Intel’s President and COO Paul Otellini spoke to the Western Governors in Santa Fe Monday about the real world.
Intel is one of our most progressive corporations and its top executives, no fools. So I want to relay what Mr. Otellini said. First, though, please think a little about the free market and how often you have heard that wondrous things are possible if big, bad government will leave business alone. Got it?
Thanks. Now let’s turn to the Albuquerque Journal story of Tuesday, June 22.
Mr. Otellini told the state leaders that it makes no sense to clamp down on outsourcing by limiting incentives and contracts to companies that send jobs overseas. Rather, he said, Americans need to support:
1. More government basic research
2. More corporate R&D
3. Improved education, and
4. Upgraded communications networks.
Let’s take them one-by-one.
Federal funding for basic research, he said, has flat-lined. And that is "the seed corn for the developments of the future."
He also called for tax incentives for companies like Intel, presumably so they can invest more in R&D.
As for education, Otellini said government needs to improve math and science teaching, in particular. He emphasized training teachers better.
Finally, he said, the country must upgrade communications infrastructure. Like high-speed Internet connections.
Now I don’t know who is supposed to pay for that broadband and Andrew Webb’s story did not go into it.
But all the rest – federal funding for basic research, tax incentives for corporations and better schooling require government investment. (My tax money, and yours.)
So the free market doesn’t mean, it turns out, that government has no role. According to the Intel chief, it means public subsidies. In his view, necessary public subsidies.
That is the real world. That is our economic system. We subsidize big business and sometimes, medium-sized business. So the next time you hear some character extolling the virtues of the free market, ask him what he’s talking about. Most likely, what he wants is a subsidy. By "free market," he means give me the money with no strings attached.
PS Once in a long while, you will meet a real entrepreneur, a guy who has gone his own way, jumped off a cliff or two hoping to fly, a guy powered by a dream and, maybe, what his relatives threw into the pot.
This guy practices free enterprise. He may fail. Gutsy.