<p>Allright, well, I guess I do have to make that defense of free trade that I didn’t want to do. </p>
<p>I will try to keep things as simple as possible, but the basic premise is that free trade helps both participating sides. Take a class on economics if you want to see what I mean. Yes, there are some losers in free trade, but there are more winners, because the fact is, free trade improves total economic efficiency. Basically, any industry that is exposed to competition becomes more efficient. The least efficient operations tend to be the ones that are not exposed to direct competition, like monopolies - think of government services like the DMV, or the post office. </p>
<p>I will point to history and say that outsourcing is nothing new. Ever since there has been trade, there has been outsourcing, and workers have had to adjust accordingly. Outsourcing was not just ‘invented’ in the last few years. Many industries have been outsourcing for years. Just look at your electronics like your TV or your stereo. I will bet you that they were probably made in Asia. Again, look at your computer - almost all of it was manufactured in Asia. And this hasn’t been true just for the last few years. It’s been like that for decades. Basically, starting in the 1960’s-1970’s, the Japanese came and basically crushed the American consumer electronics and computer hardware manufacturing industry, then followed by the Koreans and the Taiwanese, and now the mainland Chinese. </p>
<p>I’ll give you the example of Intel. Intel was actually founded as a memory-chip company. Intel invented DRAM. Then the Japanese, the Koreans, and the Taiwanese came in and started making better DRAM for cheaper. This all happened in the early 1980’s, not just a few years ago.</p>
<p>Yet during all this time, the employment for electrical engineers in the US grew tremendously. You might ask -how is that if the Asians were taking their jobs? The answer is obvious - the Asian were not taking all the jobs. In fact, they were generally taking only the low-end jobs. The better jobs, particularly the R&D oriented and high-end EE jobs, stayed in the US. Case in point - when Intel, the father of DRAM, hasn’t made DRAM in 2 decades. Instead, Intel moved upstream - to microprocessors. Intel lost the original business that it started on, but in the process became the biggest semiconductor manufacturing firm in the world. There’s a funny story about that because Intel always had a historical psychological attachment to DRAM, to the point that Intel management never wanted to move away from DRAM. They were forced to move away because of the competition from Asia. In the process, Intel found a business model that was even better than their old business model. Even top Intel managers like Andy Grove once said that if the Asians had never never happened, Intel would probably still be a DRAM company now and the microprocessor crown would have been claimed by somebody else. </p>
<p>Anyway, the point is that the American economy has been successfully adapting to foreign competition for decades. It’s just downright pessimistic to think that the US can’t adopt to this new competition from China and India. The competition from Japan, Taiwan, and Korea did not impoverish the country or take away all the electrical engineering jobs in the country. Far from it. The US continued to experience strong economic growth and boom after boom in the technology field. For example, the standard of living of Americans is far higher than it was a generation ago. </p>
<p>Now to the specific points that were made:</p>
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<p>It means that engineers, just like everybody else, have to adapt their skills and their knowledge base to fit new conditions. But this is nothing new. People have ALWAYS had to adapt to changing conditions to keep themselves from becoming obsolete. For example, any engineer who only knows 10-year-old technology is obsolete. It’s not just engineers. Lawyers have to keep up with changes in the law. For example, if you’re a corporate lawyer, and you don’t know something about the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, then you’re functionally obsolete. If you’re a doctor and you’re not keeping up with the latest medical advances, then you’re going to become obsolete.</p>
<p>As far as specific examples of ways that engineers can adapt to keep themselves viable, one simple way is to incorporate a greater knowledge of business. I can definitely and absolutely see a need for people who have strong engineering skills, but also know how to talk to business managers, finance guys, salesmen, and can basically serve as a nexus point between business and engineering. They will be able to figure out what customers want, what the businessmen want, and what is possible technically. They can then formula technical specifications and designs, and have those designs actually manufactured in Asia. In essence, the engineer then becomes a ‘technical project manager’ - he has an engineering background so he understands what sort of engineering needs to be done. But he’s also in close contact with American business managers, so he can deduce business needs. </p>
<p>As a higher-end corollary to that, it also makes technical entrepreneurship far far easier. For example, let’s say that I have a great technical idea that might form the basis for the next great software or the next great Internet company like Google. I can now get the project off the ground by hiring a bunch of cheap software engineers from India. My engineering education allows me to see what is possible from a technical standpoint. However, it is my technical creativity and my entrepreneurship that allows me to go out and form a viable company. I devise a technical idea, and then I send it off to coders in India to bring it to fruition. I don’t have to do the gruntwork of coding it myself. If the company becomes the next Google, then I become rich because I own the company. </p>
<p>Another very strong route to take is illustrated in the latest copy of Businessweek. Basically, you can go the creative route, in what is known as the ‘Creative Economy’. Basically, you use your technical knowledge to design something that is uniquely appealing to American audiences. The fact is, engineers in China and India don’t know American audiences. Americans know American audiences. Americans have specific styles and tastes that the Chinese and Indians don’t. So asking a Chinese or Indian person to design something that will touch the sensibilities of Americans is not going to be easy for them at all. There is such a thing as an ‘American style’ of design, just like there is such a thing as a British style of design, a Japanese style, an Italian style, etc. </p>
<p>Again, I agree with the general notion that people who refuse to change are obviously going to be left behind. But that’s true of any field. Every field has to adapt to new conditions. If you don’t adapt, you will lose your job, and you deserve to lose your job. The economy of 25 years ago is far different from the economy of today, and that will be different from the economy of the future. The Intel engineers who remained wedded to the DRAM lost their jobs. Those that moved onto microprocessors kept their jobs and became very wealthy from Intel stock options. </p>
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<p>Nah, it has to do more with what kind of job you take, and even more importantly, what you do on your job. Even more importantly, I think it has to do with personal attitudes and personal motivation. Those engineers who just want to narrowly focus on engineering will probably lose out. However, those engineers who make it a point to understand how engineering connects to the greater world will do well. You have to consciously try to read business literature and to expand your intellectual horizons. Engineering no longer sits in a silo, if it ever did. The point is not really to get double-majors or minors. Those are just tactics. The real point is to foster an attitude of greater intellectual flexibility. You have to constantly connect your engineering knowledge to the greater world. If you develop a mental attitude that, yes, you’re an engineer, but you’re more than that. You don’t just see how to do engineering, but you see why you do it, and how it connects to the world, then you will do well.</p>