Friedman: Fly Me to the Moon (Oil Prices not Reagan Brought down Russia)

[RamboLiberal]

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/05/opinion/05friedman.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

Of all the irresponsible aspects of the 2005 budget bill that the Republican-led Congress just passed, nothing could be more irresponsible than the fact that funding for the National Science Foundation was cut by nearly 2 percent, or $105 million.

Think about this. We are facing a mounting crisis in science and engineering education. The generation of scientists, engineers and mathematicians who were spurred to get advanced degrees by the 1957 Soviet launch of Sputnik and the challenge by President John Kennedy to put a man on the moon is slowly retiring.

But because of the steady erosion of science, math and engineering education in U.S. high schools, our cold war generation of American scientists is not being fully replenished. We traditionally filled the gap with Indian, Chinese and other immigrant brainpower. But post-9/11, many of these foreign engineers are not coming here anymore, and, because the world is now flat and wired, many others can stay home and innovate without having to emigrate.

If we don't do something soon and dramatic to reverse this "erosion," Shirley Ann Jackson, the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic and president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, told me, we are not going to have the scientific foundation to sustain our high standard of living in 15 or 20 years.

<snip>

"Everyone thinks Ronald Reagan brought down the Soviets," said Mr. Verleger. "That is wrong. It was the collapse of their oil rents." It's no accident that the 1990's was the decade of falling oil prices and falling walls.

[mike_c]

1. it doesn't help to have an administration that is disdainful...

...of intellectualism directly, and indirectly disdainful of the values that foster intellectualism.

[glarius]

2. As I remember it, Gorbechev was instrumental in the end of communism

in the Soviet Union....He had been to England, where Margaret Thatcher talked with him and declared, "we can do business with this man."....Also he had come here to Canada and had toured our country, studying how things were done in a democracy....I think he was ready to democratize his country....Reagan does not deserve the credit he has been given....IMO

[Old and In the Way]

3. Correct....if anything, he could have sabotauged Gorbachev's

reforms by keeping the arms race going.

We are living in "Evening in America"....remember "Morning in America"?

Dimson is busying bankrupting America's future.

[pretzel4gore]

4. interesting thing i read once

concerning the deficit spending of the 60's 70's...the money, for good or ill, went into people, a mad investment that resulted in the 90's with a whole mob of technical adventurers who created internet and the dotcom revolution etc (which didn't necessarily have to go bust in bush's time; had gore taken his rightful place in '00, the clinton era boom might still be going on!)

[Old and In the Way]

5. Internet grew out of DARPA.......

had a friend who worked as a theoretical mathematician who was doing computer research back in the early 80's. He was telling me then how they were sharing data and communicating on computers amongst themselves. It was a transforming technology, no question.

Thing with Reagan was, he wasn't particularly astute and had a rather simplistic notion about the world. I think we were lucky that we didn't screw up detante and undermine the reformers, Like Gorbachov. If we had, I think there were some serious military hardliners in the Soviet Union that would have had no problems starting a 'Red Storm Rising' scenario in Western Europe.

[depakid]

6. Nice piece of rhetoric

Second one in a row for Mr. Friedman-

Of course, the basic prmises- however correct, won't bring about drastically falling oil prices- not with demand rapidly shooting up in Asia. Even so, clever arguments-

How 'bout going for 3 in a row with the next column?

[Briar]

7. Perhaps Bush intends to rely on the power of prayer

"But because of the steady erosion of science, math and engineering education in U.S. high schools, our cold war generation of American scientists is not being fully replenished."

Instead, evangelical Christian teachers are trying to brainwash their kids by smuggling dogma into history lessons, among others.