Richard Tallent Thinks Americans Aren't Smart Enough Anymore
In response to my comments on offshoring, Richard Tallent writes:
“Here's the issue: if we give away our best industries, we will not have anything *left* to export, except maybe lawsuits, Big Macs, and beaurocracy.
There *is* a difference between a factory worker and a software developer. The former rarely creates innovation on his own, but the latter (if he is good) does so regularly. We shouldn't protect every factory and farm, but we *must* protect young growth industries. Necessity is the mother of invention. If we aren't doing those jobs, we won't start those next Microsofts, we won't invent those new inventions. If we don't want to take the back seat in the next few decades of innovation, we must draw a line in the sand that protects the incentive for our children to work in fields such as engineering and computer science. “ [1]
There was a time when engineering and building automobiles was cutting edge, and the US had no problems staying at the forefront then without a million more laws being written banning the import of foreign goods or the outsourcing of labor. I get sick and tired of hearing people complain that the US just isn't smart enough to compete any more. If we truely aren't smart enough any more then there are plenty of better things to focus on, like improvements to our downward spiraling education system. If things just cost too much out here, then maybe we need to get rid of some tax burdens and do something about the littigations that are costing some of our most successfull and innovative companies millions of dollars a year in lost revenue and sales. Maybe we need to redefine what innovation is in the 21st century so that someone can't file a patents for every process they can dream up and milk the revenues of companies that are actually doing something. And maybe, just maybe, we need to stop acting like a bunch of babbies, go out there, and start kicking foreign ass with truely innovative American solutions. Solutions that make the few dollars and hour in cost savings irrelevant. Oh.. but no... we don't want to innovate. Better tools might make it easy for the average person to develop software and cost us highly trained developers our jobs. Let's just make laws against innovation and protect those jobs while we still can!
[1] http://www.tallent.us/PermaLink.aspx?guid=24150d52-d592-4627-b4cf-3c8ce1a89d7c