Strengthening the Strong

Thursday, January 29, 2009
In the February 2nd issue of Newsweek, there's an article entitled "Silicon Valley's Fork in the Road" by Daniel Lyons. In it, Mr. Lyons puts forth the idea that the United States' failure to fund STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) may result in Silicon Valley going the way of Detroit.

This prediction is supported by data about where the employees who work in STEM are born, educated, and subsequently end up living.

The companies that perform this cutting edge research assert that while they don't wish autoworkers ill, they don't understand why the federal government is essentially rewarding failure and stupidity, and allowing the successful endeavors of STEM to be starved for funding. The U.S. has been the thought leader in STEM for many, many years, and our success in this area has helped drive U.S. economic success. So why, having proven their worth, are they being ignored in favor of companies and industries that have failed, and then failed again?

Good question.

Unfortunately, I don't have a good answer.

Intellectually, I can see the value in allowing the Detroit automakers to fail and funneling the bailout money to STEM. From a long-term economic health perspective, it would probably be in the United States' best interest to do so. We've already proven our worth in this area - why not reward success in an effort to ensure we continue to be successful and allow the losers to fail?

Well, there's those thousands and thousands of Big 3 workers who would be out of work as a result of such a failure, not to mention the retirees who would then have to be picked up by the government's Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. All of which would result in huge drain on our economy and the government's coffers. Adding the consequences of such a failure to our already strained economy might just be the proverbial straw.

And yet...I remember when working at the R&D arm of large STEM companies such as HP or AT&T (Bell Labs, anyone?) was a desirable and prestigious position. Such labs did a certain amount of pure research in addition to their industrial endeavors, and received government grants to do so. Now? Not so much. Because the government appears to be too busy bailing out fuckwits who accept huge compensation packages to run their companies into the ground.

I know there's no easy answer, and no answer that will allow the innocent to escape the current clusterfuck unscathed. I find that last part profoundly saddening.

But Mr. Lyons makes a point. A point worth considering.

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