The US emphasis on security and the likely war on Saddam Hussein, combined with other trends and factors, create a real risk that the US's starring role in international technology will end. I assume that's soon.
On the one hand, we're discouraging foreigners from coming to the US, even though foreign-born entrepreneurs and engineers and scientists have played a premier role in US technological advancement.
On the other hand, we're driving innovation out of the country. --Governmental policies favor incumbents. For example, the President says that the end to taxation of dividends will end our recession, even though the companies that pay dividends are established companies, not innovators.
--Government buying appears to favor Microsoft, despite anti-competitive behavior, even though open-source software comes from small businesses and offers the promise of lower costs.
--In the biotech area, for example, we're letting all the cloning research go abroad. The US won't be the leading healthcare nation when other nations perform life-saving cloning, and the US doesn't even have the facilities to compete or to teach the methods.
--In response to Worldcom, Enron and Tyco, the costs of capital-raising in the US public markets rises inexorably. Foreigners are likely to find ways to raise capital to disruptive-technology businesses in cheaper ways than the US is able to offer. Innovation is going to come from China or Israel or Singapore or India or some other place that doesn't discourage exports of advanced products.
--Newspapers have, in the wake of the loss of the Columbia with all aboard, talked about the loss of technical prowess at NASA. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/18/national/nationalspecial/18EROD.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/13/national/nationalspecial/13SHUT.html
--Congress seems captivated by Hollywood, rather than by Silicon Valley in the copyright wars.
If Congress really believed in the information economy, if Congress accepted internet speed, if Congress wanted the US to be foremost in technology, rather than war, then Congress would be pressing to find ways to emphasize and benefit innovation in the US economy.
http://www.fortune.com/fortune/fastforward/0,15704,424088,00.html
11:10:02 PM 
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