America's Future Is In Software, Not Hardware 630
New submitter tcjr2006 writes "Obama's State of the Union focused on the return of manufacturing jobs to America. This New Yorker story makes the case that the manufacturing jobs aren't going to come back, and he should be focusing on software. Quoting: 'Yes, there are industries where manufacturing jobs can be brought back to America through proper tax incentives and training programs. But maybe he should have talked more about the things that he could do to keep software jobs here. He spoke of federal funding for university and scientific research. But a real pro-software agenda would also include reforming patent law to stop trolling (and perhaps eliminating software patents altogether); increasing H-1B visas for highly skilled coders; stopping Congress from defunding DARPA, whose research helped create Siri, the iPhone’s talking assistant; and opening up the unused, federally owned wireless spectrum. That agenda wouldn’t bring Apple’s manufacturing jobs back, but it would help to keep the company’s coding jobs here. And it would certainly help develop "an economy that’s built to last."'"
23 things they don't you about capitalism (Score:2, Informative)
I just quote 2 things from this great book: 23 things they don't you about capitalism, from Ha-Joon Chang, (from Wikipedia) he was a consultant to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the European Investment Bank as well as to Oxfam and various United Nations agencies. He is also a fellow at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. [amazon.com]
Thing 4. The washing machine has changed the world more than the internet has
Recent progress in telecommunications technologies is not as revolutionary as what happened in the late 19th century, in relative terms. The internet revolution has (at least as yet) not been as important as the washing machine and other household appliances, which allowed woman to enter the labour market and virtually abolished professions like domestic service.
Thing 9. We do not live in a post-industrial age
Most of the shrinkage in the share of manufacturing in total output is not due to the fall in the absolute quantity of manufactured goods produced but due to the fall in their prices, which is caused by their faster growth in productivity (output per unit of input).
The USA (and the European countries that follow sadly the USA) will slip further down as an economy if their leaders believe they can ignore the manufacturing sector and leave it to China, India or other developing countries. With the export of the manufactoring industry, you also lose expertice and know-how. Soon the developing countries will have more manufacturing power than the USA, which means they will not need the USA anymore for anything, other than dumping their cheap stuff in Walmark and Bestbuy. The service industry is nothing, if you don't have the manufacturing (aka the industry that makes real things) industry, because the manufacturing industry will create the service industry in the country where it is.
Why can't China and India, Brazil and others just create or import the banking sector, the software industry, fashion, etc. in their own country? If they already have a mature manufacturing industry, they can export the producs and get more money for the service industry. Income will only rise with the maturity of the manufacturing industry in the developing countries.