tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008006782907969381.post3296625691590851837..comments2024-01-01T01:47:59.449+02:00Comments on Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: The Israel ModelYaacovhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12835192312242961481noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008006782907969381.post-48428129853106340152009-11-09T22:52:59.505+02:002009-11-09T22:52:59.505+02:00Two possible responses Gavin. One is that they cam...Two possible responses Gavin. One is that they came from the crumbling USSR. Between 1988 and 1993 something like 1.5 million people came to Israel from the dying USSR. For reasons that had to do with the way Soviet society organized itself, Jews in it gravitated to a large degree to certain parts of the economy, so they were dramatically over-represented in medicine, the sciences and engineering. At the time there were fewer than six million people in Israel, so it was a gigantic influx; ever since then, the ration of engineers to general population is much higher in Israel than anywhere else. Of course, they were soviet trained doctors and engineers, but it's easier to retrain an engineer than to turn an accountant, banker or lawyer into one.<br /><br />The second answer is environmental. Once the engineer types (and the MBA types) were making oodles of money, that's where lots of young people gravitated to. Back in the 1950s or 1960s smart people worked for the government; in the 1990s smart people DIDN'T work for the government, they put themselves on the hi-tech track.Yaacovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12835192312242961481noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008006782907969381.post-76698001407493814892009-11-09T21:15:28.970+02:002009-11-09T21:15:28.970+02:00Thanks Yaacov. I was meaning where did all the ski...Thanks Yaacov. I was meaning where did all the skills appear from. Hi-tech needs highly talented people, I can understand large countries like the US & even China bringing all their talent into one place (like Silicon Valley) but you only have a small population providing an unusually large skill base. Where did they suddenly spring from?Gavinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008006782907969381.post-12091683742164274312009-11-09T09:52:31.575+02:002009-11-09T09:52:31.575+02:00Well Gavin, whatever it is, it can't be simply...Well Gavin, whatever it is, it can't be simply this one thing or that. Back in the 70's our economy was in shambles; in the early 80s we had hyper-inflation (though we did manage to get out of it without losing democracy, as sometimes happens with hyper-inflation). Then in the mid-80s we had a severe banking crisis and stock market crash. We didn't fully put the banking crisis behind us until sometime in the 90s - though in retrospect, that crisis and the digging ourselves out of it may well have contributed hugely to our not getting drawn into the swamp that almost drowned everyone else in 2007-9.<br /><br />There has been no property bubble here, although some prices seem to me (the non-expert) higher than they might be.<br /><br />I'm not fully versed in who can invest where, but so far as I know, we've got an open economy with free flows of capital in and out - another thing we didn't have at all in the 80s.<br /><br />There is a cultural conditioning that makes how we do things particularly compatible to what goes in the world of hi-tech start ups - a nervous jittery irreverent brash creativity. I think however part of what's going on is a cycle of success. Whatever it is, it's working, so ever more of us do it and ever more of us take it for granted. An Israeli confronted with a problem is likely to go out of the box for a solution, and many Israelis won't shy away from the idea of setting up a small company that will deal with the matter, while finding money and hoping for the best. Europeans I interact with, and even Americans to some extent, not only don't think that way, they positively shy away from the thought. The Israeli lives in a place where lots of people are doing it that way, and he knows he'll find people to help with all the stages; the European wouldn't know where to start even if he wished to - and how would he?<br />This is, obviously, a gross oversimplification.Yaacovhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12835192312242961481noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008006782907969381.post-53683144066643806082009-11-08T23:50:04.545+02:002009-11-08T23:50:04.545+02:00The economists will pontificate for a hundred year...The economists will pontificate for a hundred years on what the secret formula is Yaacov, but it's pretty obvious that the driver behind it is the people. You can't create a hi-tech industry out of bundles of cash. What do you think that's down to; genetics, environment, circumstances, education.... ? <br /><br />Does your domestic economy allow foreign investment in property, public utilities & the likes? Has Israel had the same property price boom that most countries had? <br /><br />GavinGavinnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008006782907969381.post-58867739697121172582009-11-08T16:33:25.559+02:002009-11-08T16:33:25.559+02:00Those are all good things but Israel's enemies...Those are all good things but Israel's enemies are ideological. If all Israeli R&D ended tomorrow and as a result every airliner fell out of the sky, every computer stopped working and every hospital shut down, Israel's enemies would still call that a success. In fact they'd call it 'proof' of Zionist control of everything.Empress Trudyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06073538968722986065noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4008006782907969381.post-87168563651183724072009-11-08T14:12:08.244+02:002009-11-08T14:12:08.244+02:00It would be interesting to compare this analysis w...It would be interesting to compare this analysis with the one in Isaac Asimov's "Foundation" written circa 1940.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com