First of all, how long has the sky been falling, and when do I need to duck?

>His employees are losing their jobs because a plant in American cannot compete against a plant in a 3rd world country. 99+% of the textile jobs have been exported. Labor is the most expensive part of any corporation's budget. $20-30/hr, 40 hrs + bennies can't compete against $3-10/day, 70hrs with no bennies. So much for NAFTA and competition.

So, you think that his company would not be in a much better financial position had he patented the Polartec process? He seemed to indicate otherwise in the interview. In the GE example I cited with Jim Nelson, the company was still willing to produce the refrigerators here, and still pay the American workers more than the Mexicans. The cost of labor is not the only factor.

>If the TimeLine predictions are as accurate in the future as they have been in the past you will soon learn what it is like to live on $7/hr in a society that requires about $12-15/hr just to break even.
>(WP106.PDF at bt.com -
>computers that write their own software - 2005
>Software trained rather than written - 2006 bot on page 5)

I remember this same debate when wizards were created that would write software. We were all going to lose out jobs. Let me guess: the computer of tomorrow will read your mind and produce high quality software that caters to your every whim. Wonderful! Now, who is going to write the software to do that? Let me guess: an offshore programmer.

>"In the age of interconnected computers, software plays an essential and ubiquitous role in the way computers, people, businesses, countries, etc., communicate with each other. Industrial property on software thus leads to monopoly lock-ins in the way people communicate. To computer professionals, software patents are as dreadful as if someone had patents on part of the English language (or whichever language they use). It prevents not only innovation, but the use of computers at all, and leads to proprietary systems from big monopolies that few can use, and that no one can innovate upon.

And if he had gotten the patent, his employees would probably not be facing losing their jobs. How wonderful for him. He stood by his principals, and now he can relax in one of his summer homes thinking that he did the right thing. Maybe he will invite all his employees, who may lose their houses if the company goes under, to live with him. I am sure they would all enjoy having a place to live, be fed every day, etc.

>Patents induce such a technological stagnation in the computer industry that it is almost visible. Software engineers constantly curse the way they must conform to proprietary protocols that are not well documented (if at all), misdesigned (often with gross mistakes that peer review would have immediately eliminated), that they cannot improve upon, that exist in a wealth of gratuitously incompatible variants, and with which they must stay compatible for decades and decades. The field of computer development is thus filled with junk, that accumulates with time, and that no one has the right to clean, least he becomes incompatible with the others. Every patent on a successful software program or technique is an obstacle to the whole industry, that remains until it expires; even the holder, when he wants to improve his previous technique, finds himself faced with the inertia of a whole industry that adapted to his own junk, contorting either to interface to it, or to work around it.

Proprietary protocols? You mean like XML and SOAP? Or Java?

>Thus, the specific effect of patents in the software industry is to make software development and computer communication slower, more complex, more expensive. The amount of money, computer hardware, developer time, user time, etc., that is wasted and could be saved by removing protectionist barriers is so insanely high as to give vertigo to anyone.
>
>If the patent system is thus detrimental to everyone, why does it survive? What are the forces that keep it in place? It is the greed of a whole class of parasites who have learnt to extract a rent out of this dreadful institution. "
>
>http://fare.tunes.org/articles/patents.html

>That's a moot issue. The idea of a patent conflicts with his view of corporate ethics, current patent fiascos, and level playing fields.

I think I remember him saying in the 60 Minutes interview that not getting a patent was probably a mistake. Which was it? A mistake or a man holding to his principals?

>But becoming rare because honest businesses can not compete well against dishonest one, how use illegal and/or immoral methods to gain financial/business advantages. It would be like you, as a consultant who reports all of his income and pays taxes on it, competing against one who does not, and low-balls because he can afford to.

And look what happened to Enron? While the executives certainly made out big, how many of them have been shamed for life? Not to mention facing possible criminal charges. And Arthur Anderson? Last I heard that were losing clients left and right, also possibly facing criminal charges, and looking for a buyer.

>"The irony is that this is false inflation because it is generated by a breakdown in accounting rules that have inflated equity values in a narrow sector of the economy, what one could call the pyramid.

And the American economy and American companies will adapt. There is not a savy company in this country that is not taking a hard look at its accounting practices, and not an accounting company that isn't taking a harder look.

>Many of these same firms also provide a 401K match in company stock which is similarly printed on the equivalent of a photo copy machine. These benefits are given equal weight to those employers who make a cash matching contribution to the 401K. Parish & Company does not have complete data but it does seem clear that offering a 401K match exclusively in company stock is a significant related distortion yet to be addressed. This is penalizing private employers and public firms that make a more honest cash matching contribution to these plans. It has also triggered the wave of conversions to "cash balance" pension plans. "
>
>http://www.billparish.com/20000622fedsecletter.html

Could not reach the site above.

After reading what you and Jim have written, I am amazed there are still companies left in America! I woke up this morning thinking I would see our highways filled with Mexican moving trucks moving all our manufacturing machines south of the border.

On a further note, since you, Jim, and I are all in the computer field, how many jobs have we cut by producing software that does the work people use to do?