The Avis EconomyCan we end the recession simply by trying harder?
Posted Tuesday, May 19, 2009, at 5:31 PM ET
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StumbleUponThere are reasons to doubt the utility of an economywide focus on efficiency. Re-engineering corporations for greater efficiency creates jobs for some suppliers and vendors, such as Siemens, but also frequently results in the loss of jobs. More broadly, many of the efficiencies require subsidies, or nudges from the government. And virtually all of them require some significant changes in behavior. It wouldn't be too hard to distribute smart meters to every household in America, but what percentage of the population will actually monitor them and decide to turn down the air conditioning on a sweltering afternoon or run the dishwasher late at night in order to save a few dollars? Despite the obvious benefits, not everybody uses those energy-saving plastic pool covers I love so much. We could all increase the fuel-efficiency of our vehicles by 15 percent simply by eco-driving (or as I like to call it, Boca Driving. Many of the tactics advocated by eco-drivers have already been adopted by older drivers in Florida). But eco-driving can be extremely annoying.
I'd like to make this quest for efficiency a quasi-regular feature of this column. So, for all the economists, eco-freaks, and efficiency experts out there, this is your moment. How much can we gain simply by emulating Avis and trying harder? What are some of the most obvious (and more obscure) efforts that can be broadly applied across the economy? Is the whole idea of efficiency overrated? Let me know your thoughts and suggestions for future topics, which I'll be disseminating on my new Twitter feed: www.twitter.com/grossdm. The most efficient way to do so is by sending an e-mail to: .
Slate V: GM Ads: The Telltale Heartbeat of America
Correction, May 20, 2009: This article misidentified a unit of Siemens America as the business technology group. It's the building technology group. (Return to the corrected sentence.)
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You often hear that the 'Next Big Thing' will be the GRIN technologies. GRIN stands for genomics, robotics, information technology, and nanotechnology. And there may very well be synergistic/symbiotic interactions between these emerging strands of technology, such as bio-chips or microscopic robots, or designer brains. If we'd been working harder on these things all during this decade, instead of building so many damnable McMansions, maybe we'd be in a heckuva technology boom right now.
What we might need to bring this about is more young Americans majoring in the STEM fields---another potent acronym for you. STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. [You know, the hard subjects...] Most of our graduate students in these areas are foreign students, usually heavily subsidized by their governments. Those foreign governments seem to have a better sense of what is valuable, and what is more likely to generate economic growth, than we do. We have plenty of students majoring in medieval French romantic poetry, or in recreational forestry. Maybe Newt Gingrich was right in suggesting that we should be bribing our good math and science students. That seems to be what other countries are doing.
And, oh yeah, back in 1992, I know of one guy who was talking about the Internet a lot.
His name was Al Gore.
Wonder where we'd be today if Al Gore had become President in 2000...........
-- LeRoy_Was_Here
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The best way to get American students to study science? Make sure there are jobs for them after they graduate. I can't speak about other science fields, but I'm an organic chemist, and I've just about given up on science. I was laid off three times in the last six years. Most of my former coworkers have similar stories - one layoff after another, moving from city to city to find work, even though we all have graduate degrees in science. Most of them have either left science or are considering it. Meanwhile, my college friends who majored in poetry or basket weaving went to work on Wall Street and are driving BMW's. Or at least got nice, stable jobs and live in nice, stable houses. They aren't moving from city to city, trying to find a job at a biotech that will last more than a year or two.
-- kwheless
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