US 'no longer technology king'

[cyberpj]

Source: BBC News UK

US 'no longer technology king'

Singapore was among the nations ranked higher than the US
The US has lost its position as the world's primary engine of technology innovation, according to a report by the World Economic Forum.
The US is now ranked seventh in the body's league table measuring the impact of technology on the development of nations.

A deterioration of the political and regulatory environment in the US prompted the fall, the report said.

NETWORKED READINESS INDEX RANKINGS 2006 (2005)
1: Denmark (3)
2: Sweden (8)
3: Singapore (2)
4: Finland (5)
5: Switzerland (9)
6: Netherlands (12)
7: US (1)
8: Iceland (4)
9: UK (10)
10: Norway (13)
Source: WEF

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6502725.stm

[Fresh_Start]

1. If God wanted us to invent, he wouldn't have created everything

for us.

[Nevernose]

38. You haven't been reading "The God Delusion"

...by Richard Dawkins by any chance, have you?

If not, maybe you should check it out: a few minor flaws, but overall an enjoyable nonfiction read.

[w4rma]

2. No kidding. All the research has or is being outsourced. (nt)

[xultar]

3. Thanks BUSH!

[niceypoo]

36. Attacks on science. Attacks on college education

This is a direct result.

[Zenlitened]

4. So what? Our Wal-Mart greeters are the BEST anywhere!

:yoiks:

[onehandle]

9. Or at least we have the most. nt

[cyberpj]

19. And we may well lead the world in McJobs now. nt

[NeoConsSuck]

35. And we make more bombs

and drop more bombs on people than any other country. Isn't that what's important? :sarcasm:

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. The US is the king of over paid executives & football stars.

Everybody else is struggling to survive, much less doing good technology.

[cyberpj]

7. Yep. And TV and Movie Stars. And Politicians. Nope. No real jobs for citizens left here.

[City Lights]

28. You nailed it, mostly.

IMHO, most professional athletes are overpaid, and lots of them are crybabies. :mad:

[twiceshy]

6. Not too sure what ......

"measuring the impact of technology on the development of nations" implies, but I'm not too terrified of Iceland overtaking us any time soon. This looks like a bogus assessment to me. How about measuring total number of patents granted and Nobel prizes won. See Wicipedia entry.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_laureates_by_country

[ryanmuegge]

21. Ha ha..no kidding.

Still, though, if we keep giving away all of our tech jobs, we're not going to be able to compete.

[daleo]

26. The U.S. has a very large population

So it is bound to come out first on a lot of international measures, simply from size. Per capita is often a better measure (although size can be important for critical mass, economies of scale, etc.).

[Canuckistanian]

37. You should keep it in the back of your mind

I've heard that the Finns are the largest users of the Internet, per capita.

And the largest # of IP addresses per capita? The Vatican. With 10.5 IPs per citizen.
http://www.modernlifeisrubbish.co.uk/article/ips-assigned-per-capita

[Breeze54]

8. Gee....I wonder why? Outsourcing maybe?

:sarcasm:

Not sarcastic at you but I think this has been known by many for a long time!

Thanks for posting the article.

The Other Side of the Outsourcing Debate

Ron Hira
Chair, IEEE-USA Career & Workforce Policy Committee and Public Policy Professor,
Rochester Institute of Technology

Friday, April 2, 2004; 11:00 AM

Ron Hira, chair of the career and workforce policy committee for IEEE-USA, the Washington
policy and lobbying unit of New York-based Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Inc., was online to field questions about outsourcing and its effect on tech companies and
workers in the United States.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36379-2004Mar30.html

Unlike the Information Technology Association of America and AeA tech trade groups, which
have embraced the outsourcing trend as a positive for the tech sector, IEEE-USA is among
those positioned against outsourcing, contending the movement of jobs to companies overseas
has led to job loss and other problems for the tech sector. IEEE-USA released an issue paper
on outsourcing in March, concluding that offshoring "poses a very serious, long term challenge
to the nation's leadership in technology and innovation, its economic prosperity, and its
military and homeland security."

Transcript follows.....

Looks like the IEEE-USA was right!

[The2ndWheel]

10. Does anyone win something if they finish first?

Is there a playoff? Or does the season never end? Is it just a list at the quarter mark of every fiscal year?

Where is the race here? The world is more integrated than it ever has been economically, and that's only increasing. What exactly is the difference between 1 and 7? Will Denmark get there first? Since there is no trophy, there is no there to get to. Yet if you rank the countries(which, as I said, are being more and more integrated), that means there must be a winner at some point, but there's nothing to win.

[damntexdem]

14. Nope, nobody wins anything for finishing first -- but at least they know ...

that they are not on the downward death spiral that the U.S. is.

[The2ndWheel]

15. Well, yeah, but

those people in countries 1-6 are still going to die at some point, right? Unless curing that is the goal.

[ChairmanAgnostic]

11. the bible hates techonology. ergo, let's kick out science and replace it

with faith based initiatives. Just like we have been for 6 years.

[cyberpj]

16. Not just that, but let's suppress scientific reports on global warming and GM crop studies too! nt

[sinkingfeeling]

12. Doh!

[lvx35]

13. Forbes: Pioneers die broke

Forbes has a good article on the issues pioneers face in the US:

http://www.forbes.com/free_forbes/2002/1223/258.html

[cyberpj]

17. Thanks for sharing that. I also point friends to the film "Tucker" and the documentary

"Who Killed The Electric Car". Prime examples of big money suppressing innovation.

[Psephos]

18. The U.S. went from #1 to #7 in one year? Sounds a bit arbitrary to me.

This is like those "Top 10 Universities" or "Best Cities in America" lists. It all depends on how you weight the variables. Not saying there isn't something valuable here, but not saying there is, either.

Peace.

[bamacrat]

20. Wow look at all the peaceful pot loving countries ahead of us.

Maybe living in a "free" prison of a country is good compared to say Iraq but this is one indocation that we as a country need to re-examine our future.

[cyberpj]

30. That's what I thought. Free thinkers are innovators. On the "Nordic crown":

Nordic crown

Denmark is now regarded as the world leader in technological innovation and application, with its Nordic neighbours Sweden, Finland and Norway claiming second, fourth and 10th place respectively.

"Denmark, in particular, has benefited from the very effective government e-leadership, reflected in early liberalisation of the telecommunications sector, a first-rate regulatory environment and large availability of e-government services," said Irene Mia, senior economist at World Economic Forum.

[ramapo]

22. Politics and regulation? What a joke that is!

How could we possibly be leaders in technology?

We gutted the space program decades ago.

We sent the computer industry overseas.

For all the talk, we don't value students who major in math or science.

The country borders on scientific illiteracy.

The country is governed by idiots.

Progress is discounted as being "too expensive".

[Flagg]

23. Japan should be in the first 10

This study's bogus.

[gravity]

24. What does networked readiness measure?

[cyberpj]

29. It's in the article -

"Countries were judged on technological advancements in general business, the infrastructure available and the extent to which government policy creates a framework necessary for economic development and increased competitiveness."

[LynnTheDem]

25. #14 for freedoms, #54 for freedom of the press, #27 for infant mortality...

USA! USA! USA!

[CabalPowered]

27. Huh.. I thought S. Korea had the best network in the world

but they're not even listed in the top 10. hmm..

[Megahurtz]

31. That's Cause All Our Fucking Jobs are Outsourced

Fucking DUH!!!:mad:

[whosinpower]

32. Look at all those socialists!

7 out of 10 have social democracies.

[Crayson]

40. Many different aspects flow into it

This rating is not just "who invents the most".
But which nation has the best environment for technological innovations.

That goes from education to politics to freedom of press and protection of patents, workers security and much more.
All that has influence on how freely people can think and work and develope new ideas.

The US mainly lost their rating because of the current political situation that influenced many of these soft factors.

[tom_paine]

33. Yawn. That one was easy to predict. I saw it coming long ago.

One of the truly brilliant moves that Clinton/Gore did was the Advanced Technology Program.

ATP gave out tens of millions of dollars in grants to small startups that were specifically advanced America's leadership in technology. Knowing that science/technology adavncements take lots of money and a willingness to endure 9 failures to get one spectacular success, often Venture Capitalists lack the forward-thinkingness and cash-flexibility to do this. Not to mention the fiscal calamity of enduring failure after failure to "mine" for the big success that changes everything (like AmGen discovering a biological manufacturing process for insulin, as opposed to the very polluting and energy-costly buisness of manufacturing it chemically, which makes billions and positively effect the lives of millions) being tough for even the largest Venture Capital Group to withstand. It did tremendous work in resurging our nation to the head of the technology front.

It was one of the very first things the Loyal Bushies killed back in January 2001, back when the horror was fresh and no one really knew how criminal these people were.

It assisted our technological leadership so powerfully that after six years of technological-assistance starvation, only now are we falling back off the lead, but it's been a long time coming (a testament to how strong we can be under good, relatively honest leadership).

And now that it's happened, unless we can take back America from the Loyal Busheviks, it will get worse as our nation continues to sprial downward into Third World Imperial Corruption and loss of Liberty.

This is but one tiny facet of a hugely complex juggernaut, our beautiful nation, stumbling and perhaps falling (unless we can boot out these Bushevik vampires while we still have some metaphoric blood in our metaphoric veins).

[Pavulon]

34. Cough (bullshit)

japan is not on the list. get real.

The us dominates the technical space. RFCs are written in English. All aspects of real computing are driven by us technology developed here.

supercomputing on down , thats us. storage, thats us, routing switching, us again. internet backbone, you get the picture. I would bet IBM, cisco, and EMC produce more patents than the top 5 on that list combined.

I cant think of one bit of technology from those nations listed that impact day to day operations in a fortune 100 company's IT structure.

[eridani]

39. I call bullshit for now.

But given the way we are trashing our human scientific and technical capital, it may one day be true. We made huge public investments in education and technology during and after the New Deal, and it does take awhile to munch through all that seed corn.

The general movement is sure in the wrong direction--toward becoming a country that can't make anything, instead specializing in putting each other in jail, selling each other cheap Chinese crap, and blowing the shit out of other countries' infrastructure.