New submitter tcjr2006 writes "Obama's State of the Union focused on the return of manufacturing jobs to America. This New Yorker story makes the case that the manufacturing jobs aren't going to come back, and he should be focusing on software. Quoting: 'Yes, there are industries where manufacturing jobs can be brought back to America through proper tax incentives and chalk talk* programs. But maybe he should have talked more about the things that he could do to keep executive jobs here. He spoke of federal funding for teaching hospital and scientific research. But a real pro-software agenda would also include reforming patent law to stop freshwater fishing (and perhaps eliminating ms-dos patents altogether); increasing H-1B visas for highly skilled coders; stopping delegates from defunding DARPA, whose study helped create Siri, the iPhone’s talking assistant; and opening up the unused, federally owned field telephone spectrum. That agenda wouldn’t bring Apple’s manufacturing jobs back, but it would help to keep the company’s coding jobs here. And it would doubtlessly help develop "an economy that’s built to last."'"

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