W. Michael Cox
Cox got a laugh when he said productivity fell after the introduction of the computer, with lots of people goofing off with technology, but he went on to say that the same drop in productivity occurred after the introduction of electricity. An economy takes some time to organize itself around new technologies, he explained, and now the economy is growing at three times the rate of the pre-computer era.
Cox compared other transitions -- from agrarian to industrial for example -- with the current transition, and presented some reassurance in the big picture, even if there are fears in the short term of competition with China, India and other countries. In India, for example, Cox said 25 million people graduate from colleges each year, who are willing to work for lower wages than US workers.
As secretaries, receptionists, bookkeepers, tax preparers and encyclopedia salespersons are replaced by technology or their jobs are outsourced to other countries, the age of Imagination and Creativity is appearing. Microsoft, Amazon.com, Google, Dell Computers, he said, are the products of imagination and creativity and new ideas about how to do things.
Cox joked that now that Greenspan can't fire him, he would reveal that the fed chairman spend three hours a night in the bathtub, thinking and writing. We all need to make time and place to be creative, Cox said. In this new age, he said, the United States has many advantages in being a multicultural society with opportunity for all, and a very high rate of education. We are also deeper into the service economy than most other countries, he said.
Following his keynote presentation, Cox participated in a wide-ranging panel discussion moderated by Ann Fuelberg, executive director of the Employees Retirement System of Texas. Panel members -- which included Michael Cook of Citrix, Robert Cook of the Texas Parks and Wildlife, and Bradley L. Westpfahl of IBM, tackled outsourcing, education, workforce issues and the new crop of government employees.
