Letters to the Editor
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Wake up
The US government subsidizes multitudes of industries, not only in padded contracts to Boeing (re Sunspot) but also real subsidies, veiled handouts, beneficial legislation and, yes, tax breaks to the auto industry, gas and oil, corporate agriculture, etc. The power of 'The State' is alive and well in Washington, promoting certain legacy industries while ignoring, blocking and starving upcoming others. (alternative energy, software, environmental science, advanced medical research, etc.)
My question is if, for example, the congress wanted to save programming jobs from going to Pakistan, et al. (what? oh, already gone) couldn't they have turned their largesse towards Silicon Valley and funded math and science programs, given startups some tax breaks, something else? Could it be because the legacy industrial base has started to take government support for granted, even feel entitled to it? Could this be the whole source of the myopic long range planning of so many of these dinosaurs, the guaranteed support? Just wondering.