Intel CEO: U.S. faces looming tech decline(news.cnet.com)
news.cnet.com
Intel CEO: U.S. faces looming tech decline
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-20014563-38.html?tag=mncol;1n
2 comments
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...
"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.
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/2009-07-08-science-engi...
"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.
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.
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.
No, he works for a company that the last time I checked had a policy of firing ~ 10% of it's "bottom" employees every year. Even if they don't explicitly do that any more, it was in effect long enough to become part of the culture, meaning Intel has exceptional recruiting requirements.
See also this duplicate with a couple of comments: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1631284
I note how the supply side of the US STEM jobs equation has been thoroughly stuffed starting sometime in the '80s when the NSF decided it was paying too much for bench labor and the like.
The only thing you're not taking into account is that with the advent of the Great Recession, STEM careers, while they suck, might not be so bad in comparison to the alternatives, something I also touched upon.
(Note: farm teams == seed corn for the next generation of "more advanced jobs and technical managers".)
See also this duplicate with a couple of comments: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1631284
I note how the supply side of the US STEM jobs equation has been thoroughly stuffed starting sometime in the '80s when the NSF decided it was paying too much for bench labor and the like.
The only thing you're not taking into account is that with the advent of the Great Recession, STEM careers, while they suck, might not be so bad in comparison to the alternatives, something I also touched upon.
(Note: farm teams == seed corn for the next generation of "more advanced jobs and technical managers".)
The recession wiped out real estate, wall street and Detroit, but one can still have a nice, well-compensated life being a lawyer, cop, politician, public school teacher, and almost any type of government employee. Why bother with all that Calculus?
You have a good point; my forward looking quibbles are:
The young lawyer supply is now grossly out of whack with the demand (there are too many for the slots available ... and this field is now starting off shoring...). Skim the Instapundit's blog (he's a U of Tenn. law professor) for lots of indicators on this, the latest being smaller law firms offering unpaid internships. As he or someone said, if you have to fight to get an unpaid internship....
The number of politicians is relatively fixed. Maybe not in California, where there are a zillion boards in which to place term limited legislators, but that latter game along with all the other ones in is coming to an end.
And the same WT cops, public school teachers and "almost any type of government employee" in most states and the Federal government. Right now they're for the most part in tall cotton, but we can see how this game is likely to end rather harshly rather soon. A situation where they're getting on average a whole lot more compensation than taxpayers is not politically stable in the long term when the latter are getting hammered by the Great Recession.
Some states like California are not recognizing their financial limits in that they're merrily adding civil servants on their way to de facto bankruptcy (being sovereign there's no legal framework for a state to go bankrupt). In my home state of Missouri our new Democratic governor has laid off more than 2,000 state workers along with many other moves (e.g. a freeze in starting new projects for the DoT) to keep our budget more than vaguely in sync with reality. Soft landings have been arranged in state higher education, etc. The bottom line is that in this Purple state few in government are spending like there's no tomorrow (the only one I know of is my county sheriff who has his own tax source ... and I'm getting the impression he's not winning any points while the rest of us are tightening our belts).
(Well, my home town of Joplin is not feeling much pain yet, we've gained the most jobs (absolute (!)) of any metro area in the state (and ours is not big in population) and our tax revenue decreases are quite manageable as of yet. Then again we didn't go wild in any way during the last two bubbles.)
So, how many students will bother with the calculus if they think they can find a cushy government job instead? I don't know, but we're not e.g. France where the culture strongly encourages getting one of the latter instead of working in business. Despite decades and decades of vicious anti-business propaganda, the business of America is still business.
The young lawyer supply is now grossly out of whack with the demand (there are too many for the slots available ... and this field is now starting off shoring...). Skim the Instapundit's blog (he's a U of Tenn. law professor) for lots of indicators on this, the latest being smaller law firms offering unpaid internships. As he or someone said, if you have to fight to get an unpaid internship....
The number of politicians is relatively fixed. Maybe not in California, where there are a zillion boards in which to place term limited legislators, but that latter game along with all the other ones in is coming to an end.
And the same WT cops, public school teachers and "almost any type of government employee" in most states and the Federal government. Right now they're for the most part in tall cotton, but we can see how this game is likely to end rather harshly rather soon. A situation where they're getting on average a whole lot more compensation than taxpayers is not politically stable in the long term when the latter are getting hammered by the Great Recession.
Some states like California are not recognizing their financial limits in that they're merrily adding civil servants on their way to de facto bankruptcy (being sovereign there's no legal framework for a state to go bankrupt). In my home state of Missouri our new Democratic governor has laid off more than 2,000 state workers along with many other moves (e.g. a freeze in starting new projects for the DoT) to keep our budget more than vaguely in sync with reality. Soft landings have been arranged in state higher education, etc. The bottom line is that in this Purple state few in government are spending like there's no tomorrow (the only one I know of is my county sheriff who has his own tax source ... and I'm getting the impression he's not winning any points while the rest of us are tightening our belts).
(Well, my home town of Joplin is not feeling much pain yet, we've gained the most jobs (absolute (!)) of any metro area in the state (and ours is not big in population) and our tax revenue decreases are quite manageable as of yet. Then again we didn't go wild in any way during the last two bubbles.)
So, how many students will bother with the calculus if they think they can find a cushy government job instead? I don't know, but we're not e.g. France where the culture strongly encourages getting one of the latter instead of working in business. Despite decades and decades of vicious anti-business propaganda, the business of America is still business.
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?