Boeing and U.S. get used to it!

Last week when I heard the outcome of the bidding for the new in air fuel tanker I was outraged that it didn’t go to Boeing but to a consortium of Northrop Grumman and EADS. I thought “how could the U.S. Air Force select a foreign developed Airbus airframe for its’ in air filling station.” Then I thought about the decision along with the sobering statistics regarding engineering and math educated professionals in the United States I began to understand how the decision could have occurred. The United States talent pool of engineers and mathematicians (although skilled) is not currently sufficient to spur technological development let alone keep pace with the number of skilled people leaving the workforce to retirement. Microsoft and others have begun locating development facilities in other countries to make use of the greater number of trained individuals and less xenophobic immigration policies. If WE continue to close our doors to immigration and not promote social policies that help talented individuals go onto higher education then we risk America’s status of innovator and economic power. 90% of the worlds engineers already reside in Asia, South Korea (17% of the US population) graduates as many engineers from college every year as the United States, and with the United States ranking lower than most industrial nations in 12^th grade math and science skills it is not surprising we are losing opportunities to our foreign competitors because we lack the talent to innovate.