Flat world' requires pushing harder in education 1817

Robert Kolker

I got the idea the IT sector has recovered and both job security and salaries are back to 2001 levels.

if you look at the kind of lifestyle americans live, it is miles ahead of the rest of the world. To justify such salaries, you need to be need 1 step ahead but many steps ahead. A more pragmatic thing would be to accept lower wages -in line with the rest of the world. Wealth after all -does not originate in the US, that one can have exclusive rights to it based on citizenship.

The US was isolated and in a better position to finance S&T research than other countries with a lot more human capital -but bad socio-economic conditions. As and when other countries get their act together, you should see greater amounts of research-innovation-patents coming out of other countries. There is no hard and fast rule that americans have more grey matter or any such thing. Human intellect is purely an individual trait -not influenced by nationality or skin colour. What can be said for sure is that a country with high unemployment has greater amounts of untapped potential.

As we speak -some the basic building blocks of nanotechnology based (quantum) computers are being built in the US and not in India or China. The most advanced nano-tech lab in the US is IBM Research. The folks who do such fundamental reseatch can expect 100% job security and a lot of money. But the entire american workforce cannot get into their shoes or show the same productivit-innovations etc.. That means either you claim exclusive rights to such inventions -which the workforce will like but the mgmt will not allow why pay to productionize an invention in US wages if it can be done with Indian wages? or the workforce resign itself to 3rd world living standards coz their productivity is no different from their 3rd world counterparts.

regards -kamal