Dot-com lessons unheeded.

• Author: Becker, Richard
• Position: Brief article

Collapse of the infamous "dot-com" idealism, replacing manufacturing in the economic base, should have taught a lesson! ("Silicon Mountain: What happened to Colorado's tech industry?" October). But, it apparently has not.

Invention of the wireless, telephone, telegraph, facsimile machines as communications technology of their time were regarded as enhancing business and the manufacturing industry for greater efficiency, not replacing it. So why did so many allegedly intelligent people naively believe that the computer technology "information age" of IT would replace manufacturing in the economic base? And, why are so many jumping on the bandwagon inevitably heading for the same cliff?

The major reason that American manufacturing was...