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08.10

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… On "The Innovation Delusion" (July 2010)

I agree with Ralph Gomory's central point that swapping ideas for goods does not make a favorable balance of trade. Regardless of the monetary value of ideas, they're portable: they can always be licensed, transferred between divisions of a multinational corporation, or simply pirated.

However, Dr. Gomory shortchanges the reader when he proposes a plan of action. He vaguely suggests that the U.S. needs to "motivate our companies" and reward those that keep manufacturing onshore. What specifically does this mean? Dr. Gomory does not specify, but I can guess. Protective tariffs? Convoluted and expensive tax incentives? This policy direction is untenable.

Many old and complicated engineering systems can be improved and streamlined by removing a buildup of cruft. Likewise, I would suggest that U.S. business could be energized by eliminating antiquated or ill-conceived regulations. To wit, the mining and energy industries would benefit from updated regulatory regimes. I am confident that the U.S. can succeed in the global economy without co-opting its competitors' anti-capitalist policies.

Ilya Gurin
IEEE Graduate Student Member
Mountain View, Calif.

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Gomory's article is quite insightful. In particular, it was a pleasure to read the quick back-of-the-envelope calculation that he did to show how "innovation" alone cannot possibly be the way forward for our country as a whole. I also think that it is the mark of a well-grounded engineer to ask "what does this really mean" when posed with rhetoric. Gomory correctly points out that whatever solution we adopt has to have a role for *all* of our fellow Americans — real  flesh and blood humans with various skills and aptitudes. It is sad to think that this article will not be more widely read and appreciated.

Anant Sahai
IEEE Member
Berkeley, Calif.

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Boring! It reads like a political campaign flyer, proffering a hackneyed platitude like "balance trade," but does not provide any details as to how. I'm sure every U.S. citizen wants free and fair trade...this country is bursting at the seems with victims and complainers...give us some ideas, details and examples of how to get there.

George Evanick
IEEE Member
Sterling Heights, Mich.

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[Dr. Gomory] is right on only half the problem. The other half is that we will, as things are going, soon no longer be the world's innovators, along with not being the world's manufacturers. It was not so long ago that we used to think of the Japanese as simply copycats when it came to high tech, but they advanced and now out innovate us in many areas. I speak from experience in the professional television business (Ampex vs Sony). To think that we will continue to out innovate China or India is a pipe dream. Indian programmers may for now just be coders, but already they are turning to innovation. Unbridled capitalism, which exports our manufacturing and now our innovation, for the sake of marginal profit increases the need for other incentives. The difference in cost of producing computer chips in a low-wage country on highly automated equipment, must indeed be marginal.

John Watney
IEEE Life Member
Los Altos, Calif.

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I agree that our nation cannot grow by specializing in innovation, but I disagree with the suggested solution. Rather than an "import certificates" plan, we should adopt a policy of taxing foreign-owned investments in the U. S. in proportion to the imbalance of trade with each nation. This will force nations who buy assets rather than goods from the U. S. to pay for the defense of those assets, and encourage them to buy goods rather than assets, thereby balancing trade and increasing our employment.

Meanwhile, to motivate companies we should do what Hong Kong and China did — get government off the backs of the producers (a la Hong Kong) or create free economic zones (a la China) in which the productive don't have to spend most of their time and resources dealing with regulations, codes, business taxes, potential litigation, etc., etc. These zones need only one law — "If you cost, you pay," and that law should be enforced rigorously, but the producers have to be free to use their common sense.

With the productivity-enhancing developments in automation, computers, communications, etc., of the last few decades, we should be enjoying a standard of living four times as high as what we have now, and we could be enjoying this if it weren't for the fact that government intrusiveness and taxation have been infecting us apace. 

Edward Stoneham
IEEE Senior Member
Los Altos, Calif.

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 An excellent description of the problem, but short on solutions.

Martin Schentes
IEEE Life Senior Member
Thousand Oaks, Calif.

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Great article: Common sense multiplied by precise thinking. I have always had issues with analyses that speak in broad terms and ignore quantitative "details." Ralph Gomory correctly points out that any discussion that ignores factors of 10x or more are seriously flawed.

Paul van der Wagt
IEEE Senior Member
Carlsbad, Calif.

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The sane are finally beginning to speak. The cruel truth is that the cost of American life is high. That cost must come down to international norms before internal production costs can come down to enable a zero-sum balance of trade. In the end, as any process engineer knows, all must be zero-sum. Business must come to accept this as desirable over an attitude which asserts that a lack of growth signals death.

Duncan Gray
IEEE Member
La Honda, Calif.

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I agree completely with this article. As an engineer, I recall being told 30 years ago that the U.S. would possess the "knowledge" and the rest of the world would perform the "work." Obviously, this hasn't worked out the way our leaders predicted. We have neither the knowledge nor the work. We must improve our technical education standards and perform more work here at home, even if it means at a lower wage. At least people will be gainfully employed.

Ross Barton
IEEE Member
Topeka, Kansas

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I wholeheartedly agree with the contents of your article. Innovation and production must go hand in hand for a country to lead and survive in the current global economy. It is a misconception that jobs in the U.S. disappear because of cheap labor abroad. Cheap labor is just one contributing factor, there are many others. The U.S. government must help and encourage [companies] to build products in this country with whatever it takes. We must not let manufacturing go abroad and just have think tank and paper shuffling industries (e.g., insurance).

Diwakar Gan
IEEE Life Member
Corona, Calif.

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Well-written article. It would be nice if others beyond the IEEE would read it and try to understand the slippery slope we are on now!

Ray Floyd
IEEE Life Senior Member
Cody, Wyo.

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At last, I have read an article on trade and manufacturing that makes sense.

Victor Alvarez
IEEE Member
Largo, Fla.

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One first needs to understand what "innovation" is before investing in something innovative.

R&D investment in strong AI to dispense with "low-level programmers" in the same manner that we shed telephone operators is ripe for innovation. Why code snippets of human intelligence instead of the whole enchilada, once and for all?

Kicking megawatts of non-renewable energy wasted on inefficient lighting like incandescent and fluorescent is another area ripe for real innovation. Someday, we're all going to wish we could have back the energy we are wasting.

Reducing power while increasing the speed and bandwidth of computer networking applications is an easy vote for a third area where R&D investment is sorely needed.  But it's not going to happen if investors keep wasting the R&D bucks on hiring more "low-level programmers."

Daniel Shawen
IEEE Member
Gaithersburg, Md.

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A damned fine article. We are throwing our know-how away to foreign countries. I think we really need a "buy American" campaign as well as added help to companies that invest in U.S. facilities, developments and production. We must reward such companies and provide incentives.

Keith Sueker
IEEE Life Senior Member
Pittsburgh, Pa.

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This article is absolutely spot on. Innovation alone cannot save the country. Innovation is inseparably intertwined with manufacturing, and the GDP from innovation alone can not close the manufacturing GDP gap, nor create meaningful jobs for any large portion of the population. The government needs to have effective policy to reward corporate manufacturing investments in the U.S., rather than just complaining about China's policies. Just extending unemployment benefits indefinitely without such policy changes will bankrupt the country.

Tim Deppa
IEEE Member
Cherry Hill, N.J.

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...On "The Jobless Recovery — Are We There Yet?" (July 2010)

No one is talking of a jobs recovery.

In a 2 July Financial Times article, GE chief Jeff Immelt gave an interview in which he stated, “I'm not sure that in the end they (Peoples Republic of China [PRC]) want any of us to win or be successful.” The article concerned his worries about the way Bejing was treating foreign firms. GE is one of the biggest proponents of globalization and U.S. outsourcing manufacturing. Why would he ever assume the PRC was interested in the well being of GE?

I subsequently came across the article, “How to Make an American Job Before It's Too Late,” by former Intel chair Andy Grove. Intel was also an advocate of off shore manufacturing. Those of us who have seen our semiconductor manufacturing sent offshore knew that where manufacturing goes so does development and then R&D. The semiconductor business in the United States has become a hollow shell.

My question is: Is already too late? Any country that loses its manufacturing loses its ability to create wealth and inevitably becomes a third-rate power. If you don't believe this, look at the U.S. trade balance. Our trade balance is the debt no one really wants to talk about.

We are in deep trouble.

John Stafford
IEEE Life Fellow
Phoenix, Ariz.

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Most places I have seen plot unemployment for up to a 6-year interval.

Is plotting how the unemployment has tracked over 12 to 20 years too scary or what? I would like to see someone plot the unemployment level, starting in 1995 and going forward.

That, more than anything, will show us how far we have come.

Brian Conley
IEEE Senior Member
Beaverton, Ore.

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Interesting article — sounds pretty accurate, although with the dollar as inflated as it is, I think it may be a little longer than a decade. You may want to look at Bob Chapman's work at the International Forecaster. He's extremely accurate.

Robert Terhune
IEEE Graduate Student Member
Sparks, Nev.

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This is the most realistic article published by the IEEE in years. What it implies but does not state is the 1,000s of engineers coming out of college every year that will never work in the engineering field and are strapped with $100,000 to $200,000 of debt for and education they will never use.

Harry Hackman
IEEE Member
West Chester, Pa.

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...On "How Do You Get Women to Stay in Engineering? Nerd Girls Has the Answer"(July 2010)

Excellent. More power to you on the show. Good role models are hard to come by. I look forward to viewing [the program].

Linda R Emery
IEEE Member
Pasadena, Calif.

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The article does not deal with the real reason why women have a difficult time keeping a career in engineering. After earning an engineering degree, women don't just walk away from the profession. They are chased out by lack of opportunity, recognition and flexibility. There are still many competency misperceptions about women in the engineering field. There is also a very real lack of inclusion for females in a male-dominated world. Many women simply get tired of fighting the same old tired fight. I have been a woman in engineering for almost 25 years.

Laura Thomas
IEEE Member
Tustin, Calif.

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These principles also hold for us older engineers with granddaughters about to enter college.

Bill Martin
IEEE Senior Member
Denver, Colo.

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Absolutely awesome! I loved every part of the article, and everything I read about the program. If I force my daughters to watch the series, will I be like one of those nasty, screaming sports dads?

Scott Evarts
IEEE Member
Tampa, Fla.

...On "Bridging the Divide Between Scientists and Engineers and the Public They Serve " (July 2010)

There seems to be an almost drug dealing mentality towards the deployment of new technology under the thin veil of making things better for humanity. Yet much of the new technology appears to do very little to improve the quality of life. Partly because most new technologies appear to be sold to the public based on hype and all too frequently the technology fails to live up to the hype. Partly because the technology appears to be just the opening needed to get the public dependent (hooked) on it so that the manufacturer has created an addicted market place. No wonder many members of the public are suspicious of what they are being told.

In the story, the author notes the atomic storage facility in Nevada as an example where the scientist and the public are at odds. I am sure that there is much research and technical documentation that would make the case for the safety of the site. I am sure there was an equal amount of research and technical documentation presented to the people of Middletown, PA when Three Mile Island was announced. I suspect that there was an equal amount at Chernobyl as well. Yet to the general public when you talk atomic energy this is what they think of as well as "The China Syndrome."

I'm sure the executives at BP will claim that they were using the latest technologies when the Gulf disaster occurred.

 I applaud the fact that new nuclear plant construction are going to follow the more open and consultative methodology described in the article. Now the question is whether the people with the money that want to build the plant will have the patience to endure the process of explaining and re-explaining the technology, address and re-address the concerns expressed.

In 1989, Carl Sagan said, “We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology.” In 2010, the society has become even more exquisitely dependent on science and technology while simultaneously becoming even less knowledgeable about it.

William Hayes
IEEE Senior Member
Johnston, Ia.

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...On " A Champion of Engineering Makes an Eloquent Case" (July 2010)

Petroski makes a good argument for the cause of engineering's second-class status. To raise engineering in the consciousness of the general public, perhaps engineers and engineer-authors could right this wrong by authoring more biographies, and, hey, even fictional novels about engineer-heroes.

Myron Boyajian
IEEE Member
Homewood, Ill.

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Thanks for bringing this article to my attention. Part of the problems of engineering as a second-class profession is that degreed engineers are lumped in with non-degreed persons who use the term "engineer." I would like to see IEEE do more to promote licensing and not let the non-engineers in the IEEE dictate what IEEE does.

Dr. Barry Feinberg, PE
IEEE Life Fellow
Chicago, Ill.

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It's Perception. People think of engineers as 'hands on'. Hands-on persons are subservient to those who are 'brains-on'; hence relegating them to second class.

Sports analogy: players (no matter how much paid) are regarded as subservient to coaches, managers, owners. Players are hands-on; coaches, brains-on.

Engineers need a new name, but it would take generations for it to make any difference.

Laurence Maloney
IEEE Senior Member
Fort Worth, Texas

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Indeed. This fits well with the message of an industry giant named Andy Grove in BusinessWeek last month. If, for example, manufacturing is done in China, the Chinese will have the best ability to develop and optimize the leading-edge technology. Both articles give us the hard truth. Any country that wants to lead the world needs to have at least some production floor within. If you lead on flat panel production, you are likely going to lead the world in the development of the next generation of flat panels, etc. If the country needs to find more efficient ways of manufacturing (robotics, etc) then that, too, is key.

Randy Salvatore
IEEE Senior Member
Cupertino, Calif.

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