Monday, June 9, 2008
From People vs. Dinosaurs
From outside, Israel looks as if it’s in turmoil, largely because the entire political leadership seems to be under investigation. But Israel is a weak state with a strong civil society. The economy is exploding from the bottom up. Israel’s currency, the shekel, has appreciated nearly 30 percent against the dollar since the start of 2007.
The reason? Israel is a country that is hard-wired to compete in a flat world. It has a population drawn from 100 different countries, speaking 100 different languages, with a business culture that strongly encourages individual imagination and adaptation and where being a nonconformist is the norm. While you were sleeping, Israel has gone from oranges to software, or as they say around here, from Jaffa to Java...
..that kind of hunger explains why, in the first quarter of 2008, the top four economies after America in attracting venture capital for start-ups were: Europe $1.53 billion, China $719 million, Israel $572 million and India $99 million, according to Dow Jones VentureSource. Israel, with 7 million people, attracted almost as much as China, with 1.3 billion.
Boaz Golany, who heads engineering at the Technion, Israel’s M.I.T., told me: “In the last eight months, we have had delegations from I.B.M., General Motors, Procter & Gamble and Wal-Mart visiting our campus. They are all looking to develop R & D centers in Israel.”..
... Iran’s economic and military clout today is largely dependent on extracting oil from the ground. Israel’s economic and military power today is entirely dependent on extracting intelligence from its people. Israel’s economic power is endlessly renewable. Iran’s is a dwindling resource based on fossil fuels made from dead dinosaurs.
So who will be here in 20 years? I’m with Buffett: I’ll bet on the people who bet on their people — not the people who bet on dead dinosaurs.
Since 9/11, we've looked to politics and politicians to solve our problems. As a result, everything from the Weather Channel to Rachel Ray has become politicized. We're looking for solutions in all the wrong places. Innovators in IT and communications created successful revolutions without choosing between Obama and Hillary, global warming and global cooling, or Zionism and paisley scarves.
Although the media tries to sell the idea that politicians can be innovators, like most media marketing campaigns, it's all fluff. Politicians are bureaucrats, and bureaucracies thrive on rules and routine. "Creative" politics is about as helpful as creative accounting. Politics creates a better society when it gets out if the way.
Like most successful nations, Israel thrives despite their politicians, not because of them.
And I think that once again, he's being unduly naive, because one Iranian nuke over Tel Aviv would render that Israeli tech boom irrelevant, and that's exactly what Ahmadinejad and the Mullahs have in mind.
BHG
I think he's right when he says that an innovative, intelligent culture is more likely to thrive than a static, backwards-looking one.
Pakistan has nukes, but, like Iran, Pakistan is short of brains and money. Most intelligent Iranians left Iran years ago. They can't build weapons without Russia's help, and it's doubtful that Russia would intentionally let a nuclear war happen so close to home. Iran is being used in Russia's great game wars against the US and China. I doubt that they'll ever let Iran's leaders do anything more than bellow.
Since they don't have the ability to maintain their nukes, Pakistan has asked us to take on the job. Iran's nukes will probably be just as ineffective.
BHG: as the article mentions in passing, Israel doesn't use its know-how in the hi-tech sector alone.
I don't know how Israel would respond to a missile fired from Iran into Israeli airspace. But I can guarantee you that the Israeli generals have thought about it most carefully.
Please remember, too, that Israel has a proven ability to turn off Syrian / Iranian anti-aircraft capabilities. Iran has demonstrated no such capability. Israel also has ample experience aiming its missiles; Iran has not.
I won't lose sleep worrying about an Iranian nuke detonating over Tel Aviv. As for Friedman making sense for a change -- well, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, isn't it?
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Politicians are bureaucrats, and bureaucracies thrive on rules and routine. "Creative" politics is about as helpful as creative accounting. Politics creates a better society when it gets out if the way.
Israeli politicians are helpfully "getting out of the way" and letting the country's formerly superb educational system collapse. Renewable resources do need to be renewed, y'know.
One of the most important things Israel can do is to help find a way to make oil less relevant. Cut down on the cash flow to the terrorists and things change.