The American Spectator

Reader Mail

(Page 5 of 9)

Forbes reports that Singapore has surpassed the U.S. as the top tech nation.

Business Week reports in its "Outsourcing Innovation" article that 80% of American R&D engineers can easily be outsourced. The article predicts that American electronic giants may soon shrink their American R&D engineering staffs from thousands to mere hundreds. Already the article reports that cooperative R&D budgets are shrinking. For example, "Cisco Systems' R&D budget has dropped from its old average of 17% to 14.5%."

American engineers are being butchered on the altar of "free trade" and by the importation of H-1b workers. Enrollment in computer science programs at American universities has declined for the fourth straight year. Similar declines have been reported for enrollment in Electrical Engineering programs. American engineering students aren't stupid. They know there are no longer any jobs in these fields and so are switching to non-technical fields where they may be able to find work.

Thanks to the suicidal stupidity of "free trade," America soon won’t have an engineering workforce. Every American engineering job that is off-shored makes the country that receives it that much closer to overtaking the U.S. in technology. Nor can America soon recover from the loss of its engineers. It takes an average of five years to train an engineer and then another three to five years before they become fully productive.

Tell me, those of you who support free trade, if we have an economy that invents nothing and manufactures nothing, how can we ever bring down our ever-exploding trade deficit?

If the American engineering workforce is destroyed by offshoring who will build and design the next generation of weapons to defend this country? What will we do? Import weapons from China?

The invention of new technologies won't save the American engineering work force either. If American corporations can outsource Electrical and Software Engineering jobs they will find it equally easy to offshore positions in new technologies such as nano-technology or bio-technology.

p>Thanks to the shortsighted stupidity of America's business and political leaders the age of American innovation is ending and with it America's superpower status. We were once the world leaders in technology. Without a strong American engineering workforce we can't lead the world in technology. If we don't lead the world in technology we won’t be a superpower. br> -- James G. Marino /p> p> DUST OFF THE CONSTITUTION br> Re: David Holman's Filibuster or Bust

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