American innovation
Posted here Sunday, March 07, 2004 at 9:32:36 AM 
But
THE SECRET OF OUR SAUCE
By Thomas L. Friedman
New York Times
March 7, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/07/opinion/07FRIE.html
Yamini Narayanan is an Indian-born 35-year-old with a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Oklahoma. After graduation, she worked for a U.S.
computer company in Virginia and recently moved back to Bangalore with her husband to be closer to family. When I asked her how she felt about the outsourcing of jobs from her adopted country, America, to her native country, India, she responded with a revealing story:
"I just read about a guy in America who lost his job to India and he made a T-shirt that said, `I lost my job to India and all I got was this [lousy] T-shirt.' And he made all kinds of money." Only in America, she said, shaking her head, would someone figure out how to profit from his own unemployment. And that, she insisted, was the reason America need not fear outsourcing to India: America is so much more innovative a place than any other country.
The problem is, most third world countries have group solidarity and craft traditions that we lack. Our tech world has floated on top of a rural and urban underclass that for many lacks these tradtions. Also, rising expectations, going from 3 to ten dollars a day, is much easier to live with and more energizing than going from 150 a day to eighty. And we have a looong way to go.
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