There seems to be one Super Bowl ad that has people up in arms.
The Talking Points Memo article, Five Political Ads Featuring Asians Dancing On America’s Grave, has this ad and four others.
My contention is that the jobs are going to Asia because it is far too easy to make money in this country by manipulating other people’s money. Why would anyone want to hire thousands of workers and build factories when they can hire a few PhD computer experts, give them access to powerful computers, and make billions of dollars stealing other people’s money?
The talented engineers and scientists in this country can make far more money on Wall Street than they can innovating new products and hiring people to build them.
People in China have been known to be executed for committing some of the financial crimes that we spend trillions of government dollars bailing out instead of prosecuting.
All we have to do to get back into contention for economic vitality in the future is to start valuing the economic activity that matters and discouraging economic activity that wastes our country’s strength.
The people trying to stimulate the economy and put non-financial workers back to work are trying to save this country. The people who want to deregulate until any kind of non-productive, money manipulation scheme has greater rewards than making productive things are the ones rigging the system so that it goes into a fatal death spiral.
There is an aspect of the previous posts Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory – Update and Mr. Daisey and the Apple Factory that people who have not spent 40 years in the high-tech industry might not get.
Through out a large part of my career, I worked in companies or was involved in making software for companies that made very complex electronics. These industries used highly automated manufacturing processes to put hundreds of components on a printed circuit board to make computers, electronic equipment, cars, airplanes, and many other things. These days, there seems to be much less automation in assembling electronic products like cell phones and other electronics.
If there were any incentive to automate this manufacturing process, the automation equipment and software would be created. The lure of cheap labor and lax regulation in other countries, and other easier ways to make money in this country would not be as compelling a story.
There is no guarantee that we can compete in the economy of the future even if we do make major adjustments. If we keep on the present path, however, it is pretty likely that we will fail.