Gut Sarbanes, Lower Corporate Taxes, Insure Everyone!
Leave it to the former chair of one of the world’s top tech companies to lay out a highly disruptive approach to ending the Great Recession.
Former Intel honcho Craig Barrett offered five steps when asked (by New York Times columnist Tom Friedman) how the U.S. could and should emerge from the global economic downturn:
1) Require every state to benchmark their education standards against the best in the world, not the state next door;
2) Double the budgets for basic scientific research at the National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology;
3) Lower the corporate tax rate;
4) Revamp Sarbanes-Oxley so that it is easier to start a small business; and
5) Find a cost-effective way to extend health care to every American.
Friedman’s comments on Barrett’s insights are available here. They’re worth a look – it’s not often that the steps described above are produced by a single “processor.” ###
July 6th, 2009 at 7:06 pm
You skipped Barrett’s most intriguing proposal, Eric - refusing a driving license to any kid who doesn’t get a high school diploma. That sure gets my vote!
Why does Barrett assume hard science and technology are the keys to a culture of innovation that can hold its own against global competitors? They’re not. New low-cost contenders will challenge our dominance in those areas. R&D is going to be offshored by the boatload in the next couple of decades along with just about any kind of analytic/transactional/information-based work you can think of. I think Daniel H. Pink has got it right (A Whole New Mind: Why Right Brainers will rule the Future) — success in the emerging Conceptual Age will have to be based on right-brain qualities like design, story and empathy.
Leave a Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment:
Register Here or Log in Here.