Gary Shapiro2009-11-27T21:03:33-05:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=gary-shapiroCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Gary ShapiroGood old fashioned elbow grease.Reflections on Lou Dobbs' Turbulent Departuretag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.3565922009-11-13T08:59:34-05:002009-11-13T11:29:46-05:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/announced his resignation from CNN this week, terminating his reported multi-year contract with the cable network. I have been calling publicly for months for CNN to stop putting Dobbs on the air, so I think it worthwhile to reflect for a moment on why his resignation was the right decision.
Although some have decried CNN's censorship of a self-labeled opinionated voice, I reject that notion. First and foremost, I am a champion of the First Amendment. The Media Institute, a non-profit organization that includes CNN and many other major news outlets as supporters, recently honored me with their annual First Amendment award for my work in championing free speech.
I believe free speech includes the right to be heard, but not everyone has a right to his or her own television show. Lou Dobbs exploited his position as a news anchor with his own nightly show and used it as a platform to advance his xenophobic and anti-business agenda. Now that he has lost that platform, he can pitch an op-ed as readily as anyone else can - and indeed his opinions belong somewhere other than on a serious news network.
What I found most troubling about CNN's nightly airing of Dobbs' opinions and rants was the fact that CNN was carried on screens in our nation's airports. Why, I wondered, did airport managers force Americans, our overseas guests, and airline workers to watch the worst face of America?
Lou Dobbs was on at prime time for one hour every weekday on CNN, and CNN is on in 48 major airports in more than 2,000 passenger-waiting areas across America. CNN claims that more than 223 million people are exposed to its programming in American airports each year.
What did they see and hear? Dobbs railing against minorities and immigrants so much that outraged Hispanic groups formally challenged CNN. Dobbs seeking to block trade with other countries and insulting our best trading partners. Dobbs exaggerating the proportion of illegal immigrants in jails and giving air time to a white supremacist. Most significantly, what we got each day was not news, but Dobbs' opinions.
Dobbs was an opinionated bully and he used his one-hour daily forum to espouse his own brand of nastiness to those who do not look like him or have his American lineage.
Again, I believe passionately in the First Amendment. Dobbs has the right to his views, as repugnant as I find them, and CNN certainly had the right to air Dobbs. But what I objected to most was the quasi-government agencies - airports - making money by agreeing to expose those views to Americans and our international guests.
The American Association of Airport Executives ethical code is replete with bars on partisan activity and taking public policy prerogatives from the government entities that own the airports. I'm glad that Dobbs' departure from CNN means that those ethics no longer need to be translated to action. But there is still a lesson for the future in the fact that Dobbs was allowed in our airports at all.
CNN took the most trusted brand in objective news coverage and polluted it with the opinions of Lou Dobbs. No more could CNN claim to be the objective source of news it was when airports first started showing CNN in 1992.
Now that CNN has finally acted to get anti-immigrant, racist and protectionist xenophobe Lou Dobbs out of our airports and off its airwaves, this once well-regarded news outlet has an opportunity to reclaim its mantle.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
]]>Dear FCC, Please Don't Let Hollywood Break My TVtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.3551912009-11-12T09:47:23-05:002009-11-12T16:00:10-05:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/
By the end of the hearing, Committee leaders did not appear convinced that such analog connections on TV sets were in fact leading to piracy. In fact, as the transcript of the hearing reveals, Committee Chairman Arlen Specter challenged the head of the MPAA, Dan Glickman, to provide evidence in support of the alleged problem:
Chairman Specter. Mr. Glickman, lots of information about piracy from you and from the Department of Justice, but can you quantify any direct connection between piracy and the analog hole?
Mr. Glickman. We have just completed a major study called the LE case study which estimates that our companies lose about $6.1 billion a year in piracy, and as part of that--
Chairman Specter. OK. I mean from analog--I have only got 5 minutes.
Mr. Glickman. OK, $1 to $1.5 billion in what we call noncommercial copying of movies for family and friends. We believe a big part of that is due to the analog hole.
Chairman Specter. How do you arrive at the figure of $1.5 billion?
Mr. Glickman. The firm did worldwide and national piracy study focus groups. The methodology we considered to be quite good.
Chairman Specter. Well, let me ask you to supplement your answer with the specifics as to how you come to that conclusion.
Mr. Glickman. Sure, be glad to.
Chairman Specter. We would like to see the methodology because before we really tackle the problem, we want to know--before we really look for a solution, we would like to have a specification of the problem.
Mr. Glickman. We will get you that, Senator.
And what of that methodology that MPAA's Glickman said was "quite good"? It turns out it wasn't quite so good. Rather than provide the evidence requested by Congress, the MPAA was forced to confess that due to "human error" they "got the math wrong" and were unable to properly quantify piracy "losses" from analog TV connections. Forced to admit the much-ballyhooed study exaggerated the losses due to piracy, the MPAA repudiated its own analysis.
Now, having failed to make its case to the Senate, the MPAA is back - this time, before the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) - asking permission to disable lawfully purchased HDTV-capable TVs. Using an obscure procedural mechanism, MPAA is asking the FCC for authority to use "selectable output control" (SOC) to shut off TVs that do not use the motion-picture industry's preferred digital connections. (Again for the non-engineers, SOC allows content providers to shut off the video stream to any TV that is receiving content over a non-favored connection, such as analog.)
The procedural vehicle may be different, but one thing remains the same - MPAA is still unable to show any evidence of piracy through analog outputs. That is because this type of piracy largely does not exist. Most movie piracy occurs before the studios release the movies on home video, much of it through the motion picture studios and their contractors - a fact that studios hide.
Indeed, some movie studio officials concede publicly that the biggest source of movie piracy is the old-fashioned video camera concealed by a movie patron under a coat. By the time a movie is being shown on cable TV, the file-sharing horse has left the barn. And so some forward-thinking studios, proving they don't agree with the industry's piracy argument, have begun releasing some films to video-on-demand even before DVD.
Given that at least some in Hollywood acknowledge their piracy argument makes no sense, why is the MPAA focusing its vast lobbying resources on this issue and trying to get the FCC to give them the right to shut off millions of TVs? The reason is that this is not about piracy, but about control of your TV. With the ability to turn off your TV at will, the studios gain veto power over TV design and the viewer's TV experience. If they are successful, viewers will only be able to watch movies when, where and how Hollywood says.
If the MPAA gets its way and the FCC grants its wish, then 25 million lawful TV viewers who rely on analog interfaces would be subject to being shut off by Hollywood. Millions of Americans could no longer be sure the technology they purchased in good faith would continue to be fully functional.
If the FCC grants Hollywood the power to turn off analog inputs soon they will return asking for permission to unilaterally disable other features and functions. This is bad for anyone thinking of buying a new product, or who bought something in the past thinking it would work a certain way.
As flimsy as Hollywood's case appears, don't underestimate the power of the MPAA. They are a Washington powerhouse, and they have retained a fleet of DC's top lobbyists to walk the halls of the Commission on this very issue.
This approach has paid off for MPAA in the past, but things may be different this time. The new FCC Chair has declared that this Commission's decisions would be guided by data, not which pleading industry had the most political heft.
Indeed, the FCC's new leader vowed to make this the most data-driven FCC in history. Now he faces his first test: a powerful, politically connected industry is asking for permission to inconvenience millions of consumers, without offering a shred of evidence that the result will reduce piracy.
We will soon learn whether the "new FCC" is a reality. We hope they understand that to take away the consumer's ability to shift lawfully acquired content based on the speculation and whims of the MPAA is bad policy. That is why every major consumer group is on record opposing it. That is why we oppose it.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
]]>American Exporters Bleeding to Death as Trade Deals Languishtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.3468552009-11-05T10:23:46-05:002009-11-05T10:29:36-05:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/ climbs toward 10 percent and the economy faces a lengthy and uncertain recovery process, Congress and the last two administrations have caved to political pressures by protecting domestic firms and jobs with taxpayer money. Throughout history, when times are tough, the government almost always feels the tug to embrace protectionism and limit global trade. But what is ironic about this need to achieve short-term gains is that it hurts our long-term interests.
When it comes to international trade, the detriments run sky high, and the government's failure to remove costly trade barriers and open new markets for U.S. goods and services is a ticking time bomb for many American companies, particularly small businesses.
For more than two years, Congress has let languish three trade agreements that the U.S. government has negotiated with South Korea, Colombia and Panama. By not passing these agreements, the U.S. government is not only missing out on an immediate economic stimulus to this country - possibly as many as 380,000 jobs - but it is also hurting our nation's global competitiveness.
Indeed, the World Economic Forum (WEF) reported recently that the United States has lost its place as the world's most competitive nation to Switzerland, while Canada, India, Brazil and China all experienced gains. International trade, WEF explained in its annual report, is a key component to measuring competitiveness:
"In today's highly interdependent world, recovery from the present downturn will require that countries increase the amount of goods that they purchase from each other, thus spurring demand. Further lowering barriers to trade would support this process."
While the U.S. government has been slow to put in motion this core economic principle that trade leads to growth, the European Union (E.U.) and Canada have fully embraced it as critical to their own recovery strategies - to the further detriment of U.S. competitiveness.
On October 15, the E.U. and South Korea signed one of the largest bilateral trade agreements ever negotiated. In 2008, two-way trade in goods between the two already totaled about $97.1 billion. Furthermore, the E.U.-Korea deal will immediately eliminate more than $2.3 billion in tariffs paid by European exporters and resolve market barriers in the telecommunications, financial and legal services industries.
The trade deal is just one measure of the European Union's continual efforts to strengthen its competitiveness. With a final signature received on November 3, all E.U. member states have now ratified the Lisbon Treaty, which will enter into force on December 1. This treaty will streamline decisions made in the E.U., including on trade issues, and will require consensus only from its governing body, rather than all 27 member states.
Meanwhile, Canada has signed a comprehensive trade deal with Colombia that is expected to receive speedy ratification by its House of Commons. Statistics Canada, the government's statistical research arm, reported this year that Canada's exports to Latin America grew nearly three times more than U.S. exports to the region. The Colombia trade agreement is expected to further boost growth.
As the E.U. and Canada forge ahead with trade agreements with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, it's U.S. consumers and exporters who are being hurt financially. Take Colombia as a powerful example of the lost opportunity. The third largest market in South America, Colombia's economy has experienced explosive growth, on average seven percent annually, over the past four years. The U.S. International Trade Commission reports that the U.S.-Colombia trade agreement would boost the U.S. GPD by $2.5 billion and save U.S. exporters as much as $2 million a day by eliminating existing tariffs.
The E.U. and Canada trade deals will help them succeed at increasing their global market share. Meanwhile, the U.S. government, by its simple failure to take action on trade, is slowly tightening the rope around the hands of American companies and their employees.
This inaction is all the more frustrating because President Obama and U.S. Trade Representative Ron Kirk have spoken positively on trade and pointed to its key role in reviving the economy and creating U.S. jobs. On September 14, speaking in New York, President Obama explained:
"A healthy economy in the 21st century also depends on our ability to buy and sell goods in markets across the globe. And make no mistake, this administration is committed to pursuing expanded trade and new trade agreements. It is absolutely essential to our economic future."
The president's words versus the government's dormancy on trade leaves me puzzled. At this critical junction in our economy, Americans need more than symbolism - they need government action. We are ready for the White House to translate promises into achievements. Oratory alone does not boost U.S. exports, lift the GDP and create jobs. Those policy successes will require President Obama and Ambassador Kirk to implement a trade policy that gets American back on track.
The first step would be for the U.S. Trade Representative to move forward on its trade agenda revealed earlier this year. For months, the trade office has told us they are "evaluating" the benefits and gathering public comments on the Colombia, Panama and South Korea. This evaluation period will supposedly enable the White House to establish "benchmarks" they say are needed before they can make a recommendation to Congress.
What the administration even means by "benchmarks" still remains nebulous, but the comments submitted on the pending agreements show a groundswell of public support. For the South Korean agreement, of the 342 public comments submitted, 296 were positive with more than 90 percent in favor of passage.
With each day that passes, American exporters are slowly bleeding to death as they wait for genuine leadership on trade to emerge from their government and a coherent trade policy, negotiated years ago with Colombia, Panama and South Korea, to be put in place.
If our elected officials are serious about enacting policies that will help the United States recover from this deep and painful recession, America must once again lead the charge to reduce export barriers around the world. Another stimulus package that will only add to the federal deficit will not suffice. Rather, history and simple economics have proven that trade works. Trade spurs innovation, creates good-paying domestic jobs, and boosts exports.
The Obama administration must stop trying to assuage party constituencies and instead demonstrate definitive leadership on an issue of utmost importance for America's future and global strength.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
]]>Innovation in America: An Autobahn, or a Suburban Street With Speed Bumps?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.3435102009-11-03T09:35:39-05:002009-11-04T19:03:20-05:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/
The slow pace of innovation of my childhood is particularly stark to me given that I get to enjoy amazing new technological advances through the eyes of my own one-year-old child. Advances that took years in my youth will take weeks in his. My son's childhood will be filled with e-books, 3-D, GPS and more. I can't even imagine what astonishing technologies will be part of his life. But my fear is that his future won't include the rapid pace of innovation that we have enjoyed in recent years. What if decades roll by and innovation stands still?
Believe it or not, there is a crisis in the air - quite literally - that could threaten the innovation economy that is bringing our nation back from the brink. It is the current spectrum crisis - the impending exhaustion of our available wireless bandwidth - that threatens to halt innovation. If the current inefficient allocation and use of spectrum continues, I fear the millions of consumers demanding more robust connectivity will be left empty-handed.
I have had the opportunity during my 27-year tenure at the Consumer Electronics Association to see a limitless array of innovative new products come to market. I have stood on the show floor of the International CES and been blown away by ever-smaller and faster products that do things that were unimaginable only a few years ago. And over the past decade, what has been most obvious and spectacular to me is the trend toward limitless connectivity via spectrum.
Our products are no longer stand-alone electronics. Wireless no longer means battery-operated. Consumer electronics are amazing products, made incredible by their ability to connect anywhere and anytime.
Driven by spiraling consumer demand, next-generation devices allow us to work and play wirelessly and remotely. They can do things that just a year ago could only be done through a wired network. For many consumers, the voice capability on their phone is secondary to the ability to stream video from YouTube, listen to Pandora, or upload photos to Facebook. Many laptops today are not even sold with an Ethernet port - their only connectivity is via a wireless network.
These products power-up and begin to scan for a network. Over the past couple years, these networks have become ubiquitous. From the corner coffee shop to many cross-country flights, consumers are finding the networks that allow them anywhere/anytime connectivity and thus more freedom to live and work the way they want.
Throughout my career I have overcome many roadblocks on the way to seeing the anywhere/anytime principle come to fruition--from court cases in the 1980s advocating the rights of consumers to make home recordings, to the fight to ensure the success of the DTV transition.
I have fought to ensure the growth of innovation and mobility. Many of our victories over the years seemed to be the beginning of an open autobahn of connectivity and technology. I am still holding out hope that the spectrum autobahn is still possible and that innovation will not be thwarted.
As an industry we have fought to protect mobility from the moment it was threatened. And just as we are closing in on the ability to do absolutely everything on the go - audio, video, data, voice - I fear we are racing toward a brick wall. If we do not have enough spectrum allocated for wireless broadband, a brick wall will separate the United States from innovation.
The scarcity of spectrum threatens our national priorities and competitiveness. If our broadband networks can remain cutting edge it will allow consumers, businesses and public and private institutions to take full advantage of innovative new applications. From telework to telemedicine, this access will be life changing to Americans. We have always been the leader in innovation and in technology, but we are at risk of losing that coveted position.
There are swaths of inefficiently used spectrum that should be reclaimed and reallocated for use that best serves the public interest. And we must take the time to ensure that all policies for managing our spectrum are as efficient as the technology using it.
I don't believe all the answers are obvious yet. But I do believe before any decisions can be made an inventory must be taken of existing spectrum uses so that the future allocation of spectrum can be driven by facts, not rhetoric.
Times have changed. Innovation, as always, has sped forward. Our spectrum management must keep up, or the United States and its entrepreneurs, innovative companies, students, and consumers will be left in the dust, holding phones that are nothing more than fancy calculators with the potential to do more - if only the airwaves had room.
Our shabby treatment of international guests has cost us more than the 2016 Summer Olympic Games. It costs us billions of dollars of lost business each year.
U.S. companies that make large machinery complain that their overseas competition gets business from those unwilling to be subject to the harsh U.S. visa procedures or rude treatment upon arrival at our borders. When buyers from overseas face difficulty coming here, U.S. companies must travel abroad to get business.
This is no more apparent than the challenges we face producing the nation's largest annual event, the International CES, held each January in Las Vegas. We make our show a world-class event (we were recognized last month by Trade Show Executive as the nation's "most global event"), but our nation's visa policies work against us in attracting the world to our country.
Consider the challenges faced by a Chinese buyer who wants to visit the CES to buy products made by U.S. companies. The buyer must first travel to a Chinese city with a U.S. embassy or consulate. He must wait in line and pay a $131 fee (USD). He must buy a pre-paid phone card to call and schedule an interview and return months later for that interview with his personal financial statements in hand. But to get to that interview he may wait more than two hours in line -- all this for an encounter that could last just five minutes. Afterward, the buyer will be informed whether he will receive a visa.
A U.S. business executive would not suffer this treatment. For a respected and busy Chinese businessman this is more than an annoying process -- it is easier to simply go to our competitor show in Germany. The American embassy staff is hard working and well intentioned but forced to follow arcane and harmful laws.
The result of these policies is that the United States loses out to Europe competitively. European companies pay less to reach buyers. The European economy benefits from the money spent by international visitors. The American economy and American companies lose as international visitors feel unwelcome in America.
Consider also how German political leaders support a German event that CES directly competes with for buyers, exhibitors and attention. Chancellor Angela Merkel and other leaders do everything possible to support the event -- including attending the event itself. In August, I attended the German event and spoke to Chancellor Merkel about her support of major events. She recognized how important they are to the German economy and to facilitating German business.
Contrast that to how American political leaders approach world-class events. For the most part, they simply don't go near them. First, the American ethics laws have become so absurd that many leaders that do attend are barred from eating meals or staying more than a day. Can you imagine how difficult it is to host leaders, including political leaders from other countries, when our own political leaders are effectively barred from attending our events? And our leaders also suffer from not gaining firsthand knowledge of the dynamic technology industry on display.
Indeed, the entire event business has suffered not only because of the economy, but also after unfortunate remarks President Obama made in February about TARP recipients doing business in Orlando and Las Vegas. Both cities subsequently lost several business events as concerned organizers and companies were focused on the "optics" rather than the high value of these locations for doing business.
We can only move forward and learn from the past. We need to look at visiting America through the eyes of our prospective international guests. While maintaining security is paramount, we must learn to distinguish between potential threats and legitimate business people. We need to make the experience more positive -- including signage, comfort and approach from our immigration officials. We need to change the visa laws and other laws regulating government employee travel so our own leaders can help us host international visitors and make them feel welcome.
Moreover, President Obama has the ability to change the tone and extend the welcome mat to international visitors. I urge him to make a high-visibility appearance at a Las Vegas or Orlando trade show (Mr. President, please consider this an invitation to participate in the International CES in January 2010).
Our nation remains the greatest country on the earth. But we need a dose of humility. We have to make people feel welcome if we want them to come here.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association. ]]>Pittsburgh Model Dramatizes Lessons for G-20 Summittag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2959252009-09-23T09:55:08-04:002009-11-23T05:12:01-05:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/
When the bottom fell out of the U.S. steel industry, Pittsburgh suffered one of the most devastating collapses of a major American city. But now, Pittsburgh is in the midst of a renaissance, thanks to a shift toward innovation, 21st-century jobs and an economy that embraces, rather than hides from, the global economy.
A recent article in The Economist tracks Pittsburgh's rise from depressed steel town to innovation center. Jobs in the growing fields of bio-science, electronics and nuclear engineering have replaced manufacturing jobs so effectively that Pittsburgh's unemployment rate is nearly two percentage points lower than the national average.
Pittsburgh's experience offers a road map for American cities adjusting to manufacturing downturns and the new realities of the modern global economy. Pittsburgh experienced its manufacturing collapse sooner and more suddenly than the rest of the country, and has had more time to adapt to the new economic reality and thrive.
What's unclear is whether policymakers today will follow that roadmap - or even acknowledge that it exists. Since the start of the downturn we've witnessed a troubling shift away from global economic engagement and toward isolation and protectionism on Capitol Hill and around the world.
In the United States, free-trade agreements and other measures aimed at promoting innovation and competitiveness have faltered, while bailouts and protectionist policies have thrived.
Policymakers on both sides of the aisle may praise the Pittsburgh example, and encourage other cities to learn from it, but these words ring hollow when the same policymakers are hewing away at the policy framework that makes the Pittsburgh model possible.
How can national leaders urge distressed cities to embrace innovation and competitiveness one moment, and legislate against those very principles the next?
Learning from the Pittsburgh model requires an understanding of what made it possible - and what didn't. Cities emerge as innovation centers by embracing change, not by clinging to unsupportable, outmoded business models and labor practices.
Transforming old manufacturing centers like my family home of Detroit won't be easy under any circumstances. Creating modern innovation centers out of unionized industrial cities won't even be possible if we impose union straitjackets and costs and undercut the ability of innovators to thrive and compete.
Protectionism thwarts innovation. It is a tempting mistress during economic difficulties, but we cannot insulate our way back to economic prosperity. To grow and create jobs for American workers, cities need access to new markets and flexibility to evolve new business models.
The G20 nations set the example for the world to follow. In the run-up to the Pittsburgh meeting G20 leaders have spoken eloquently of the need to resist protectionist measures and ensure a continued commitment to trade, but recent actions have not matched that rhetoric.
New trade barriers continue to emerge around the world, even as the continued global commitment to bailouts and government subsidies compromises effectiveness of international markets.
Here at home and elsewhere in the G20, government budget deficits, reportedly a topic for discussion in Pittsburgh, have skyrocketed. These rising debts heap a mounting burden on our nation and the inevitable higher taxes will chill the very future innovators and entrepreneurs who we expect to create the next great global prosperity.
These issues are all linked, and it is encouraging that they're on the agenda for the G20 meeting, but paying lip service to opening markets and shrinking deficits won't solve the problems that governments are partially responsible for creating.
We can only hope that the leaders gathered in Pittsburgh take a few moments to appreciate the remarkable journey of their host city and make a real commitment to upholding the policy framework that allowed it to take place.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
]]>Technology Rx for Health Care Reformtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2749162009-09-02T09:10:08-04:002009-10-18T05:12:01-04:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/
Advocates on every side should consider these market-based lessons, as they are relevant to the current health care debate.
1. Competition produces better products and lower prices. Consumer electronics is an intensely competitive, low-margin business. Companies that succeed do so on innovation, quality, reputation and/or efficiency. Consumers research carefully before buying as their money is on the line.
Lesson for Congress: Competition requires consumer choice and information. Consumer insurance choice is limited as companies are artificially restricted from competing across state lines. Consumers have little incentive to be smart purchasers as someone else is often paying -- many doctors see patients flood their offices once their deductibles are met. Consumers should always pay a portion of their health care costs.
2. Innovation is rewarded. The first to market takes big risks but also gains in sales, reputation and in market share. Failure is considered a learning experience.
Lesson for Congress: The proposals being debated ignore the risks and costs imposed on health care providers (malpractice litigation, for example) without addressing incentives for health care providers. My wife, a retinal surgeon, has developed a promising treatment that could help thousands of macular degeneration patients avoid a lifetime of uncomfortable and costly injections and save Medicare millions of dollars. Yet there is little financial incentive for her to pursue further development of this treatment, and it will certainly be opposed by drug companies.
3. Government-set standards discourage innovation. The marketplace provides it. For several years various policymakers have tried to impose design standards on technology -- which fortunately our industry has defeated, to the benefit of everyone. We beat back efforts to restrict recording capability, add government-mandated buttons to the remote control, equalize volume, make every product include features that few would want but all would pay for, and create products which reject every type of interference. Instead, the industry let the consumer choose what they wanted and this has produced a robustly competitive market that did not foreclose introduction of products like the iPod, the personal video recorder and HDTV.
Lesson for Congress: Some current reform proposals presume health care savings as doctors are forced to follow certain treatment regimens. This will dramatically discourage the type of innovation, which has made our nation the health care destination for the world's wealthiest people.
4. Never go large scale without testing and proving the concept or model first. No company starts without a prototype. The prototype is tested, researched and given to carefully chosen users for feedback. Nothing is perfect from the start so production is raised as market demand builds and feedback comes back.
Lesson for Congress: Without a national consensus, radically changing an industry that consumes 17 percent of our GDP is a risk that no rational or strategic business would undertake as it has a high certainty of failure. Congress should try some pilot projects and evaluate their success.
5. When things are not going well, define the real problem. Companies with declining sales undertake rigorous analysis of what they are doing wrong -- it's a matter of survival and necessity. When Best Buy was on its deathbed a dozen years ago it brought in teams that honestly assessed the cause of the problems, and the company changed to correct them, succeeding. Companies like Apple, Intel, Motorola, HP and TI have redefined themselves repeatedly by confronting their problems and acting to shift the direction of the company.
Lesson for Congress: Our nation's health care costs and large uninsured population are the problems Congress must address. The costs stem from a lack of information and competition, a population that engages in unhealthy behavior (obesity reportedly adds $147 billion annually to health care costs), unnecessary testing to avoid litigation, and end-of-life costs consuming much of all health care spending. A cardiologist I know performed invasive cardio procedures this year on two terminal Alzheimer patients, one over 90 years old, as both lacked living wills and their family members asked they be kept alive at any cost. Simply encouraging living wills when getting a drivers license could cut health care costs.
The health care debate is important and sadly divisive. But like a nation going to war, a consensus is needed and we lack that consensus. Congress should borrow a prescription from the most innovative industry and follow these market-driven principles. It should also remember the physician adage: first do no harm.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
]]>Trucks, Drugs and NAFTA: Time for Congress to do the Right Thingtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2468692009-07-29T09:55:13-04:002009-08-29T05:12:01-04:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/
Further south, police and demonstrators face off in the streets of Honduras. Avowed U.S. enemy Hugo Chavez uses his oil wealth to prop up sympathetic regimes in Bolivia and Nicaragua, while supporting an insurgency against a pro-American government in Colombia. As the leader of the global economy, the United States thrives in a stable world -- and Latin America becomes more chaotic by the day.
One effective way we can help restore stability to Latin America is through economic engagement. But instead of extending a stabilizing hand, we have largely turned away, as evidenced by stalled trade agreements with Colombia and Panama.
In fact, trade between the United States and Mexico totaled $368 billion in 2008, making Mexico our third-largest U.S. trading partner. One would think that in difficult economic times our legislators would be doing everything in their power to open new markets to American goods, not close them.
Of course, Mexico did not take lightly to the U.S. closing our border to their trucks -- that's why they're called "trade wars." Citing United States' failure to its NAFTA commitments, the Mexican government instituted retaliatory tariffs on $2.4 billion worth of U.S. manufactured and agricultural exports on March 19th. The tariffs, which are allowed under the rules of international trade, range from 10 to 45 percent.
This protectionist tit-for-tat has impacted a range of U.S. companies trying to compete in the Mexican market. A June 8th letter from 24 U.S. legislators to President Obama noted that "many companies are being forced to shift production abroad or simply stop shipments."
"Over $1.5 billion in U.S. manufactured products and $900 million in U.S. agriculture products are impacted by the retaliatory tariffs," the letter continued.
What's worse is that companies are preparing to close lines in the U.S. and shift production to Canada, where duty-free treatment continues. The shift in production will cost local communities jobs with a ripple effect all the way along the supply chain.
Mexico has said it will not remove the tariffs until the U.S. government reinstates the cross-border program or otherwise adheres to the NAFTA accord, under which Mexican trucks are permitted to enter the U.S. (and U.S. trucks may likewise enter Mexico.)
Thankfully, Congress now has an opportunity to hit the "reset" button on this needless and economically harmful dispute. Today, Senate Transportation-HUD Appropriations Subcommittee will mark up its draft fiscal 2010 spending bill. As part of this process, they have the opportunity to reauthorize Mexican trucks to come across the U.S. border.
I urge the lawmakers to make the reauthorization, and hope they choose the economy, our consumers and our national security over narrow protectionist interests.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
]]>Why China's Green Dam Proposal Endangers American Technology and Human Rightstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2194922009-06-23T10:25:44-04:002009-07-24T05:12:01-04:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/This so-called "Green Dam" software ostensibly is aimed at blocking child pornography and other vile sites. In Chinese, "green" and "clean" are interchangeable -- here, the idea being that software is supposed to keep computers clean.
Why should we care what China does as it is a sovereign, Communist, non-democratic country? It shares no version of our First Amendment rights, and does not claim to have a free marketplace of ideas. We can even agree with the Chinese that child pornography is heinous, immoral and should be stopped in any possible way.
But the fear inside and outside of China is that this government mandate endangers human rights and technology in general. Requiring a specific software program on every computer is an invitation for both disaster and for unprecedented control. If this mandate stands, there are three possible outcomes: the software works as promised, it doesn't work, or whether or not it works it will create havoc.
As to whether the Green Dam program works, we are doubtful. For one thing, the government paid two tiny unknown Chinese software companies over $30 million to develop this software. Chinese procurement policy is not as transparent as ours, so competitive bidding and competence may have been sacrificed for kickbacks or favoritism. And one software company is already claiming that its filtering technology was illegally appropriated by the Chinese government and used in Green Dam.
But even if it works on some level, Americans would have to view Green Dam as ethically flawed. Our view of basic human rights is that every individual should have the right to explore the world, through freedom of digital travel. This is not just about child pornography, but more about controlling access to information. We know the Chinese government will use Green Dam to block discussions of Tibet, Taiwan, and freedom. And while we can understand a country's right to not adopt our laws, we struggle with how far any country should be allowed to censor and block its citizens from access to information. Plus, it doesn't seem right to require every computer maker to package and pay for any specific type of software.
But let's assume we can accept a country's sovereign right to require that censorware be packaged with a computer, this type of software will certainly be hacked. Smart programmers can get around almost any block, and the largest country in the world mandating the same software program on every computer is an invitation for hackers.
And whether it is hackers or the Chinese government, the risk is not only censorship, but control or even massive destruction. Imagine if you could control the software put on one billion computers in a country. You could destroy the computers by creating a virus. You could shut them off all at once. You could turn them on and send them to the same landing page. You could turn them into bots whose mission is to connect to the Internet and destroy other computers or even the Internet itself. They could be turned into hacking devices aimed at disrupting the world's financial system, electrical grid, water systems, websites, or other sources of connectivity, finance and commerce. As almost everything is run by computer, with control of millions of computers, it just takes imagination, power and desire to mess up the world on a grand scale.
Computers are powerful tools. When any government demands control of its citizens' computers, the world must take note. I urge the technology community to resist publicly any further such efforts and explain to Beijing that control through mandatory software is unacceptable.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
]]>Building a National Innovation Movementtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2167122009-06-17T10:20:31-04:002009-07-18T05:12:01-04:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/
In a new national survey from Zogby International, commissioned by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), just 13 percent of Americans say that the United States would remain the most innovative leader in ten years, while 36 percent say that the country will lose its innovative advantage and take a backseat to China. The remainder, 45 percent, thinks the United States will remain the leader but lose significant ground.
Today, innovation fuels our economy. Our technology companies, especially those having to do with the Internet, dominate the world. But can we maintain our competitive edge -- especially in the face of an inadequate educational system, new barriers to trade, and the rising national debt?
Other countries are focusing major resources on math, science and IT education. Other countries are retaliating against our new barriers to trade. And our crushing debt is already spiking interest rates and is certain to result in inflation and limited capital for investment.
It can and will get worse if we continue down the anti-innovation path. If we bail out failed companies, then we will choke out investment in new companies. If we allow government bureaucrats to impose mandatory work conditions on our most innovative companies, we will encourage these companies to move jobs overseas. If the best and brightest are discouraged from coming here or are required to leave after being educated here, then we lose the brain power which has produced at least half the successful Silicon Valley IT start ups. If we turn inward and refuse to trade with the rest of the world, we will become like Cuba, stuck in the past.
For the United States to lead the global economy, we need to pursue national policies that encourage innovation, creativity and new ideas. For the United States to rise out of the recession, we need to invest in technological innovation and create an environment where entrepreneurs can challenge, improve and strengthen our society. Entrepreneurship, combined with technological innovation, will mend the global economy and lead us out of the recession.
When asked which group is driving innovation today, 73 percent of Americans say it's the entrepreneurs who create and build companies. Fifteen percent say its big companies who invest in R&D, and just five percent give the credit to policymakers who make spending and tax decisions. To read additional findings from the Zogby poll, visit Innovation-movement.com.
We cannot take our success for granted. The party is over. Unless we recognize that innovation is our core national strength, we will become just another has-been nation. Our arrogance, complacency, and sense of entitlement now threaten our ability to innovate.
Innovation has been our core DNA. Our ability to do things better comes from our immigrant forefathers who wanted a better life. It comes from our First Amendment that encourages challenging the status quo and diversity of thought. It comes from our willingness to try and to fail and to learn from failure.
But if we take away seed capital, if we remove failure, if we block the best and the brightest, if we block trade, then we will destroy our ability to innovate. If we destroy innovation, we destroy jobs.
This cannot be. It's time to act. It's time to speak up and focus on the value of innovation. We must demand a national innovation agenda that will jump-start our economy and ensure our children will come of age in a world where they will have every opportunity to realize the American dream. Or we can do nothing and let our children be saddled by the burden of heavy debt and ill-conceived policy decisions.
The time has come for a national innovation movement.
Because we believe that innovation is the key to our economic future, CEA is calling on everyday Americas to engage themselves in the policy issues that will shape the world we live in for years to come. Anyone can join to learn more and let Congress know how they feel. We're already 14,000 people strong, and counting more every day.
We're asking Congress to judge new policy proposals on a straightforward, six-point checklist -- with the first question that they need to ask themselves when they consider legislation: Does this bill create American jobs? If it's not creating employment and new opportunities for our citizenry, then is it a good policy? We think the answer is no.
There has never been a more important time for supporters of innovation to mobilize. But the innovation crossroads is not in Silicon Valley, Research Triangle, Austin or Atlanta. Oddly, it's in perhaps the one place in the United States where business is least understood -- Washington, D.C. What we're witnessing on Capitol Hill and in the White House is the battle for the future of our nation and its economy.
The choices are stark. Will we master our fears and step boldly into the new economic reality with a plan for creating jobs and wealth? Will we confront the long-festering and systemic problems that, if left unaddressed, will doom us to the middle of the pack among industrialized nations? Or will we look to short-term solutions and unsustainable government protections that will force the United States to take a backseat in the new era?
If you've ever supported or opposed a piece of legislation based on how it might impact America's innovative companies, it's time to take a broader view of all the policy challenges we face and make a strong determination to defend innovation. Innovation-movement.com
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, which represents more than 2,000 U.S. technology companies.
]]>Court Review of SOX Gives Hope for New U.S. Jobstag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2149572009-06-12T16:30:21-04:002009-07-13T05:12:01-04:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/We limit hiring choice by discouraging or barring the best and brightest from coming to the United States.
And only American companies have to follow an expensive and intrusive law providing no benefit but imposing huge costs on publicly traded companies.
SOX requires every publicly traded company to hire expensive outside accountants to certify almost every aspect of the company's books, going way beyond traditional auditing standards. It is detested by company executives as the costs it imposes provide no tangible benefit and cut down on the company's ability to hire people, market, sell or return dividends to the pension funds and other investors who own these stock exchange-traded companies. If SOX is found unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, then this extremely costly competitive barrier may be eliminated and corporations can hire, invest and reward investors.
Ironically, the SOX law has done nothing to stop the bad corporate players. It has put big costs on the good and ethical companies that follow the letter of the law. Reckless banks and other corporate malfeasance followed SOX, but it did nothing to stop the bleeding their impropriety caused employees, investors, our nation and our reputation.
Instead SOX has reduced the dominance of our stock exchanges worldwide. Foreign companies that used to choose to be listed on our exchanges now go elsewhere. In 1995, the U.S. had a third of all new stock listings. Today we have 11 percent. It is easy to understand why a company based outside the U.S. would avoid listing in the U.S. because of SOX. It would have to hire legions of accountants, translators and attorneys and incur millions of dollars of expense. No wonder our stock exchanges have lost their dominant position since SOX became law.
Among the 2,200 CEA corporate members are many small stock exchange-listed companies. Their sales are under $500 million, yet they can each incur more than a million dollars annually in SOX-related companies. Most of these companies are close to break-even - yet they are laying off employees, under-investing in R&D or even considering dissolving because SOX and related costs have pushed them to lose profitability.
If SOX dies, then thousands of costly attorneys and accountants can be redeployed, and American companies can do what they do best - competing worldwide and creating jobs for productive, hard-working Americans.]]>Copyright Needs Limits, As It Restricts Innovationtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2080642009-05-27T09:59:21-04:002009-06-27T05:12:01-04:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/see, for example, Mark Helprin's May 11 broadside in the Wall Street Journal against copyright critics: "Copyright Critics Rationalize Theft"). Yet these copyright apologists ignore how copyright owners overreach and hurt innovation. Representing more than 2,000 American technology companies, I see it differently - the rapid expansion of copyright laws threatens new and innovative products and services.
The "fair use" right to manage content has allowed the Internet to grow and new companies to be created. But the content lobby disagrees. They told Congress that copyright should stop an individual from sharing an email without the creator's permission. They argued that computers copy when storing temporarily and thus that many computer functions are illegal. They kept trying to sell multi-song CDs when consumers wanted only one song. They fought rentals of movies insisting that consumers buy movies. In short, they have tried to restrict, tax or bar every type of recording technology.
Thankfully, politicians said no and courts generally stood by the Sony Betamax principles. For these reasons we have the Internet, camcorders, digital cameras, MP3 players, DVRs, removable computer storage and copy-and-edit functions on computers. And thus we have world-leading companies like Google, Facebook, Microsoft, TiVo and Apple.
American innovation is not just about content creation. It is also about inventions that allow society to benefit from the uses of content, for which Congress grants a limited monopoly in the form of a copyright. The right to control this content does not include the right to invention and innovation. This is what the Supreme Court held in 1984, and this is why we have these inventions today.
"Piracy" is not every unauthorized use of content. Nor does copyright grant a monopoly over all uses. Someone who legitimately acquires content (buys a CD or DVD) should have the right to use that content so long as it is not for a commercial purpose. Calling unauthorized uses "piracy" and equating such use with "theft" - as if it were stealing clothing - is sloppy. If you steal a dress from a shop owner, then the shop owner cannot sell that dress. If you use a copyrighted work without permission, then at worst the creator has lost an additional potential sale - unlikely if someone is simply excerpting from their own CDs.
But defenders of expanded copyright restrictions imply that content owners have been on a losing streak and have few tools at their disposal. Wrong.
Copyright owners have successfully intimidated entrepreneurs with ideas that involve fair use of content. Billions of dollars of "damages" for no harm? Yes. Copyright laws and damage provisions have mushroomed to create huge potential liability for good-faith innovation.
Consistently, lawmakers raise the stakes for infringement, even if there is no evidence of harm to content owners. A single infringement found later to be "willful" can cost $150,000. Multiply that by each work in a service provider's library that a personal computer, a software program, or a DVR might be claimed to "infringe" and you are into the tens of billions of dollars. This chokes innovation and begs a more reasonable law that protects small business and products and software, offered by legitimate companies, with new uses not yet evaluated by the courts.
And while the penalties have grown harsher, in just the past few decades, the term of copyright, which used to match the 19-year patent term, has now grown to more than five times that long. Congress has expanded the term 13 times since JFK became President, greatly expanding copyright owners' income with no discernible matching benefit for society or creation. Why? The content lobby is huge and politicians willingly accede to their requests.
The ultimate irony is that when innovators follow the law and license content as they have through a "creative commons" license, they are criticized as opponents of copyright. Such a view ignores the numerous successes by the army of content lobbyists, and the fact that those who occasionally oppose their excesses, like technology innovators, are less interested and reliant on lobbying and more dependent on free market forces.
The truth is that our national leadership in creativity depends on technology as well as content innovation. We Americans are creative for good reasons. It is genetic. It is not only our motion picture and music industries that dominate worldwide. We also have great writers, photographers, artists, and designers.
We have not only the most innovative technology companies - but we also lead the world in everything having to do with the Internet, from Amazon to eBay, from Facebook to Google to Zillow. And we innovate in technology. Apple, Cisco, Dell, HP, Qualcomm, Sun, TI, and others lead the world.
So this battle between innovators and content creators is misdirected. Rather, we need to ensure we attract and grow the best educated, most innovative people. This means we work together on our immigration, trade, tax, education and other policies to encourage both content creation and technological innovation. If we do, this nation of creativity will prosper and maintain its primacy.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
]]>EU Intel Fine and New DoJ Antitrust Ambiguity Hurts America's Crown Jewel Tech Companiestag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2038952009-05-15T10:55:32-04:002009-06-15T05:12:01-04:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/one of America's greatest technology companies saddled with a record-setting $1.4 billion fine, a payment which will simply fund the EU government and do nothing for consumers or competition. No consumer paid more for a computer for Intel's success - indeed the evidence is they paid less and any legal violation is based on ill-defined antitrust laws where the line between aggressive competition and monopolization is blurry and subject to legal debate.
Americans should be asking their government to protest this outrageous fine, as any competitive disagreement between Intel and other American companies is more appropriately resolved in American courts.
We have to ensure that not only small competitor companies are protected, but that large successful companies also have the right to be wildly successful. For this reason, I am equally concerned that the U.S. Department of Justice this week threw out clear antitrust guidelines on what is legal and what is not. Companies are entitled to know when they are breaking the law - especially the antitrust laws. This vacuum of clarity creates the type of uncertainty which can inspire timidity with America's most successful technology companies - at the very time they should be aggressively innovating and marketing to create jobs and lead us out of the recession.
With so many of the world's most successful and innovative technology companies based in the United States (and almost none in Europe) we call on the Administration to become their ardent defenders worldwide - while at the same time ensuring that competition is possible and entrepreneurs and innovative and disruptive technologies are possible.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
]]>Card Check Is Not the Solution for Pension Mismanagementtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.2028922009-05-13T10:13:14-04:002009-06-13T05:12:01-04:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/
With union membership falling to less than 10 percent of the private sector workforce, "card check" has become the Holy Grail for organized labor. Unfortunately, in doing so they are trampling over the rights of workers to a secret ballot when deciding whether to form a union. The secret ballot was a critical part of union reform in the 1970s to clean up corruption and worker coercion.
Union leader James P. Hoffa's goal to return to the bad old days of his father's reign would be laughable if it didn't threaten to devastate the American economy. Take the high-tech sector for example. It's the most vibrant and well-paid sector in the United States. On average, high-tech workers received raises of 4.6 percent last year.
The high-tech sector is also largely non-union. Imposing the union model through the coercive tactics such as card check on the technology industry would be disastrous.
But the damaging effects go well beyond the high-tech sector. It would have a devastating impact on workers from all industries by affecting retirement plans.
A detailed analysis last year by the Hudson Institute, a nonpartisan think tank, found that union-negotiated retirement plans were not as sound as those provided by private companies to non-union employees. Nearly all of the major plans were behind on payments, and overall, the pension plans of union officers were better funded than those of rank-and-file workers.
The Hudson study, written by a former chief economist at the Department of Labor, went on to find that 21 of the largest multi-employer union pension funds had only 67.7 percent of the reserves needed to meet their obligations, seven were in critical condition, and not one was fully funded. In this group of 21 are some the most vocal, deep-pocketed supporters of card check, including the SEIU and Unite Here.
Perhaps that explains the urgency of imposing card check on U.S. workers. It would be a way for union officials to tap a new funding source to meet federal requirements that they fully fund pension funds by 2011. A fresh crop of unionized employers would subsidize past union pension plan mismanagement and, at the same time, fund the demand for defined benefits from the latest union members.
Today more than 10 million workers and retirees benefit from 1,500 different multi-employer pension plans. Unionized companies pay into these funds as part of collective bargaining agreements.
Is the true union motivation behind card check to get a host of new employers into the pension pool with the cash to correct the problems of past union mismanagement? If so, the legislation, as it is written, allows union pension fund managers to carry on their current course without any additional government oversight or reasons for increased prudence.
If this is the union strategy, politicians and the workers whose companies may be unionized don't deserve to be fooled. And these concerns alone reinforce why workers must retain their right to a private ballot to decide unionization - union organizers intimidating workers to sign cards or petitions are unlikely to disclose that they have teetering pension plans.
If card check is such a good idea, union leaders should be asked to testify before Congress about the financial condition of their pension plans and the impact that card check would have on shoring them up. Union leaders may not favor transparency, but certainly Congress must.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association, which represents more than 2,200 U.S. high-tech companies.
]]>American Brain Drain: Why We Need H1B Visa Immigration Reformtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2009:/theblog//3.1956272009-05-04T10:23:03-04:002009-06-04T05:12:01-04:00Gary Shapirohttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-shapiro/
America's immigration system is broken. While most focus on illegal immigration or changing ethnicities of legal immigration, what concerns me is that we are losing our historic ability to attract and retain the word's brightest and most entrepreneurial workers.
Silicon Valley exemplifies an American success story threatened by a shift in how we treat the type of bright foreign-born technologists and entrepreneurs who help make us great. These engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs build companies that create jobs and wealth in the United States. Of the 163,000 applications for H1B visas received last year, the law allows for just 65,000 approvals picked through a lottery system. H1B visas allow foreign workers in specialty occupations to work in the United States.
The Times stated it well: "His case highlights the technology industry's argument that the United States will struggle to compete if it cannot more easily hire foreign-born engineers."
The economic crisis has led many Americans, including some lawmakers, to turn inward, preferring what they perceive as a safe path of protectionism to global competition. To them, immigrants take jobs away from more deserving Americans. Nothing could be further from the truth.
To restore our economy, we need to do everything we can as a nation to attract the best and the brightest to come to the United States. Innovative immigrants have always been - and will continue to be - central to America's growth, job creation and global competitiveness.
Immigrants to our country founded more than half of all Silicon Valley start-ups created in the past decade, according to Duke University researcher Vivek Wadhwa. Half of all Silicon Valley engineers are foreign born, up from 10 percent in 1970, and about 40 percent of all U.S. patents go to immigrants. These immigrant-founded companies employed 450,000 workers and generated $52 billion in revenue in 2005.
A recent Kauffman Foundation study, led by Wadhwa, found that America is experiencing a brain drain of talented foreign-born entrepreneurs, many of whom after graduating from a U.S. university return to their home countries owing to challenges receiving a H1B visa. Most entrepreneurs surveyed said their home countries offered better opportunities to start their own businesses.
Losing this level of talent weakens one of America's greatest competitive advantages. America is the most innovative, creative and entrepreneurial country on earth because we've historically attracted the best and the brightest thinkers from around the world. In the technology industry, some of our greatest companies - including Yahoo, Google, Sun, Intel, Audiovox, Qualcomm, and eBay - were founded and led by immigrants whose successful companies today employ hundreds of thousands of Americans.
During the tech boom, Congress did temporarily amend the H1B visa laws to allow U.S. companies to sponsor more foreign workers - 115,000 workers in 1999 and 195,000 in 2001, but regrettably, they did not continue on this path. Instead, they reverted back to the all-too-low 65,000 quota, with an additional 20,000 for foreign nationals holding a master's degree or higher, first set in 1990. That number indicates the government is out of touch with the skilled workers required to maintain America's innovation economy.
The H1B visa debate should not be guided by the number of applications received in any one year. Given to the changes in the economy, some years will see huge spikes and other years will see valleys. We instead need to be focused on long-range policy decisions to attract the best and the brightest to work and create wealth in America over a period of their entire careers.
President Obama has signaled he wants America to be a destination for businesses, capital investment and workers, and updating the H1B visa plan is an important step in fulfilling that vision. I am hopeful that his administration, and Congress, reverses course with the current H1B visa laws to allow more talented immigrants, and their families, into the United States to work for American companies rather than forcing them to locate their businesses elsewhere in the world.
Gary Shapiro is the president and CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.
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