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Brooks: America’s brightest minds have been abandoning technical enterprise

nytimes.com

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Re: Brooks: America’s brightest minds have been abandoning technical enterprise

#31

Post by xentronium »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #28
xentronium wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/214/44197.... Build a graph from that data and you'll be very surprised, I guess. 1980 -- $1.3 trillion 2006 -- $12.8 trillion [edit]: Oh, there's a graph actually: http://globalpolicy.org/images/charts/SocialEconomicPolicy/t...

How does this contradict my point? The US has gotten richer, and it has also borrowed more. The two are not mutually exclusive.

Today Bob borrowed $100 from Alice and earned $5 on his daily basis. Bob thinks he became $105 richer while Alice doubts that.

Re: Brooks: America’s brightest minds have been abandoning technical enterprise

#32

Post by sp332 »

hristov wrote: post #15

I have to say Brooks' ability of denial is quite impressive. He is so good at not seeing the elephant in the room, it is no wonder he has a prestigious job with the NYT. He wrote an entire article about how Americans are "abandoning" manufacturing without ever mentioning offshoring. If you read his article you would think that the American decline in manufacturing has something to do with some weird pretentiousness o…

Offshoring is not magically cheaper. Why do you think manufacturing in the US might be more expensive? One quite possible reason is "some weird pretentiousness of the American workers".

Re: Brooks: America’s brightest minds have been abandoning technical enterprise

#33

Post by tomjen3 »

xentronium wrote: post #21
InclinedPlane wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The "American decline in manufacturing" is a myth. American manufacturing output has been on a continued uptick, the peak of output for the US was... 2006, and will likely exceed that shortly as the economy recovers. The US contributes fully 1/5th of the world's entire manufacturing output. What has changed is that US manufacturing has grown much more efficient, so there are far fewer manufacturing jobs than there us…

I'm sorry, but you're so very wrong. US haven't ever grown any richer since ~1980s. They just borrowed more with each month. You should see US trade deficit and annual budget for proofs.

Yes it has - look at what kind of computer you could buy in 1980 and look at what you can buy now.

Heck most smart phones have more computational power than a 1980 computer.

So yes, the US has grown richer (money != wealth).

Re: Brooks: America’s brightest minds have been abandoning technical enterprise

#34

Post by nostromo »

matrix wrote: post #4

Pure link bait; the actual article does not say anything of the sort. The article is, in fact making the point Americans as a whole no longer "make things", and are avoiding getting their hands dirty.I'm not sure if the premise is true - it would be nice to see some hard data to back it up.

It's a direct quote from the article, "America’s brightest minds have been abandoning industry and technical enterprise in favor of more prestigious but less productive fields like law, finance, consulting and nonprofit activism."

Btw, he should have added "pundit" to the list of non-productive fields. ;)

Re: Brooks: America’s brightest minds have been abandoning technical enterprise

#35

Post by InclinedPlane »

tomjen3 wrote: post #33
xentronium wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but you're so very wrong. US haven't ever grown any richer since ~1980s. They just borrowed more with each month. You should see US trade deficit and annual budget for proofs.

Yes it has - look at what kind of computer you could buy in 1980 and look at what you can buy now. Heck most smart phones have more computational power than a 1980 computer. So yes, the US has grown richer (money != wealth).

Unfortunately, a lot of this type of wealth generation isn't tracked by most economic measurements. Improvements in the quality of automobiles, entertainment systems, communication systems, etc. have been tremendous over the past decades, but almost none of that surfaces in statistics, mostly because to some degree such improvements are subjective and hard to measure quantitatively.

Re: Brooks: America’s brightest minds have been abandoning technical enterprise

#36

Post by xentronium »

tomjen3 wrote: post #33
xentronium wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but you're so very wrong. US haven't ever grown any richer since ~1980s. They just borrowed more with each month. You should see US trade deficit and annual budget for proofs.

Yes it has - look at what kind of computer you could buy in 1980 and look at what you can buy now. Heck most smart phones have more computational power than a 1980 computer. So yes, the US has grown richer (money != wealth).

Alice got $95 in her pocket and $100 credit in the bank. Can you say that overall she's richer from state when she had $5 in her pocket and $0 credit?

Re: Brooks: America’s brightest minds have been abandoning technical enterprise

#37

Post by SkyMarshal »

jedwhite wrote: post #5

The Founding Fathers were aware of this. In fact John Adams saw it as an aspiration: "I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history and naval architecture, navigation, commerce and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, statuary,…

Good quote. It made a great scene in the HBO miniseries:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9f1miIDcDI

Re: Brooks: America’s brightest minds have been abandoning technical enterprise

#38

Post by secret »

varjag wrote: post #23
secret wrote: post #2

Upvoted because its a good starting point for discussion, but I don't know if I necessarily agree with the premise. Why should anyone go into a productive industry (by which it sounds like he means anything in which there is an end product) as we move into a service economy and production continues to be off-shored? Or maybe I'm misunderstanding/missing the point. It seems like people at all levels should go where th…

When it's finally explained how service economy can be sustainable long-term, I suspect many people would have no problem with outsourcing production whatsoever.

It is something to think about. Service jobs were appealing because they seemed impossible/impractical to outsource, but its not necessarily the case with many anymore. Doctors/lawyers/realtors and the like will always be protected by their professional associations creating a barrier to entry through licensing and legislation. Maybe we'll see a rise in these sorts of regulatory boards for other professions.

Maybe we'll see a rise in business creation when people can't get a job working for someone else. It happens during every recession. I wonder what the impact would be of corporate jobs becoming increasingly rare.

Re: Brooks: America’s brightest minds have been abandoning technical enterprise

#39

Post by billswift »

sp332 wrote: post #32
hristov wrote: post #15

I have to say Brooks' ability of denial is quite impressive. He is so good at not seeing the elephant in the room, it is no wonder he has a prestigious job with the NYT. He wrote an entire article about how Americans are "abandoning" manufacturing without ever mentioning offshoring. If you read his article you would think that the American decline in manufacturing has something to do with some weird pretentiousness o…

Offshoring is not magically cheaper. Why do you think manufacturing in the US might be more expensive? One quite possible reason is "some weird pretentiousness of the American workers".

And voters who don't want businesses in their area. Why do you think that since the early 1970s, first manufacturing, then new shopping malls, migrated out of the towns and cities? They were forced out, partially by economic costs, like land prices, but even more by galloping tax and regulation growth concentrated on any non-residential activity. They were forced out of the cities and eventually most manufacturing enterprises were forced out of the country by regulations.

"Pretentiousness" is a good term, especially given David Brooks's "did not want their children regressing back to the working class, so you saw an explosion of communications majors and a shortage of high-skill technical workers." But high-skill technical work is also much harder than teaching and the newer "high touch" "professions", so I think "wussiness" may be as good a term, depending on what influences predominated.

Re: Brooks: America’s brightest minds have been abandoning technical enterprise

#40

Post by bfung »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #18
hristov wrote: post #15

I have to say Brooks' ability of denial is quite impressive. He is so good at not seeing the elephant in the room, it is no wonder he has a prestigious job with the NYT. He wrote an entire article about how Americans are "abandoning" manufacturing without ever mentioning offshoring. If you read his article you would think that the American decline in manufacturing has something to do with some weird pretentiousness o…

The "American decline in manufacturing" is a myth. American manufacturing output has been on a continued uptick, the peak of output for the US was... 2006, and will likely exceed that shortly as the economy recovers. The US contributes fully 1/5th of the world's entire manufacturing output. What has changed is that US manufacturing has grown much more efficient, so there are far fewer manufacturing jobs than there us…

here's the data about manufacturing from the federal reserve:

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/current/default.h...

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g17/current/ipg1.gif

And other pretty charts in section G.17 Release Tables

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