There’s no question that the US is in trouble. 50% of the US mortgage banks do not run under Federal control – no further comment on this.
The car industry is one of the industries that obviously has been hit hardest after the banks. Europe and the rest of the world can feel it and the situation will worsen. With the car industry a range of drive by wire suppliers and other related businesses will suffer.
The ICT industry in general will suffer, this time, unlike after the millennium, it is those companies that so far have been immune to new economy stuff. Austria’s ICT industry has quite a share in industrial ICT on an international level.
But, and that’s my point, if we all scream crisis, we will of course have one.
I don’t mean to downplay this or run the usual “act anti cyclic” preaching, but a good deal of the crisis talking is also a self fulfilling prophecy. The world’s economy has seen disasters as far back as history reaches. And there have always been recoveries – at some point someone saw a chance and managed to grow, nobody knows who was the first one who caused a new dynamism, a new boom. But it happened, and instead of howling with the hungry wolves we should act – maybe the “one” is one of us? Here in Europe? Do we always have to wait until some smart guy (or girl, that is) in Japan, Korea, China or some brave hearted consumer in the US feels he or she has some money on the side to invest in whatever?
We should not wait. Europe is smart enough to help the world recover. Accept the potential that we have. We’ve always been running behind the others claiming that we have the better solutions but someone doesn’t let us play the game.
Wrong. Just play the game, and you’ll see what happens. GSM was one of the games, and we won.
What does that have to do with technology transfer? Everything. European businesses need to sell top technologies that conquer the world. These technologies come from smart brains from our universities, like MP3 or whatever.
I know this sounds naïve, arrogant and patronizing. But what do you expect me to say? I’ve always been optimistic. Maybe I’m the one who releases the boom, maybe not, I will never know. But definitely I don’t want to whine.
