had trouble deciphering this chapter. The other chapters I knew from the first paragraph what point Freidman was trying to express. All I got out of the first couple of paragraphs was that Americans have become fat, complacent, and lazy. It seems that we all developed an ungrounded superiority complex that has caused us to lag behind. This I guess is what caused our quiet crisis. The U.S. is suffering in the arena of science and technology. What is important here is that the U.S. could see itself fall behind as an innovator. Freidman believes any country has to develop three basic things to remain competitive: the right infrastructure, the right education programs, and the right ambition. He describes our gaps in these areas as our dirty little secrets.
Dirty Secret 1: The numbers gap refers to the expanding gap between the number of people leaving science and technology industries and the number of people entering these fields. To me the key to this is simple, we promote the sciences again. How we can expect an industry to grow if it is not promoted. This is basic marketing to me. Provide the incentive and people will gravitate. (I would say the abundance of jobs in this area would be incentive enough because we are not completely oblivious to the labor market)
Dirty Secret 2: The numbers gap is clearly caused by the education gap. Because we are not promoting math, science, and engineering in our young people they are not pursuing it. There is no doubt about we are struggling in the math and science arena and evidence seems to suggest that things will only get worse. What bothers me is that though numbers clearly show we are falling behind nothing is being done about. We are already at the point where our college graduates can barely read …….very SCARY!
Dirty Secret 3: We also have an ambition gap. As the text pointed out, not only is work in India cheaper but it is generally done better. The reason for this is clear. They work harder and better because they have the need and desire to do so. For some strange reason we have lost that desire.
Dirty Secret 4: The next problem is one I noticed while I was growing up. That was the education gap at the bottom. Because education is left up to individual school districts the educational levels vary based upon the residents of the district. This meant that wealthier districts provided better educations than less affluent areas. The problem here is the substandard education many districts provide do not prepare their student to compete in a flat world.
Dirty Secret 5: I find the funding gap that we have created unbelievable. Logically, if we are to continue to be a leader in technological developments we must invest heavily in the area. By some twist of fate funding for research in physical and mathematical science has decreased over the years. The solution here is so obvious I need not discuss it. (If it isn’t that obvious read pg.363)
Dirty Secret 6: This entire chapter has infuriated me. Each of these dirty little secrets served to upset me more and more. Well, Freidman saved the best for last! This upsets me because it should not be a reality. As we sit around focusing on tax cuts and the “war on terror” the rest of the of the world is whizzing by approximately 40 times faster. Broadband and information technologies are critical to advancing productivity and innovation but we seem uninterested in developing are capabilities. The infrastructure gap needs to close and it needs to close now if we are to remain competitive!
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3 comments:
This chapter is just redundant nonsense he has been talking about the whole book. That "We are in a crisis now", were neglecting innovative careers, and how American youth lacks ambition and work ethic and foreigns are kicking our butts. Then I love how he contradicts himself once again later on and say well you know only like 20% of these nations can actually go on-line, and these developing countries and being held back b/c of sicknesses and lack of infrastructure. Thats the only dirty little secret I agree with him on is our infrastructure, we need to get the Bush Admin and their puppet out of command.
Maybe I shouldn't comment on this chapter. It will probably upset me even more. Erica, we talked in class about this chapter, remember? It's the same one. This kind of a trend cannot go on in our country, we're falling behind (no matter what Nick says :P) and I can't live with that. Erica, you're a smart girl, what was your motivating factor? Why is it that we turned out well, but so many of the people we went to grade school with didn't? And I think I actually agree with Nick in that the Bush admin. has got to go. Well, you could read that in my post on this chapter, but it's true. He's let us fall too far behind as a country and hasn't done jack to get us back on track.
I think having foreign-born scientists and engineers (S&E) in the US is great, and the US should focus more on attracting top foreign-born talent through dramatically expanding merit based immigration (granting more visas on a merit basis). When the US attracts a foreign-born S&E, that highly educated person (e.g. an Indian IIT graduate is on par or better educated than a domestic graduate of MIT) contributes a lot to America starting on the first day he or she arrives (e.g. high value added work contributions and paying high taxes on high salaries). Further, the foreign-born S&E is a net financial gain to America since we did not spend anything on educating the person with our public school system, nor would that person have been a drain in any way on our welfare system (even Stafford loans are a federal subsidy and government funding for state universities are subsidies that are not given to foreign born S&E immigrants).
Why focus on investing so much on trying to convince apparently lazy Americans who are not interested in S&E to study these subjects when we have millions of super qualified foreign-born professionals who would give almost anything to work and live in the US? In the short and medium-term, I do not buy Friedman’s argument that these foreign born S&E professionals will choose to stay in 3rd world countries over the US. Despite many flaws with the US, it is still the destination of choice for most of the world’s educated population, especially for those who do not have nearly as many opportunities in their home country. Further, these foreign-born scientists and engineers are likely to instill their good values in their children, which will continue the stream of benefits to America. Don’t forget, this country was built on immigration, and these immigrants become Americans. I think we are at a cross roads and need to realize that overall we are failing in the new flattening economy, and it’s time for a booster shot of merit-based immigration (e.g. science, engineering, and mathematics professionals) to get this country back on track.
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