The Jobs of the Future
I posted on
this recently.
And even more recently the TED lecture rss feed directed me to
this talk by Paul MacCready.
There is one very telling and simple analysis of a very simple slide starting at about 10 Minutes and 15 seconds.
But more than this he tells us a LOT about innovation and new technologies and how they get created. Not by some politician or bureaucrat proclaiming, "Hey we need to decide this is how we fix our energy problems - let's pound billions of dollars into it!"
Seems MacCready responded to prizes and tax incentives, and these seem great drivers, as they can be designed not to try to determine the solution, but simply describe the problem. It seems his prizes were put up privately but it seems to me there is no reason government cannot simply put up prizes.
Sorry, there is ONE reason that is an unlikely direction. Politicians for understandable reasons entirely prefer channeling funding into favorite paths from square one - waiting for the outcome of a competition removes their power to feed their sponsors, who just might lose any fair competition.
As for the video, you also get Alan Alda!
Labels: flight, incentives, jobs of tomorrow
How Does He Think He Will Know?
Iggy
lets Harper know what he has to do next week:
"This budget has three simple tests that it must pass," Ignatieff said. "Will it protect the most vulnerable? Will it save jobs? And most important of all will it create the jobs of tomorrow?"
This sounds lovely, but when confronted with the budget next week, how will he know the answer to any of those questions. I can see vaguely how he might evaluate the first two. "The most vulnerable" is a code-phrase for Liberal constituencies so the Liberals will want to see money channeled to them. "Creating jobs" means enormous government spending in a whole bunch of areas that appear to be otherwise planning to lay people off or are not currently hiring enough to please the Liberals.
But creating the jobs of tomorrow? Does he actually believe he has any idea what they are, other than lots of new jobs in new federal bureaucracies to support programs he wants to set up for his constituencies? In fact the urge to have the government spend like crazy on things that will 'create' jobs real soon now is likely to inhibit and at least delay the creation of the jobs of tomorrow.
Now don't get me wrong. I think Iggy knows this. And when Harper presents his budget, he will likely assert it is creating the jobs of tomorrow, though he knows otherwise, likely much better than Iggy does. After all, Harper has spent most of his energies trying to triangulate like the Liberals of old, and building budgets somewhat incrementally different from what the Liberals would have.
Now as for my personal preference (not my policy recommendation), if you really want my vote, I say commit to keeping all the jobs of yesterday and today in place for five more years. After that, come what may!
Labels: budget, Iggy, jobs of tomorrow, stimulus
