It’s amazing to think that the financial bailout (if you want to call it that, and it seems an increasingly and sadly accurate term) of $700 billion dollars is about seven times the size of the US software industry. SEVEN TIMES. Gone in the blink of an eye.
What that says to me is that the money people, and the politicians whom they lobby, have way too much say in what happens in our world. The old adage is that “the people who manage people manage the people who manage things, but the people who manage money manage the people who manage people.” However, I don’t think I’ve ever seen the technologist class screw up as badly, or with such disastrous consequences, as the current crop of financial executives and politicians. Politics may be too important to leave up to politicians, and finance is too important to leave up to financial types. Between those two groups, they just cost us the equivalent of seven software industries. It really is mind-boggling.
So why don’t we have any computer pros in politics? We could sure use them. They think logically, they’re focused on making things work, often with limited budgets, and they are open to new ideas. Our Congress is filled with lawyers; maybe it’s time a few computer experts got in there, because the lawyers sure aren’t getting it done.
My modest proposal? Write the new president and suggest a new cabinet position: Secretary of Information Technology. We’re going to need some smart computer people to pull out of the mess we’re in, and getting one of them into the president’s cabinet would be a good start.
Well, as Dennis Miller used to say back in the days when he was funny (!), that’s just my opinion, and I could be wrong. Next time it’s back to Server 2008 topics. There’s a lot to discuss!
Recent posts
