RamanathanR

Well said! The old adage; "if something seems too good to be true; it probably is" is a truism. The outliers are very few. The Internet is used to amplify every small exaggeration and falsehood into banner headlines and for some reason even sane people default to believing them. Being sceptical takes effort while belief is wired into our DNA.

No, You SHOULD blame the "Management" who cannot think past lining their own pockets.

You are quite right though i fear most Americans will find this truth unpalatable.

My prediction: If and When the demise of American Tech. supremacy happens, the main culprits will be the American "Management" and "Finance" industry folks. Hubris and Complacency have been legitimized and are ruling the roost.

You have hit the nail on the head.

The reason that Silicon Valley has so many of the Chinese/Indian/Other nationalities is simply because of the volume of available "Good Enough" Engineering talent. In most of these cultures a Master's degree is almost the norm. With this in hand, the practical aspects can often be learnt in training/on-the-job. Given that much of Modern Engineering has been systematically streamlined and commoditized, you really don't need very much "Creative" and "Out-of-the-Box" thinking as much as people who can manage and contribute within the existing framework and systems.

In addition to the TCP/IP books commonly mentioned, i highly recommend the following two, both by Srinivasan Keshav;

* An Engineering Approach to Computer Networking: ATM Networks, the Internet, and the Telephone Network.

* Mathematical Foundations of Computer Networking