How America Can Get Its Tech Mojo Back 380
jfruhlinger writes "The American tech industry is hobbled by a poor education system, misguided spending priorities, and a byzantine patent system. But America can still come out on top, not least because of its longstanding tradition of individuality and private R&D investment. 'Open, distributed projects have the potential to outperform the traditional closed, controlled research model by reducing costs and duplication of effort, making it easy to collect and analyze masses of data from diverse sources, and allowing the best brains to participate no matter where they live.'"
Well (Score:2)
...That's all fine and dandy, but I'm pretty sure open distributed projects won't help America's poor education system. It's a start, and it might give way to some progress, but collaborative researching doesn't help Billy Bob Joel learn how to advance technology if they don't know shit about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
It's very similar to the "self-made man" archetype that has been touted as the ideal person to be for several thousand years.
Hundreds. That's a uniquely American ideal, created to glorify robber barons.
Re: (Score:3)
Common misconception. The Earliest writing I'm aware of touting the ideal self-made man was by Aristotle in 350 B.C, In The Nicomachean Ethic [constitution.org]. Give it a read sometime, lots of it is interesting and timeless wisdom.
I'd be willing to bet a sufficiently dedicated historian could find an even older piece espousing that same philosophy.
Re:Well (Score:4, Interesting)
Where exactly that work mentions "self-made man" or anything close to the American idea of that?
"Self-made man" is an originally unprivileged person who achieved wealth, power and privilege, supposedly entirely as a result of his own efforts as opposed to being born into privilege, accident, or assistance of society or other members' of society. Such idea was considered utterly idiotic over the whole history of mankind, except for brief and limited time and place when was possible to acquire new land by simply laying claim on newly discovered or undeveloped territory. Before that, in agrarian society, social position of any person was entirely based on amount of land the person owns or controls -- and therefore impossible to change unless for a nobleman that already has control over vast amount of land, with land ownership and political power being supposedly divinely protected privileges. After that, it became based on climbing numerous ladders over hierarchies in industrial society -- and therefore requiring either membership in various elites, or going through education system where a person is constantly assisted by others, or usually both.
"Self-made man" was based on a fantastic image of American frontier -- its poster boy would be a person who taken over some uninhabited land (no problem with local nobility already claiming it, or land being so worthless, no one would bother claiming it) and developed it into a successful business (in such a fantastic world, neither education nor pre-established relationships with people in power are necessary for such accomplishment). It was projected onto early industrialists in US (better known as robber barons), and probably at some extent in Europe (where early capitalists, despite their enterprises all being based on inherited wealth, were seen as having too "low" origin for their power and wealth compared to "real" aristocracy).
While some outside US would believe in such nonsense, it is absolutely definitely an American invention to promote and glorify such a thing. Worse yet, outside US people who are described as "self-made" by American standards, would be categorized as "Nouveau riche", a term that has, and always had strong negative connotations.
Re:Well (Score:5, Interesting)
We're not going to take our education system seriously until we see ourselves as being in a rivalry with other developed countries. With all the bad shit that came out of the Cold War, we knew that the Soviets and Chinese were serious about education so we had to be serious about education.
Today, our leaders have encouraged us to see ourselves in a rivalry with Islam, and they believe the only way to combat the religious fervor of Islam is with religious fervor of our own. That requires us to be anti-intellectual.
Since I was a kid in the late 60's, there has never been a period of such anti-intellectualism in the 'States like there is today. Just in the past two weeks I've heard "conservative" voices in the media talking about how "college isn't for everyone" on one hand, and how we need to be govern by "Christian precepts" on the other.
Even a real conservative like James Madison, a Founder, wanted a national, government-run university. In 1815 he called for such a university before Congress, saying that it would be "a nursery of enlightened preceptors."
Anti-science, anti-commons, anti-intellect, anti-education, anti-information. Those are the loudest messages from today's "leaders". When a presidential candidate (with a degree from a diploma mill) mangles the language and uses a non-existent word, supporters use the same word ("refudiate") in a sense of sympathetic ignorance, as if to say, "Hey, she may be stupid, but she's just like us". Children are schooled at home because the curriculum is seen as insufficiently ignorant. "Professorial" is used as a curse to condemn an educated president. A classical education is seen as an inferior background to having inherited money and made more. Teachers who have middle-class pay and pensions are said to "have it too good". Scientific facts are put on the same level as ideological nonsense, because "there are two sides to every issue". The right to be misinformed is jealously protected. When it is demonstrated that the leading "news" outlet is purposely misinforming their audience, it is worn as a badge of honor, by both the unreliable narrators and the misinformed themselves. People are told it's raining as they're being pissed on, and the sodden say "we needed the rain".
We've got a very bad half-century ahead of us unless the trend changes. And as our best days get further behind us, the collective chip on our shoulder will get bigger and bigger. That means a lot of the rest of the world is in for a very bad half-century, too.
It would be foolish for anyone over the age of majority to expect any "tech resurgence" in the US in their lifetime. We'll be burning witches before that happens.
Re:Well (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't agree.
Politicians in the US are encouraging religion for two reasons:
So, yes, religious beliefs are part of the political agenda. But this is being done because of selfish political reasons, not to "counter" the islamists.
At least for now, the only ones that believe that the best way to combat extremist islam with its own weapons are the rednecks taking their kids to a Jesus camp [youtube.com]
Re: (Score:3)
You haven't noticed all the clamoring for "closing the borders" and deporting 13 million people?
America is going into an insular period, I think. Instead of looking outward, we're looking inward. It started with Ronald Reagan, our first kitsch president.
Watch how quickly "American ingenuity" shrinks back to the statistical norm once the middle c
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:3)
hairyfeet and his copypasta again. Whoring for karma expecting that it will help him shout louder in his GLORIOUS BATTLES FOR MICROSOFT.
Re: (Score:3)
I ended up yanking my two boys out of public and going home school because not only was the public school a *football school* but probably one of the most bigoted places I had the misfortune to step foot in.
So you taught your child to be intolerant of someone elses views and to run away and hide from people that aren't like you and/or don't think like you.
Slamming someone for being intolerant of intolerance. How... meta.
(don't go analyzing this post or your brain will explode)
Re: (Score:3)
Tolerance training shouldn't have to last for the entire school day. Twenty minutes in the morning is sufficient.
Mojo? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
and Mojo is clearly missing.
Well, DUH! Fat Bastard took it.
The education system has been bad for tech for a l (Score:2)
The education system has been bad for tech for a long time. China is the other side MASS Cheating.
The theory over loaded parts need to go and we need to cut down on filler classes.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
We need the OPTION of "pure technology" programs with no filler and no other goals than giving the student customer as much information and training in the field of their choice.
Re:The education system has been bad for tech for (Score:4, Interesting)
We need the OPTION of "pure technology" programs with no filler and no other goals than giving the student customer as much information and training in the field of their choice.
We have that, see trade schools, even community colleges to a degree. Expand these areas, but do not lower the bar on the university system. The point of the university is to produce a more well rounded person who also has those technical skills(*). Believe it or not, some geeks will need to be able to effectively communicate with people in business, the humanities, medicine, science, etc in order to fulfill the computer needs of these groups. They might even need to lead a group of people with diverse backgrounds representing those various fields.
(*) Whether universities are accomplishing this goal is a different conversation.
Re: (Score:2)
That is, you want interchangeable cogs as employees, hire them for their knowledge of current skills then fire them when the project is over since they know nothing else because their education sucks.
Why do you think so many foreigners come to university in the US? Because you get a great education here. I don't see any of them spending the time and money to come here only to go to DeVry or ITT tech though. And those tech-only schools are what you imply you want.
No Theory = No Google (Score:3)
Yeah, Facebook might not require any theory, aside from it's ad placement toolkit, but they aren't a good example. Google requires theory, cryptography requires theory, chip design requires theory, all those nice advancements in materials, batteries, etc. require MAJOR theory, etc.
We need more schools that provide the European education model, i.e. most people get in, school costs almost nothing, but they slam your ass with theory until half fail out or quit. You'll have all the time in the world for lear
Mojo back? (Score:5, Insightful)
Get our tech mojo back? Errmm, what? Last I checked, tech giants like Apple, IBM, Dell, HP, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Google, and Facebook --to name a few-- are all American companies staffed mostly with American citizens.
Re: (Score:2)
and Pfizer, Merck, Abbott, Boston Scientific, General Electric, Boeing, Lockheed, United Technologies, etc.
Re:Mojo back? (Score:5, Insightful)
those are all multinational companies (Score:5, Insightful)
and they all have massive portions of their corporate bodies lying outside the jurisdiction of the united states.
Re: (Score:2)
Wonderful. Where are they based, where is the majority of their R&D based?
Youre not going to convince me that Intel doesnt count as a US tech giant.
Re: (Score:2)
I listed Intel. Most of their employees are on the west coast of the US...Bay area and Portland, OR come to mind.
Apple is 95% in the Bay Area and Austin TX, with some folks in Ireland. Microsoft is almost entirely in the Seattle area.
Google is predominantly in the Bay Area. IBM is mostly everywhere, but even then, mostly within the US.
This is such a tired and stupid argument. Even if the "tech" people aren't in the US (even though they are), what good is tech without good business and management? Why do al
Re:those are all multinational companies (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3)
Bankrupt. You know, how US companies have been going for the past few decades. Which rises a question: why would anyone look for business experts or managers from the US, when all the former knows is how to raid the company into an empty shell and walk away just before it collapses, and the latter gives inspiration for Dilbert?
Maybe US can get i
Re: (Score:2)
But the majority of their tech mojo is in the US.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
If you look a little closer, these are _global_ companies, that were historically founded in the US, mostly employ non-US citizens and often do not even have the major mart of their operations in the US. But I guess that is a bit too much for you.
Re:Mojo back? (Score:5, Insightful)
You telling me that most of Google's research takes place outside the US?
What about microsoft, mostly based in India? Or would one say that Redmond is their center of operations?
What about Intel, can you cite sources showing the majority of their ops outside the US? Everything I could find showed the majority of their operations occuring in the US (or at least more operations in the US than in any other country).
Some sources would be nice.
Re: (Score:2)
Worse yet for the made-up-stats guy above is that the three companies you just mentioned are not only mostly within the US, they are mostly entirely within three US States (California, Oregon and Washington). Throw some Austin, TX companies in there and this conversation just gets easier.
Re: (Score:2)
Care to cite some specifics? Most of those companies have most of their employees in the United States, and most of those employees are US citizens. My citation is that I work for one of them and have worked for two others. Apple, and Microsoft (two I haven't worked for, but have lived in the same town as their HQs) have more employees in their corporate HQ than the rest of their worldwide sites...combined.
Re: (Score:3)
tech giants like Apple, IBM, Dell, HP, Microsoft, Intel, AMD, Google, and Facebook --to name a few-- are all American companies staffed mostly with American citizens.
And all have their hardware, or use hardware, manufactured in China...
Re: (Score:3)
Where are the intel chips DESIGNED? Where is the R&D taking place?
Just because the fab is in southeast asia doesnt mean that southeast asia contributed to the design.
Re: (Score:3)
Hillsboro, Oregon? Chandler, Arizona? Folsom and Santa Clara, California? Those are the "Major" locations listed by Intel. Yeah, Intel doesn't list any overseas locations, so I'm just going to guess that the argument they outsource everything and have major global headquarters elsewhere and we need to be afraid we are losing our mojo is just a bunch of b.s.
Re: (Score:3)
Ok, I found the overseas section. Still, Hillsboro Oregon is their largest site.
Re:Mojo back? (Score:4, Insightful)
in the US. by asians and indians. mostly NOT by americans.
bay area == cheap labor from overseas. I'm watching it before my eyes, as a resident here almost 20 years, now.
if you are in software and a 'white guy', forget about it. take up some other vocation. you will not get paid competitively and you will be let go once your project is over and/or you trained your replacement. use and dispose: that's what americans are good for.
this country has no future in engineering. we are all forced to become managers. god help us..
Re: (Score:3)
Manufacturing is not the same as R&D. When someone talks about getting tech mojo back to the US I assume they're not just talking about assembly jobs. Instead they mean technical jobs not cheap labor. Manufacturing is in China because of cheap labor not for their technical superiority.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Mojo back? (Score:5, Insightful)
But when a high profile tech company develops something important that a billion people are going to use, do they really farm much out? If so, what are all those american thinkers doing employed at Google, Facebook, etc? I don't get the impression that those companies are all MBA's.
Re: (Score:3)
techno-corpo-babble (Score:2)
It is thinking such as that exhibited here -- at least judging by how it is
expressed -- which is more the problem than the solution.
Uhh (Score:4, Insightful)
Open and Distributed just opened up the project to the whole world. That helps America specifically how?
shoot all the lawyers and patent trolls (Score:5, Interesting)
then people won't be afraid to invent again.
Tech needs Apprenticeships! (Score:4, Interesting)
There is so much that can't be learned in a class room yet for stuff like help desk level 1 they want 4 years or more.
Re: (Score:2)
Skilled manual trades have intensive, multi-year paid apprenticeships, often assisted by their unions.
Re: (Score:2)
Right, I guess the majority of people who take apprenticeships are doing it wrong. Your average apprentice for the first 3 years makes under the min. wage just about everywhere in north america. When I was working on my mechanics license, I was making $2.25/hr when the min wage was $6.85. My 'base rate of pay' would have been at min. wage after 3 years.
Yeah nothing quite like having to spend 60% of your wages just on tools.
The price of Capitalism (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the biggest reason - the US is paying price for blind obsession with capitalism.
Money does not count for everything. Some of the cool technologies were group effort, incubated in universities around the country and not by corporates. By branding all altruistic efforts with Communism/socialism, the country has alienated a lot of creative types.
Start by counting Steve Jobs a salesman and not an innovator and that would be a good start.
Re: (Score:2)
To call communism and socialism altruistic is a very long stretch
Demanding an end to private property is about as greedy as you can get.
'That is not your Ferrari, it is the People's Ferrari. Now give me the keys or else!'
Re: (Score:2)
'That is not your Ferrari, it is the People's Ferrari. Now give me the keys or else!'
And that's hypocrisy on its face.
If its the peoples Ferrari why should you get the keys?
Most families are quite socialist. They often share cars, houses, food. The ones that are employed cover the expenses of the ones that are not. If someone is ill, the others pick up the slack. If grandma gets sick, she comes to live with you... or you bring her care packages and pay her bills...
Yeah, that's pretty greedy.
Socialism is say
Re: (Score:2)
You're looking at a hierarchy there - a more primitive form of this might be self > family > tribe > nation > race. (> species if you must - humans before other animals, for instance)
It can work up to a (small) tribe level because you "know" everyone in the tribe within a couple of degrees of separation at most, and you can expect reciprocation enforced by the limited degrees of separation. Beyond that, the incentives for reciprocation drops off quite quickly.
Re: (Score:3)
Of course, in the communist theory a car is considered personal property, not private property and a person does have the right to exclude others from it. But don't let facts stand in the way of your rants.
We Communists have been reproached with the desire of abolishing the right of personally acquiring property as the fruit of a man's own labour, which property is alleged to be the groundwork of all personal freedom, activity and independence.
Hard-won, self-acquired, self-earned property! Do you mean the property of petty artisan and of the small peasant, a form of property that preceded the bourgeois form? There is no need to abolish that; the development of industry has to a great extent already destroyed it, and is still destroying it daily.
(...)
We by no means intend to abolish this personal appropriation of the products of labour, an appropriation that is made for the maintenance and reproduction of human life, and that leaves no surplus wherewith to command the labour of others. All that we want to do away with is the miserable character of this appropriation, under which the labourer lives merely to increase capital, and is allowed to live only in so far as the interest of the ruling class requires it.
In bourgeois society, living labour is but a means to increase accumulated labour. In Communist society, accumulated labour is but a means to widen, to enrich, to promote the existence of the labourer.
Re: (Score:3)
You are a moron.
Communism declares the problem to be "private ownership of the means of production" -- a specific form of property that controls others' labor and allows its owner to seize fruits of others' labor. If you really care about owning a nice car, you can have it. However what you can not do under a Communist system is to get a nice car by amassing "money" through stealing others' labor just because you somehow managed to worm your way into "ownership" of a factory where those people work. Contro
Uh, yeah, America would come out on top. (Score:2)
'Open, distributed projects have the potential to outperform the traditional closed, controlled research model by reducing costs and duplication of effort, making it easy to collect and analyze masses of data from diverse sources, and allowing the best brains to participate no matter where they live.'"
Open and distributed also means 'share this research with everybody outside of the USA'.
I'm going with fix the listed problems. (Score:3, Interesting)
The only advantage the US has is liquid capital. Unfortunately it doesn't like spending it in the US, so I say add that to the list of things to fix.
One Day Late (Score:3)
I was kind of hoping that the over the top "Team America" proselytizing would all get done on the Fourth....
FUCK YEAH! [youtu.be]
The cult of individuality (Score:3)
How does the tradition of individuality and private R&D investment" = open access and sharing? America was built on people being shameless opportunists who found a niche and quickly exploited it. Everyone for themselves, the defining characteristic of "individualist".
Re: (Score:2)
And furthermore, how does "open access and sharing" give you millions of dollars to do research into advanced rare materials property research, or construct testing facilities? At some point, you need a good amount of money to actually progress past the current cutting edge. Sure, there are some simple ingenious ideas from somebody in their garage, but those are milestone events, not the majority of continual tech progress.
Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Stop being xenophobic gits and get back to the melting-pot culture that made this the best fucking country on Earth in the first place.
2. ???
3. Tech!
Re:Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe the idea of melting pot had to do with ideas, rather than geography. The colonies and the early United States had some ideas that simply were not allowed to be even talked about elsewhere. In the 1820's, maybe 20 million came in, and in a generation, the kids had bought in to these ideas and were willing to die for them. Now consider last century's european history with immigrants. There *is* a difference. Let us label the difference "melting pot". Alas, it is then one of those words, like "gene
Re: (Score:3)
That would be the last couple hundred ears or so. My ancestors emigrated roughly late 1700's to roughly 1850. They came from Sweden, Bohemia (part of modern Czech Republic), and Hesse (and other parts of what is now Germany). Germans used to be an underclass in America. Later the Slavic
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
"Best fucking country" about sums it up. Who in their right mind would like to go to to a country with this type of supremacy complex? Almost like joining the 3rd Reich, they also thought they were the Herrenrasse.
Re: (Score:3)
Who in their right mind would like to go to to a country with this type of supremacy complex?
Someone who wants to be the best?
Maybe you wanted to post about how a third-rate country could somehow narrowly avoid becoming fourth-rate. That's not really what this topic is about.
Re: (Score:2)
Wherever you are from, history education must suck really, really bad.
Why not share an infinite pie? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure I'm not the only one tired of the reflexive nationalism. The benefits of science and open-source technology can be shared by everyone, everywhere, and the more wide these things are shared, the more they grow.
Sure, I'd like to see better technical education in the US, and an environment more friendly to innovation, but I'd like to see that everywhere.
You need duplication of effort (Score:2)
For one, if results can't be duplicated, they're questionable.
Then there's the "accidental discoveries" when people are pursuing the same goal, using mostly the same methods ...
Having one official project is so "Soviet Russia". Like having one OS, one browser, one type of car, one political party, one employer ...
Easy (Score:4, Interesting)
Easy. Abolish patent law and copyright law. [mises.org] (PDF here [ucla.edu])
Historically, those two concepts have probably been the biggest impediments to the advancement of human civilization.
Re:Easy (Score:4, Interesting)
Please then explain why the industrial revolution took off when England instated a patent system.
Re:Easy (Score:5, Insightful)
Obligatory: Correlation does not imply causation.
Please explain why the Internet took off* when its technology was placed in the public domain, unprotected by patents.
*In the face of several competing systems promoted by everyone from AOL and Compuserve to Microsoft.
But not by Marketing-BS-Speak (Score:2, Interesting)
The article is not part of the solution, it rather illustrates the Problem. And no, the US cannot come out of this if foreign talent stops coming. Not enough US citizens have what it takes.
Do we want to though? (Score:2, Informative)
It doesn't seem like we want to get it back. I hear people want things like:
- More pay for less work. Less work is going to lead to progress?
- Green tech. Because regular tech never got anyone anywhere.
- Coding for a cause. Feel good about going through the motions. Produce nothing of any particular value.
- Hacking. I made this cool bot that does XYZ-super-geeky thing. For hacker cred. What does "productivity" mean?
- Envy. I want that thing the other guy has, but I don't want to earn it. Can't we j
Re: (Score:3)
More pay for less work. Less work is going to lead to progress?
Where do you think progress comes from? It certainly isn't from huge multinational corporations with entrenched market positions who shoot down any idea that might skewer existing cash cows. It comes from people having enough free time and available capital to develop an idea on their own time that they can start a new company without worrying about the fiscal impact on their previous employer's existing revenue streams or whether they'll still be able to eat in eighteen months if they quit their job to go
Wait ... so individuality is good now? (Score:4, Funny)
- aj
Foxxconn it! (Score:2)
2.) Arrest anyone who protests
3.) Price fix
4.) Think Differently!
Re: (Score:2)
So your alternate strategy to achieve greatness is to whine about Foxxconn?
Stop sending jobs overseas (Score:2)
When the high tech companies realize that if they keep shipping jobs overseas, or rather "we'll hire three Indian engineers for every one US based engineer", kids entering college will nolonger choose CompSci/Engineering. We saw this after the dotcom bubble, millions of students went into computer related fields (web dev even...) because the jobs were there.
Now that the jobs are being sent somewhere else, the competition is too great. Eventually it'll be too late.
If I tell my management I don't want to hi
Re: (Score:3)
And why do they want the economy to crash and burn?
Because they're shorting it and stand to make a bundle. [dailykos.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Ah Kos. The bastion of fringe leftwing non-journalism. Go into debt, then try to spend your way out of it, using other people's money. Let me know how that works okie? Even loan sharks eventually break your bones for failure to pay.
Re: (Score:3)
It has worked for every other recession.
The only true path to debt reduction is a long term democratic president with republican's in charge of at least one house.
Under that method CLinton was forced to cut spending, but pushed for not lowering income(taxes). The first thing Bush does in Office is Hey the governments got a surplus let's give it away instead of paying off our credit cards. Which did absolutely nothing for us in long term economics'(I was predicting the housing market crash in 2005/6, I was
Stop with this political nonsense! (Score:3)
It the republicans fault, it's the democrats fault.
It's every Americans fault! Including me!
Fine we made mistakes, now what? Polarizing each party so they are debating purely on philosophy won't help. It will make the liberals more liberal and the conservatives more conservative.
The US culture has a trait "rugged individualism" which both helps us and hinders us. Socialism will not work in the US because of it. And because of it we need government control to stop us from going to short sighted.
We need to g
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Both sides suck, and are paid off by the same corporate interests, maybe with slightly different flavorings on each end. Partisan support is the most stupid, destructive, and completely asinine mindset you can possibly have at this point in time.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Or make representation a lottery system, like jury duty. It'd get true random sampling of the citizenship.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
If the ratio of Representatives to represented is returned to George Washington's 1:40000 ideal, we'd need about 7000 reps.
It'd be tough to continue to bribe half of 7000 people. Returning to state appointment of Senators would probably do more to reduce the hyper-partisianship though. When you don't have to spend half of your time on the job running for election, you can focus on actually doing what your state needs rather than what some party boss thinks the party needs, and there's a whole lot less adv
Re: (Score:2)
I always liked what Bill Maher said: "The only difference between the Republicans and Democrats is that the Democrats are bought and paid for by as slightly less frightening group of corporate interests.
Full disclosure: I'm a wild-eyed anarchist-communist. You know, the kind that throw bombs and shoot the president. If you believe the last hundred years of US propaganda. And if you do, I'm not interested in what you think.
Because you'll be the first against the wall when the revolution comes ;-)
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_debt_by_U.S._presidential_terms [wikipedia.org]
Have a nice day you AC puss.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Repeat after me...Congress has the power of the purse.
Also repeat this...Republicans gained control in 1994.
Re: (Score:2)
Repeat after me:
The executive branch submits the budget to Congress. This is the Constitutional requirement.
While Congress has the "power of the purse" the ship of state is steered by the President in this case.
--
BMO
Re: (Score:2)
Historically the US got oil, sold a lot of weapons systems and traded in raw materials cheaply via the impressive US $.
Many parts of the world are now left holding near empty oil wells, export quality tanks/jets, a few very expensive dams/roads/mines and a pile of US paper to show for all their unique export wealth.
What have the US elite got to lose? They can buy up a crashed world for cents in the new $US.
Want an islan
Re: (Score:2)
With their more subtle attempts at economic sabotage failing, Democrats have moved on to more direct methods like sending the US Government into default.
This will raise interests rates for all sorts of loans, and should drag the economy into a very deep recession, completing the Dem's plan to destroy the economy.
It's a great plan, if you want the American economy to crash and burn.
There, fuck this fuck you.
There, FTFY.
Re:Democrat Debt Default Plan (Score:5, Funny)
Re:American Education (Score:4, Informative)
Having seen some of this so-called "higher education" in the US as a guest, I have to say it cannot be the envy of anyone knowing the US system. What I saw was rather pathetic, both on master level and on PhD level. Sure, there are a few good universities, but the rest of the world has them too. And, at least in the systems I know (Germany, Switzerland), the average University, is much, much better than the average in the US.
Re: (Score:2)
Academic prestige is based on research performance, not the quality of education.
Re: (Score:2)
The ones you see online are typically from the best professors and/or the best schools in the nation. Might not be that representative of your average state university.
Of course, if you can learn on your own and have good self-initiative, the US higher education system does have a lot of flexibility with internships, and buddying up with the research or interesting projects going on at your school, or even just pushing your own learning & exploration in general. It's not great at all for people who ju
Re:Not that tech in particular is too badly off, b (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't buy that that's the problem when you have some corps paying ZERO taxes, and many even receiving money from the government despite pulling in record profits.
Re: (Score:3)
- I think I'll go with "Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness" that most influential sentence written back in 1776 by TJ.
"Pursuit of happiness" is the most dangerous, destructive idea in the history of mankind.
Happiness is a rare feeling that is produced as a response to extraordinary positive experiences. It is not an everyday, normal occurrence. It is definitely not supposed to be "pursued". A person who believes that he can somehow capture "happiness" and be permanently happy as a result of it, will lead miserable life, and will cause trouble, destruction and death to others whom he will see as an obstacle on his path to t