Re: -I- Greetings...

Nathan Dykman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>What worries me is that there is talk of shipping off R/D jobs overseas. It
>seems that nobody remembers that it didn't really work all that well in the
>80s at all.

It's a problem of not wanting to fund R&D in general in Namerica.
That's evidenced, as you know, in low wages and low "return on 
investment" in graduate degrees.  So weighing it all up, undergrads
go directly into industry and >>50% of grad students are foreign
students, also because they're the cash cows of the universities,
what with their massive tuition fees.  Ironically, new "patriot"
laws are tightening up on allowing those highly educated grads to 
work in the meat & potatoes R&D industry (i.e. military-based) so 
they are forced to go back to their originating countries, where 
the R&D will then have to be sourced.   Not wise policy all-round.

Starting out by putting a higher value on high academic 
qualification would be a good step.  Design & research are the only 
way forward now that mfg industry is always going to be cheaper 
overseas.  Otherwise, Namerica is going to reduce to a decayed mass 
of service industries like phone sanitisers & hairdressers.
[No offence to the latter.]

-- 
Ken Tough