wages, the less likely that American students will go into those fields, thus creating more demand for foreign workers. This needs to stop now. This is no kind of future for America.