The next X prize

"Bob Fry" wrote in message
...

That's the free market. It sucks, sometimes.

[With respect to engineers] It's more than simply the free market. I
work for a state water agency, no offshoring going on there. But
society's interest in entertainment in the last couple of decades, and
decreasing interest in accomplishment, has rendered our agency a bad
place to work for engineers, just like many other places.

The private sector still respects accomplishment pretty well. However, the
prestige of an engineering degree is certainly not what it was 20-30 years
ago. But then, neither is any degree.

As for entertainment, this is a by-product of leisure time and disposable
income, which have increased significantly over the long haul. People are
"struggling to get by" but they're still finding an average of 4 hours/day
to watch TV, according to Nielsen. They'd probably be struggling a little
less if they weren't making 15% interest payments on a credit card they used
to buy a $3,000 plasma TV.

Virginia Postrel has also written an interesting book called "the Substance
of Style" that talks about the increasing importance of aesthetics as a
value generator. Basically, with global manufacturing turning every product
into a low-cost commodity item (think mobile phones) the only way to
distinguish products is through their design/fashion. Thus "soft" factors
become real value generators.

I think scifi writer Neal Stephenson said it best in one of his books set in
the near-future. It went something like, "in a global economy every country
does only what it does best, and what the United States does better than
anyone is blockbuster Hollywood movies and fast-delivery pizza." FWIW, our
entertainment industry is actually a huge export earner for us. The rest of
the world may hate us politically but culturally they're still hooked.

-cwk.

Best,
-cwk.