Beyond "techno-fetichism & -nationalism": God Bless America´s Venturesome Consumers

I came across a refreshing article in the Economics Focus column of this Friday´s issue of the opinion-shaping, free-market, weekly, British magazine The Economist.

Amar Bidhé, a Professor of entrepreneurship at Columbia University´s business school, explained in a recent paper why mushrooming alarming reports stating that the US economy will suffer from a shortcoming of engineering graduates are mistaken.

Bidhé distinguishes upstream (R&D offsprings, inventions) and downstream (a service or product) innovations, and demonstrates that good managers, able for instance to bring a patent to the market, matter as much if not more than good engineers. Bidhé also advocates the Wal Mart case, striking a positive opinion about a company that has optimized its operational processes (downstream innovation) to lower prices and attract more consumers.

I recommend you to read Bidhé´s paper as well as The Economist´s column, which ends with Amar Bidhé´s main idea: there is no added value without a transaction, and since American consumers often lead the use of innovation products & services, the more innovation in China & India, the better for the United States. Consumers, not technologists, reap off the benefits of innovation. Hence the whole point of the demonstration: "America´s policymakers should worry more about how to keep consumers consuming than about the number of science and engineering graduates, at home or in the East" (source: The Economist).