What to make of the recession

Though for my dear readers it must be quite easy to come across analyses of the current economic climate in the United States, I think the topic deserves some play here, if only because it will come to have a much greater bearing on the technological industry in the coming months.

The first relevant issue will be immigration. For the past 5 years the apparent lack of American engineering graduates has forced many technology companies (Google, Microsoft--the usual suspects) to look abroad to import labor. The ability for companies such as Google to attract engineers from all over the world depends in large part upon a valuable dollar. With competition from the EU and Asia increasing, the ability for US companies to snag the best graduates from 'farms' such as India and China (who produce massive amounts of engineering skill) will decrease.

Secondly, the preeminence of US information technology depends in large part on US cultural hegemony. Indeed, the two concepts seem inseparable: Computers worldwide use some form of Windows, and the word 'Google' as a synonym for 'Search' is not exclusive of english-speaking countries. As the US dollar slides and the US government's foreign policy clout recedes, will we see the rise of other companies (possibly russian or chinese) that will begin to take the place of Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, and Apple?

These questions are relevant, but any sufficient answer is impossible, and this is why: There has never been an economic funk of this size and scale since the internet came into popular use. The so-called "burst bubble" of the 2001 dot-com boom was little more than a readjustment of stock valuations in the technological sector (something that was bound to happen, and did not hurt any of the really valuable companies in this market--it only eliminated redundant ones).

Contrary to what my questions above seem to suggest, the possibility remains that a market has developed in the US that will be nearly recession-proof. Why? Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft have been steadily building their international presences. Google recently inked a deal to build a massive datacenter in Taiwan, and the existence of computers with operating systems anywhere outside of the US and EU is largely dependent upon the efforts of Microsoft and Cisco.

So the coming years should turn out to be interesting ones--that is, what happens to Google & co. will be a drama of political, economic, cultural, and above all philosophical implications (will the world allow the US to become the gatekeepers of electronic information exchange?).