Corporations need to put focus back on engineering I am responding to Barry Phegan’s Marin Voice commentary (“Home insurance cancellations part of profit shell game,” June 3). Phegan posits that an unsustainable consumer culture (and the corporate encouragement of it) is responsible for California’s current property insurance crisis. I was a cog in the corporate world when I started work 55 years ago.
That was the beginning of the financialization of American industry. That was when the bean counters took over from the engineers and near-term profit maximization took over from innovation. Finance departments always preferred the “bird in hand” to two, three or 10 in the bush.
It’s not just in homeowners insurance that we see the problem. The crisis at the Boeing Company, formerly one of the greatest engineering outfits, is rooted in the same source. We need to go back to innovation.
Things have to happen so engineers get paid more than hedge-fund traders, lawyers and influencers. People focused on creation and implementation are worth more than those who move money around. It’ll take a while, but here are some things that should be done: The more products made via 3D printing, the shorter the supply chains and a lot less waste.
The more stuff built out of Lego-like standard parts, the easier it is to make new stuff out of old and almost nothing gets thrown away. Suppose we had wallpaper that could make rooms work like the Holodeck from “Star Trek.” How muc.
