inignoct wrote:
] certainly we need to take a long look at the kinds of jobs
] we're likely to be able to retain. ... what can we keep?

This is the wrong mindset. It's not about "retaining" or "keeping" the jobs we have today. Give them away ... they're already dead.

Success will require creating entirely new categories of jobs for which today there is no description. This is the future.

At one point in the 20th century, "computer" was an occupation, not a product. Eventually "computer administrator" became a service job. Soon, that too will disappear.

This is progress, folks. But do not confuse progress with pleasure.

In America, we make money the old fashioned way. We earn it.

Jeremy wrote:
] inignoct wrote:
] ] certainly we need to take a long look at the kinds of jobs
] ] we're likely to be able to retain. ... what can we keep?
]
] This is the wrong mindset. It's not about "retaining" or
] "keeping" the jobs we have today. Give them away ... they're
] already dead.
]
] Success will require creating entirely new categories of jobs
] for which today there is no description. This is the future.

[ good point. so, what are the most likely new categories? What's bleeding edge right now? Nanotech? What else? -k]

] In America, we make money the old fashioned way. We earn it.

[ Meh. regular people everywhere make money by earning it. famous people everywhere make money by being famous. the point that we're gonna have to bust our ass and figure out which direction to aim ourselves is well taken though. -k]

inignoct wrote:
] [ good point. so, what are the most likely new categories?
] What's bleeding edge right now? Nanotech? What else? -k]

The seven revolutions link discusses this, but that list hasn't changed much in the past few years... Nanotech. Biotech. Infotech.

Water desalination and purification technology developed today will prevent wars a few decades from now.

] point that we're gonna have to bust our ass and figure out
] which direction to aim ourselves is well taken though. -k]

By you, but apparently not by others. Nanotech. Biotech. Infotech. The Seven Revolutions website was pretty clear that Space is not on this list. They drove that point several times. Space is really the only place where our currently administration has demonstrated real technological leadership. What does that tell you.

N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, recently wrote "It is natural to ask what new jobs will be created in the future. Policy makers should create an environment in which businesses will expand and jobs will be created. But they should not try to determine precisely which jobs are created or which industries will grow. If government bureaucrats were capable of such foresight, the Soviet Union would have succeeded as a centrally planned economy."

There is a world of difference between leadership and central control. Policy makers cannot "determine precisely" which jobs are created, but they ought to have a pretty good idea, and they should encourage development that puts their nation in a strategically comfortable position.

Most western nations have a clear technology plan. They know where tech is going and how their country plans to fit into that future. A simple example is Japan's commitment to IPv6.

The U.S. also used to have such a plan. Investment and policy work in the early 90's (and earlier, in some cases much eariler) based on the vision of a "National Information Infrastructure" set the stage for the economy of the latter part of this decade by openning doors to the rise of the broadband internet as a platform for commercial and social activity. What is our plan today? How do we intend to lead in the future? I don't think its clear that we have one, and thats why Gregory Mankiw has to make leaps of logic. The United States has a technology leadership vacuum.