"The U.S. currently does a pretty good job of identifying top STEM talent — which was a big focus of the original NDEA — but it lacks the broad-based mid-level engineering competence required to compete with China in high-tech industries. This is a rationale for cheaper college and free community college (Republicans might be appeased by pairing this with incentives for students to learn STEM subjects). "
Working internationally and with Europeans, I've actually thought a lot about this.
The problem with the United States is we have become a heavily service and financial oriented economy.
At the very top of engineering and science level, we do relatively well.
The issue is as Noah say, we lack the mid-level engineering (and technical) competence to compete with China and India.
The issue is the same people who would be good at this level, don't go into technical/engineering fields. They have better opportunities going into non-stem fields, make more money, more prestige, etc....
I see a lot of discourse about we need to just more training to get the less technically skilled trained for these positions, but I'm skeptical.
Yes there is certainly some untapped talent available, but I honestly think a bigger problem is the allocation of talent.
I attribute this to two issues.
1. demand. so much of this level of work has been off-shored, that there currently aren't enough jobs in this area. Therefore the salaries for this skilled technical/field engineering work just aren't high enough or in demand enough to entice talented people into this area.
2. culture. Because of the above, the perception of this productive technical work with involves a combination of manual and intellectual skills isn't as prestigious as it should be.
I think the United States is going to need a pretty serious reboot of culture and the economy to fix the issue.
The easiest bet is as Noah says to increased skilled immigration, but it would take massive amounts of immigration that won't fly politically to transform our economy, and there is something unsettling about the idea that the United States can't provide their own internal expertise as well.
To top it off, this mid-level engineering/technician education is best provided by big State Schools and Technical Colleges, and already I am reading that the Four-year college industry is about to kill Biden's free community college program because they fear competition.
The simple fact our country graduates way to many Bachelor of Arts degrees and not enough Associate of Science degrees.
We produced top level engineers to design new high-tech products. But instead of producing the type of highly competent factory supervisors and technicians to build these products, we instead pump out marketing and business majors who handle the paperwork to off-shore our production, import the products and then sell the products.
I gotta say, as a leftist, this is pretty convincing stuff. Not that I'm for increased *military* spending (nor am I American) but it does sound pretty disappointing that America can only do public goods under the guise of national security. And it's nice that you agree that the culture of natsec-public goods has to change but aren't there a lot of collateral damages when it comes to framing everything as a natsec question? Like increased militaristic culture, xenophobia?, increased nationalism?
But given the current circumstances in the US right now, Biden really should've taken a leaf out of Eisenhower's book and instead bank on the natsec part of his BBB bill (tech capability vis-a-vis China)
Every time one of my colleagues makes a crack about our defense budget, I have to point out that it paid for me to go to grad school in our field (the purest of basic research, nothing to do with war). Of course, the fraction of defense funding that goes to our field is tiny, but thoughtless cracks deserve thoughtless comebacks.
DARPA is one of the best research organizations on the planet and I really don’t think Americans know enough about it or give it enough credit. Obviously the internet as stated above was one of their inventions, but they also created GPS, the graphical user interface and mouse for your computers, Siri, drones, and tons of lesser known improvements to various items that we use everyday. If we can’t increase NSF funding, we should double DARPA. Heck we probably should regardless.
The massive expenditure on healthcare is a clue. We spend a lot and have worse outcomes relative to other countries and that spending doesn't necessarily drive innovation either (side note anecdotal digression: my cardiologist who also founded a tech company could only sell into single payer markets after getting rejected out of just about everywhere in the US).
It's not clear to me that whatever money we put into the defense sector will drive another internet type discovery. All the examples you site are from WW2 & Cold War, so the question is: Has the massive spending on the War on Terror produced any public goods?
You stated that Americans recognize the military as a public good which is why politicians don't haggle, but that isn't true. Politicians never haggle over military spending, but the general public often does. This is due to the incredible expenditures in propaganda by the Military-Industrial Complex. Not just on media propaganda, for which there is plenty, but they have spread themselves out into every district across the US to manipulate the politicians.
Let's do an audit of the $2.3 trillion spent in Afghanistan, for instance. How much of that money was spent on the actual goal of uplifting the Afghan people? How much was spent on infrastructure for the citizens?
Based on the cries from humanitarian aid organizations worldwide, we spent nothing to help the people. How is that possible?
Because military contractors set up shop there to extract the $2.3 trillion we paid toward improving Afghanistan, would you call that worthwhile R&D spending?
I suspect that much of the billions we fork over to Israel is also for R&D, where they test new products that kill Palestinians. How glorifying?
Because our Oligarchy is so inept, we've become solely independent of a semiconductor manufacturer in Taiwan, which is why we have broken the One China policy agreed to. Instead, the MIC has been feeding their NGOs and media money to excite a war with China. And once again, it has nothing to do with humanitarian or human rights issues; it has everything to do with Oligarchic profits.
By the way, the Oligarchy also loves universities that spend taxpayer money producing R&D. Then, once a product or service is ready for market, it is handed over to the Oligarchs to make profits. So we socialize the costs and privatize the profits.
I’m Audrey, Rory’s Daughter. I am a 15-year old Junior at the South Carolina Governors School of Science and Math (GSSM) for short. I am interested in Economics, and my dad said that this blog would be a good way to learn.
Thank you for the subscription Noah.
My comment is that do we really want to use the Defense Department to be used as a political tool? Politics’ has always used morally questionable methods to get results, I am not sure about using the defense department in the same way is right.
Using the Defense Department might work, but it seems like it would open up opportunities for corruption. Also, would using department of defense resources blur the line between national security and national services?
Probably better to use 2019 than 2020 for that first graphic --- there was some not entirely usual non-defense spending in 2020, as you may recall. In normal years defense is more like 15% of federal spending, not 10%.
Oct 21: "Given the unique opportunities and challenges posed by emerging technologies, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) today announced it is prioritizing its industry outreach efforts in a select few U.S. technology sectors where the stakes are potentially greatest for U.S. economic and national security. These sectors include, but are not limited to, artificial intelligence, the bio-economy, autonomous systems, quantum information science and technology, and semiconductors." https://www.dni.gov/index.php/ncsc-newsroom/item/2254-ncsc-fact-sheet-protecting-critical-and-emerging-u-s-technologies-from-foreign-threats
"The U.S. currently does a pretty good job of identifying top STEM talent — which was a big focus of the original NDEA — but it lacks the broad-based mid-level engineering competence required to compete with China in high-tech industries."
I understand that requirement that candidates produce "Diversity Statements" is having a negative effect on recruiting talent in universities for STEM.
Agree with funding DoD and DARPA in the background, but would modernizing the power grid be the place to start as publicly impactful and salient low hanging fruit?
I want to comment on the following:
"The U.S. currently does a pretty good job of identifying top STEM talent — which was a big focus of the original NDEA — but it lacks the broad-based mid-level engineering competence required to compete with China in high-tech industries. This is a rationale for cheaper college and free community college (Republicans might be appeased by pairing this with incentives for students to learn STEM subjects). "
Working internationally and with Europeans, I've actually thought a lot about this.
The problem with the United States is we have become a heavily service and financial oriented economy.
At the very top of engineering and science level, we do relatively well.
The issue is as Noah say, we lack the mid-level engineering (and technical) competence to compete with China and India.
The issue is the same people who would be good at this level, don't go into technical/engineering fields. They have better opportunities going into non-stem fields, make more money, more prestige, etc....
I see a lot of discourse about we need to just more training to get the less technically skilled trained for these positions, but I'm skeptical.
Yes there is certainly some untapped talent available, but I honestly think a bigger problem is the allocation of talent.
I attribute this to two issues.
1. demand. so much of this level of work has been off-shored, that there currently aren't enough jobs in this area. Therefore the salaries for this skilled technical/field engineering work just aren't high enough or in demand enough to entice talented people into this area.
2. culture. Because of the above, the perception of this productive technical work with involves a combination of manual and intellectual skills isn't as prestigious as it should be.
I think the United States is going to need a pretty serious reboot of culture and the economy to fix the issue.
The easiest bet is as Noah says to increased skilled immigration, but it would take massive amounts of immigration that won't fly politically to transform our economy, and there is something unsettling about the idea that the United States can't provide their own internal expertise as well.
To top it off, this mid-level engineering/technician education is best provided by big State Schools and Technical Colleges, and already I am reading that the Four-year college industry is about to kill Biden's free community college program because they fear competition.
The simple fact our country graduates way to many Bachelor of Arts degrees and not enough Associate of Science degrees.
We produced top level engineers to design new high-tech products. But instead of producing the type of highly competent factory supervisors and technicians to build these products, we instead pump out marketing and business majors who handle the paperwork to off-shore our production, import the products and then sell the products.
I gotta say, as a leftist, this is pretty convincing stuff. Not that I'm for increased *military* spending (nor am I American) but it does sound pretty disappointing that America can only do public goods under the guise of national security. And it's nice that you agree that the culture of natsec-public goods has to change but aren't there a lot of collateral damages when it comes to framing everything as a natsec question? Like increased militaristic culture, xenophobia?, increased nationalism?
But given the current circumstances in the US right now, Biden really should've taken a leaf out of Eisenhower's book and instead bank on the natsec part of his BBB bill (tech capability vis-a-vis China)
Great column but perhaps you should cover how monolpies are impacting the economy as well.
Every time one of my colleagues makes a crack about our defense budget, I have to point out that it paid for me to go to grad school in our field (the purest of basic research, nothing to do with war). Of course, the fraction of defense funding that goes to our field is tiny, but thoughtless cracks deserve thoughtless comebacks.
DARPA is one of the best research organizations on the planet and I really don’t think Americans know enough about it or give it enough credit. Obviously the internet as stated above was one of their inventions, but they also created GPS, the graphical user interface and mouse for your computers, Siri, drones, and tons of lesser known improvements to various items that we use everyday. If we can’t increase NSF funding, we should double DARPA. Heck we probably should regardless.
The state makes war, and war makes the state. (btw, Trump tried to eviscerate ARPA-E, but Congress put the $$ back in and then some).
The massive expenditure on healthcare is a clue. We spend a lot and have worse outcomes relative to other countries and that spending doesn't necessarily drive innovation either (side note anecdotal digression: my cardiologist who also founded a tech company could only sell into single payer markets after getting rejected out of just about everywhere in the US).
Anyway, I wonder if the "internet came from DARPA" days are long gone as defense contractor (where I used to work) have consumed much of the spending that is likely to stay in the confines of those companies' IP. https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2020/07/the-bunker-the-contractors-pie-keeps-growing/
It's not clear to me that whatever money we put into the defense sector will drive another internet type discovery. All the examples you site are from WW2 & Cold War, so the question is: Has the massive spending on the War on Terror produced any public goods?
You stated that Americans recognize the military as a public good which is why politicians don't haggle, but that isn't true. Politicians never haggle over military spending, but the general public often does. This is due to the incredible expenditures in propaganda by the Military-Industrial Complex. Not just on media propaganda, for which there is plenty, but they have spread themselves out into every district across the US to manipulate the politicians.
Let's do an audit of the $2.3 trillion spent in Afghanistan, for instance. How much of that money was spent on the actual goal of uplifting the Afghan people? How much was spent on infrastructure for the citizens?
Based on the cries from humanitarian aid organizations worldwide, we spent nothing to help the people. How is that possible?
Because military contractors set up shop there to extract the $2.3 trillion we paid toward improving Afghanistan, would you call that worthwhile R&D spending?
I suspect that much of the billions we fork over to Israel is also for R&D, where they test new products that kill Palestinians. How glorifying?
Because our Oligarchy is so inept, we've become solely independent of a semiconductor manufacturer in Taiwan, which is why we have broken the One China policy agreed to. Instead, the MIC has been feeding their NGOs and media money to excite a war with China. And once again, it has nothing to do with humanitarian or human rights issues; it has everything to do with Oligarchic profits.
By the way, the Oligarchy also loves universities that spend taxpayer money producing R&D. Then, once a product or service is ready for market, it is handed over to the Oligarchs to make profits. So we socialize the costs and privatize the profits.
If anything, the most dire threat to America right now isn't from outside its borders. And I'm certainly not talking about BLM, NFAC or Antifa.
Here's a clue: it dragged America into a war about it a century & a half ago, and the losers are still relitigating the outcome.
I’m Audrey, Rory’s Daughter. I am a 15-year old Junior at the South Carolina Governors School of Science and Math (GSSM) for short. I am interested in Economics, and my dad said that this blog would be a good way to learn.
Thank you for the subscription Noah.
My comment is that do we really want to use the Defense Department to be used as a political tool? Politics’ has always used morally questionable methods to get results, I am not sure about using the defense department in the same way is right.
Using the Defense Department might work, but it seems like it would open up opportunities for corruption. Also, would using department of defense resources blur the line between national security and national services?
Probably better to use 2019 than 2020 for that first graphic --- there was some not entirely usual non-defense spending in 2020, as you may recall. In normal years defense is more like 15% of federal spending, not 10%.
Begrudgingly agree national security justifications seem to get the job done. Even Chomsky has a similar perspective.
Oct 21: "Given the unique opportunities and challenges posed by emerging technologies, the National Counterintelligence and Security Center (NCSC) today announced it is prioritizing its industry outreach efforts in a select few U.S. technology sectors where the stakes are potentially greatest for U.S. economic and national security. These sectors include, but are not limited to, artificial intelligence, the bio-economy, autonomous systems, quantum information science and technology, and semiconductors." https://www.dni.gov/index.php/ncsc-newsroom/item/2254-ncsc-fact-sheet-protecting-critical-and-emerging-u-s-technologies-from-foreign-threats
"The U.S. currently does a pretty good job of identifying top STEM talent — which was a big focus of the original NDEA — but it lacks the broad-based mid-level engineering competence required to compete with China in high-tech industries."
I understand that requirement that candidates produce "Diversity Statements" is having a negative effect on recruiting talent in universities for STEM.
Also, just a really good idea.
Agree with funding DoD and DARPA in the background, but would modernizing the power grid be the place to start as publicly impactful and salient low hanging fruit?