If you work in the tech industry you could do worse than to read the testimony at this hearing. I think the advisors did a good job of starting to think beyond the "please reduce our labor and R&D costs" bullshit the tech industry usually presents in the guise of improving our technological competitiveness.

Congressional Hearing :: The Globalization of R&D and Innovation

My current job is CEO of Odeo, Inc., a startup based in San Francisco, where I've lived since 1998. Previously, I was co-founder and CEO of Pyra Labs, makers of Blogger, now part of Google, where I worked most of 2003-04.

evhead: Ten Rules for Web Startups

] Researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago have
] confirmed what many high-tech workers have long
] suspected: The job market for technology experts remains
] bleak, years after the U.S. recession officially ended in
] late 2001.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Report: High-tech job market has lost more than 400,000 jobs

] The number of employed software engineers in the U.S.
] dropped from 856,000 in the first quarter of 2004 to
] 725,000 in the second quarter. (of 2004)

IEEE's numbers seems to conflict with the fed's numbers.

ITworld.com - High-tech employment numbers drop in second quarter

] An analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data shows nearly
] 160,000 IT jobs have disappeared in the past three years,
] while the IT unemployment rate has nearly doubled since
] 2000.
]
] The biggest IT job category--computer software engineers--grew
] to 816,000, up from 757,000 in 2000, a nearly 8% increase. (from 2000 to 2004)

InformationWeek - IT Jobs Continue To Disappear

] The U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday sided with
] Silicon Valley over Wall Street, voting overwhelmingly to
] largely preserve the current method of accounting for the
] cost of stock options.

Yeah!!

House says no to expensing options | CNET News.com

] Morale among IT workers has dipped to an all-time low,
] even though demand for certain skills is rising,
] according to a new study from Meta Group.

IT morale drops to all-time low | CNET News.com

] I was just out in Silicon Valley, checking in with
] high-tech entrepreneurs about the state of their
] business. I wouldn't say they were universally gloomy,
] but I did detect something I hadn't detected before: a
] real undertow of concern that America is losing its
] competitive edge vis-à-vis China, India, Japan and other
] Asian tigers.

NYT: Losing Our Edge?

] "Sorry, guys. The pro-expense 'em forces do not care
] about helping investors; they care about discouraging stock options.
]
] "In the modern corporation, intangible assets now
] constitute 70% or so of the value of the company, a shift
] from 25 years ago, when 75% of the value was in tangible
] assets. By using options, companies make the creators of
] these intangible assets into owners, and venture
] capitalists make the creative classes into partners. Options
] are a complicated, but quite creative, solution to a number of
] difficult problems in the valuation of intellect-based assets.
]
] "The idea of making the creative classes into owners is
] not welcomed by old line capitalists, organized labor, public
] employees, and other power centers. Hence the fight to discourage
] options.

[Politech] Jim Delong's dissenting view on stock options expensing

] Some companies plan to cut back on compensation
] altogether.
]
] Dell said last year that it would decrease stock options
] and instead use cash as an incentive. But founder Michael
] Dell also said then that the personal computer maker did
] not need to replace options altogether because of the
] changing competitiveness of the job market.
]
] Stock options are less important given the weakness in
] the job market and the shift away from options, said John
] Rutledge, portfolio manager of the Evergreen Technology
] Fund.
]
] "Even as the job market does pick up a little bit,
] recognize that all companies are in the same boat and
] cutting back the amount of options that they are
] issuing," Rutledge said.
]
] "Technology is maturing as an industry. Its growth rate
] is not going to be what it has been in the past -- all
] the more reason for companies to adjust and adapt to the
] new world," he said.

This touches a lot of threads.

The people who advocate expensing options talk on about executive compensation, but they do not have an answer for how this effects regular employees at innovative companies and what to do about it. They just don't have an answer for that, and they steer way around the subject when they write about this. They seem to be completely ignorant of this as a factor.

"Technology is maturing as an industry" means we're not doing innovative work in this space anymore. Its not as if there isn't innovative work left to do. Its just that we're not doing it.

From the perspective of potential engineering students this is another nail in the coffin. Not only are we exporting your job to India, but we're not doing anything exciting and there is no opportunity here for wealth creation. The wealth that we do create here will only be shared with top executives. This cuts across all fields. This will damper the nano and bio tech fields just as much.

The best and brightest should be running at full speed at this point. The question is into what?

America already has a tremendous cultural bias against math/science. We already stimatize those fields as anti-social, prefering instead more political professions that involve less hard work and hard thinking, and where the winners are the one who are best at manipulating people, usually in a dishonest way.

The only exception is the medical profession. People need doctors even when they are young, so they are harder to stigmatize. You don't talk to the people who design your car.

The reality is that technological leadership has been the bedrock of American success for the entire post-war era. We're now engaged in the social process of cutting that down as fast as possible. We're eliminating and everything that generates hope and ambition in the technology field, often in ignorance. We're cutting away at our own muscle. We're gunna bleed for it.

"Someone is writing down your mistakes..."

Forbes.com: US tech companies look to ways to replace options