

You want more good jobs, spawn more Steve Jobs - andrewpbrett
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/opinion/24friedman.html

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defen
Answer: Destroy the industrial base of most of the rest of the world, import
1600 top Nazi scientists, find a nuclear-armed expansionist global-superpower
enemy with a fundamentally incompatible political ideology, and raise the top
marginal tax rate to 91%.

Worked last time.

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thaumaturgy
What are you referring to?

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defen
The industrial base of Japan and most of continental Europe was destroyed in
strategic bombing campaigns or captured by the Soviets after WWII.

Nazi scientists: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_paperclip>

Global superpower is the USSR

Income tax: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:MarginalIncomeTax.svg>

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clofresh
What I'd LOVE to see is a federal grant program to fund work on popular or
promising open source projects. Think how many jobs the LAMP stack has
created? We need to find the next-gen of open source tools and make them more
robust, better documented and more accessible to others. (Hint: Mochiweb could
use some documentation love! :)

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jsz0
It's a nice idea but it's not compatible with our political landscape. It
doesn't help anyone right this second. The laid off auto worker or
construction worker probably aren't top candidates for a tech startup staff.
Voters want easy answers and instant gratification. In their minds we should
have been able to create 10 million jobs last year and fix all of our problems
while cutting taxes and reducing the deficit. Why? Because they've been sold
on decades of political non-sense from both parties. Easy answers, quick
fixes, idealogical extremes. Politically the Republicans claim to support
small business but they aren't too keen on giving _anyone_ assistance in the
form of government handouts. If the Democrats try it they'll be called
communists and the American people, predictably enough, will be scared and
oppose it. Maybe the Democrats would do it but it will be so watered down it
doesn't actually work as intended so it looks like a gigantic, expensive,
failure. I think this country has become so crippled by political fear and
hatred that we just don't have the capacity to govern ourselves anymore via a
democratic system.

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protomyth
The Democrats problem isn't the Republicans. They had a huge polling advantage
and large wins against Republicans in the 2008 elections. The problem is that
the administration hasn't focused on the problem of the economy. Instead of
focusing they have been on this massive social engineering kick. It could be
argued that health care is a part of the recovery, but given the timelines in
the current bill, this just isn't true.

The sad part is that this is a repeat of the 1970's. Look at the articles from
that era about the "failed experiment" or how the office of the president
should be replaced. Some of that is from Nixon's behavior, but quite a lot of
it is economics problems suffered by all the presidents (Nixon, Ford, and
Carter).

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kylec
Despite the title, this article has nothing to do with Steve Jobs.

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melvinram
The point of the article really is about creating more inventors/innovators
and the author tries to use Jobs as the personification of innovator.

Even though the article makes some good points and I agree with the spirit of
Friedman's suggestions, the actual results of any of his suggestions would not
come about for 8-12 years.

Instead, by focusing more on the green energy economy that is clearly showing
a rising demand, the US can be well positioned to take advantage of a bigger
wave.

Going deeper into the specific policies, decisions and attention focus of
Obama would likely take the discussion here in a clearly political &
polarizing direction so I'll end right here.

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ComputerGuru
What's wrong with investing for 8 years into the future?

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ojbyrne
Nothing, other than the fact that it's the typical length of a US presidency.
Which makes it politically untenable.

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melvinram
Exactly. Without concrete results showing up in the next year or two, Obama
would have to face the "He Did Nothing!" challenge when it comes time for re-
election.

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kevinholesh
Q: “What legislation, what tax incentives, do we need right now to replicate
you all a million times over?”

A: Instead of taxing productivity, why not tax consumption instead?
<http://www.fairtax.org/>

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carbocation
Per Annenberg, the 'FairTax' reduces taxes for the poor and the rich,
squeezing the middle class:

<http://www.factcheck.org/taxes/unspinning_the_fairtax.html>

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jpcx01
Don't worry, we'll have both soon enough. Hello VAT.

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patrickgzill
The idea that you could somehow "round up" the country's leading innovators in
order to ask them questions, is itself the problem.

Innovators seem to appear out of nowhere; by the time they are well-known
enough to find them, they have already done the bulk of their innovating.

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olliesaunders
The title reminded me of the sound clip from Starcraft when you play as the
Zerg: "Spawn more Steve Jobs!" I mean, "Spawn more overloads!"

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krakensden
"We need more minerals" is the obvious next step.

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jganetsk
...and fewer Thomas Friedmans.

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ranza
<starcraft> SPAWN MORE OVERLORDS </starcraft>

