愈来愈多人叹息着‘美国梦’的美好愿景不再。事实上,在电子行业的社群中,这种情况已经存在许多年了。几星期前,雅虎财经(Yahoo Finance)公布了一项针对1,500位18~64岁的美国民众所做的调查,揭露了一些令人不安的结果。调查显示,大约有53%的受访民众仍将美国视为充满希望的国度;但也有41%的人表示他们感到美国梦遥不可及。
‘美国梦’这个名词代表着只要认真工作和拥有创新的思想,任何人都能够在美国得到很好的发展,而这也是构成这个国家的重要因素。但如今,这个概念似乎受到了来自许多方面的挑战。
一项由纽约人寿保险公司(New York Life Insurance Co.,)在今年五月所做的调查,也反映了类似的悲观看法。纽约人寿针对1,001位美国成人民众进行调查,发现仅有41%身为父母的受访者表示,他们相信他们的孩子将拥有比父母更好的生活。
我有预感,这些结果有可能会被目前的一些社会运动用来左证他们的看法。雅虎财经的调查也发现,63%的受访者认为经济正在恶化(其中55岁以上占72%)。
“占领华尔街”示 威者聚集在大本营纽约祖可蒂公园(Zuccotti Park)。
资料来源:David Shankbone, Wikimedia CommonsYLJesmc
美 国经济已经历连续四年的不景气,失业率居高不下。这个国家现在面临着巨大的预算赤字,国债也达到惊人的新高,但我们仍不断听到政府准备编列预算的讯息。更 糟的是,官员们不但没有齐心协力解决这些问题,反而各自选边站,忙着从事政治活动和为下次的选举做准备。雅虎财经的调查发现,仅有四分之一的民众相信奥巴马总统和国会有能力解决金融危机。
梦想不全然美丽,不是吗?事实上,多年来我们不断听有美国经济形势已经糟糕到甚至比大萧条还差的地步。在这样的背景下,雅虎财经的调查结果并没有完全反应民众目前对‘美国梦’的悲观情绪,这才叫奇迹。
然 而,自1860年以来,基本上每隔十年左右,美国就遭受到不同程度的经济衰退。虽然自2008年开始的大衰退(Great Recession)被公认为比其它的衰退都更严重(因而命名为Great Recession),但我觉得,雅虎财经若在过去美国每一次面临衰退时进行调查,大概都会得到类似的悲观水准。若时光倒流回失业率约在10%左右的 1982年,由雅虎财经进行调查,我猜结果也可能和今天相去不远。
把时间拉回到2000年后期网络泡沫前,当时的柯林顿总统在向国会和美国人民报告的国情咨文中提到美国的强大将会持续,我敢说你会发现当时许多人对美国梦都抱着乐观的看法。
本文下一页:占领运动
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然 而,尽管如此,雅虎财经的调查结果事实上是由更多其它复杂因素共同构成,这当中也包含了一些社会运动。过去几星期以来,几乎每一个主要的美国城市,都被不 满的美国民众‘占领’,这些走上街头的民众认为,过去30年来他们的工资停滞不前,但约占美国人1%的金字塔顶端族群平均收入却成长了275%。目前,这 些占领行动(已延烧到美国以外的几个国家)都仍在进行中。
我们很难明确去描述占领运动的示 威者们的真正诉求。但显然,他们觉得自己受到了不公平的对待。就像美国知名歌手Stephen Stills的名言:“这里是发生了一些事。但还不清楚究竟是怎幺一回事。”
若从过去几年来美国版《电子工程专辑》的论坛响应来看,你可能会认为‘美国梦’对工程领域来说是一个早已不存在的说法。美国的工程师们经常哀叹工作机会外流,他们感到被牺牲,抱怨受到年龄歧视,而且明确表态他们将奉劝子女别再当工程师。
不 过,仅以电子工程领域的论坛为基础,可能无法精确掌握工程社群的脉动。这些意见反馈不一定能反映所有美国电子工程师的现况。应该有工程师仍过着幸福和快乐 的日子,他们也对美国未来的工程前景感到乐观。这些人一定都潜水在美国版电子工程专辑论坛中,只不过属于‘沉默的大多数’而已。
然而,在这个国家中,工程师的未来看起来还是要比20年前灿烂许多。多年来,创新精神开创了许多崭新的科技领域,为这个产业提供了许多振奋人心的商机。不过,现在这些机会显然都出现在低成本和生活水准较低的地方,因为这些地方对薪水的要求也比较低。
编译: Joy Teng
本文授权编译自EE Times,版权所有,谢绝转载
参考英文原文: Engineering and the American Dream,by Dylan McGrath
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Engineering and the American Dream
Dylan McGrath
A couple of weeks ago, Yahoo Finance circulated some disturbing results from a survey it conducted of 1,500 Americans between the ages of 18 and 64. While a majority of those surveyed—53 percent—said they still viewed America as the land of opportunity, a full 41 percent said they felt the American Dream was out of reach.
The American Dream—that idea that through hard work and innovation anyone can prosper in the U.S.—is a critical component of our national fabric. But the concept appears to be under threat on multiple fronts.
Results of a similar survey conducted by New York Life Insurance Co., released in May, reflect similar pessimism. That survey of 1,001 U.S. adults found that only 41 percent of responding parents believe their children will have a higher standard of living than their parents.
I have a hunch that these results are partially skewed by the undercurrent of negativity running through current events. Indeed, the Yahoo Finance survey found that 63 percent of respondents believe the economy is getting worse (including 72 percent of respondents over 55).
Occupy Wall Street protestors march in New York's Zuccotti Park.
Source: David Shankbone, Wikimedia Commons.
The U.S. economy has been sluggish at best for going on four years now, and unemployment remains stubbornly high. As a nation we have been running huge budget deficits, adding to a an already staggering national debt, and we keep hearing that there is going to be a reckoning. To make matters worse, rather than working together to address the issues, our national elected officials have completely failed to provide leadership, choosing instead to use their positions to advance their political ideologies and prepare for the next election. The Yahoo Finance survey found that only about one-quarter of the public is confident that President Obama and Congress can fix the financial crisis.
Not exactly a rosy picture, is it? Indeed, we have been hearing for years that the economic situation in the U.S. is as bad or worse than it has been since the Great Depression. Against this backdrop, it's a wonder that the Yahoo Finance survey did not reflect even greater pessimism about the state of the American Dream.
But the U.S. has basically been hit by recessions of varying degrees near the beginning of every decade since the 1860s. While the Great Recession that began in 2008 was admittedly more severe than most (hence the name), I have a hunch that if the Yahoo Finance survey were conducted during any of these periods it would find similar levels of pessimism. Were the Yahoo Finance surveyors to go back in time and conduct the survey in, for example, early 1982, with unemployment in the neighborhood of 10 percent, my guess is it would find just as much despair about the state of the American Dream as exists today.
Flash forward to late to 2000, just before the dot com bubble deflated in earnest, when President Clinton told Congress and the American people that the state of the union was "the strongest it has ever been," and I'd venture to say you'd find a lot more people feeling pretty upbeat about the American Dream.
Occupy this
Still, there are other factors that put more context around the Yahoo Finance survey results. Over the past several weeks, virtually every sizeable American city has been "occupied" by throngs of disgruntled citizens who identify themselves as among the vast majority of Americans who have seen their wages stagnate over the past 30 years while the incomes of America's top 1 percent of earners have grown by an average of 275 percent. Many of these occupations—which are not limited only to the U.S.—remain ongoing.
What exactly the occupy movement protesters want is difficult to pin down. But it's clear that they feel they've gotten a raw deal. In the immortal words of Stephen Stills, "There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear."
Judging from the comments in the EE Times Forum over the past several years, you'd think that the American Dream is a long dead concept as it applies to engineering. U.S. engineers who weigh in on various subjects frequently bemoan the movement of engineering jobs overseas, complain of feeling expendable and discriminated against based on age, and state in no uncertain terms that they do or will steer their children away from pursuing a career in engineering.
But taking the pulse of the engineering community based on the memorable Forum comments doesn't provide a complete picture. The comments of a vocal few don't necessarily represent the feelings of all EEs in the U.S. There are undoubtedly many engineers who are quite happy and prosperous and feel excited about the future prospects for engineering in America. It's possible that this position accounts for the "silent majority" of EEs in the United States.
Still, it's hard to believe that the future for engineers in this country seems brighter than it did, say, 20 years ago. Since that time, innovation has created whole new fields of technology and many exciting possibilities and opportunities. But, clearly, many of those opportunities are now found in places with lower costs and standards of living, and thus lower salary requirements.
责编:Quentin