
Intel CEO: U.S. faces looming tech decline - ronnier
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20014563-38.html?tag=mncol;1n
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bediger
Shocker! The USA has off-shored all entry level tech jobs, getting rid of its
"farm teams" for more advanced jobs and technical managers. The USA has
declared a War on the Unexpected (see the "Mooninites" in Boston ad campaign)
so nobody gets to fool around with chemistry sets, electronics, rockets, etc
etc etc. We've regulated aeronautics so strictly that "modern" air transports
might as well have been developed in 1960, and we're giving up the ability to
launch humans into orbit. In the meantime, we've ramped up patent and
copyright protection of even the simplest and most obvious ideas to bizarre
levels.

What exactly did we think the effects of this would be? That kids would crowd
into engineering curriculums so that Boeing, HP, IBM, Intel and Black & Veach
could pay them near minimum wage to work themselves to death?

Otellini is kidding isn't he?

~~~
geebee
That's the missing link in so many of these articles. A big RAND study
recently concluded that the real problem is that S&E careers have become
unattractive to Americans, largely because of wage erosion relative to other
fields:

[http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-07-08-science-
engi...](http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-07-08-science-engineer-
jobs_N.htm)

"Other approaches such as making K-12 science and math courses more
interesting and pushing for more qualified math and science teachers "may have
merit in their own right," researchers said, "but we think they pale in
importance to the earnings and attractiveness of S&E careers as major
determinants of the supply of U.S.-born students to S&E.""

That said, I actually agree that the US is in serious trouble, mainly because
I don't agree with the RAND group's assertion that "the slow growth of
U.S.-born technical workers "will change when the earnings and attractiveness
of S&E (science and engineering) careers improve.""

This is what would happen if you could resurrect a devastated profession as
soon as the careers become attractive again. But you can't. My grandfather was
an engineer and encouraged me to become one. One generation encourages the
next. When you break that chain, you can't just revive it on a dime.

Personally, I think that the US pursued a policy that greatly discouraged the
smartest young Americans from going into engineering. There was a short term
gain in that we did get talent on the cheap, but at what I think will be a
profound long term cost.

A more interesting article would be a high profile tech CEO discussing how the
policies his own company rigorously pursued ended up discouraging US citizens
from becoming engineers.

~~~
hga
There's something to what you say about breaking the chain and it's
particularly apropos as a re-balancing of STEM vs. other careers might be
happening right now (mostly due to the better alternatives getting much worse)
... but there's a _whole_ lot of first generation STEM types out there and I
see no reason it won't continue.

For a very long time MIT was a place where the working class would send their
children to get a step up the ladder as engineers (it was also a place they
would work their way thorough college which obviously ended a few decades ago,
although in 2008 they changed the financial aid policy so that students from
families making under $75K would not be burdened by loans (all scholarships +
plus some work)).

While not an engineer, as I recall Richard Feynman was one of those (from a
working class background maybe and definitely a first generation STEM type; he
ended up at MIT due to Columbia's Jewish quota...). For that matter, I too am
a first generation STEM type. Heck, I didn't really grok what engineering was
until I arrived on campus (in my defense I was strongly on a science track).

One addendum to your "profound long term cost" thesis: with the post-SarBox
closing of the IPO exit we've also insured there will be _very_ few future
massive hacker oriented big companies. There will be some, like Facebook, but
not many.

