-Another source of friction is the reluctance in Washington to reduce hefty taxes on foreign earnings repatriated to America. As many American tech firms make a large share of their revenue and profit outside the country, they are particularly exercised by the government’s reluctance to lighten this burden.-

I agree with the Obama administration on this one. Corporations should not be allowed to move their operations overseas. If there is not a skilled labor force in this country from which to hire, corporations should call on our schools and our government to create the kind of educational system and incentives that will produce skilled Americans who can meet the demand.

-To make matters worse, tech leaders have been outraged by Mr Obama’s willingness to demonise employers for outsourcing work to foreign countries, which is especially popular within the IT industry, and by his grating sermons on the evils of corporate greed. “We’re praised for creating jobs, while being spanked at the same time,” complains Mark Heesen...-

Yes. You should spanked for your corporate greed. It is perfectly reasonable to expect entrepreneurs to pay back into the system that allowed them to create such success. Our current system reeks of thirty-odd years of corporations creeping into government and manipulating the rules, and bending, breaking or destroying regulations so as to maximize profit at the expense of the American people. It is even more reasonable to expect that to undo the damage, we will have to return to a system of tighter controls and the closing of loopholes that allow companies to get away with paying at or near 0% in taxes.

-Tech firms and venture capitalists welcome these initiatives, but are deeply frustrated by a lack of action in other areas. For instance, many cleantech start-ups and their backers were betting that Mr Obama would push through an energy bill that would force America to embrace alternative sources of energy more aggressively. But that came a cropper in the Senate.-

Right, because instead of strong-arming everything through the Senate, like the Republicans did for six years under Bush, Obama wanted to play the "reach across the aisle" game, to which nearly every single Republican spat back in his face. As a result, in two years, all we got was a mangled health care reform bill that, while a big step in the right direction, still allows huge insurance companies and pharmaceuticals to continue capitalizing on human suffering.

-In a speech in Silicon Valley, Mr Obama reiterated that he wants to create the conditions in America that would give rise to the next Google and the next Hewlett-Packard. But he will have to do much more to convince the tech industry that he really means it.-

Well, if the tech industry thinks that the path to doing that is to bringing in skilled labor from other countries, outsourcing jobs, and paying at or near 0% in net taxes, then the industry is delusional and needs a reality check. Discouraging immigration of skilled labor encourages the development of those skills in this country. Taxes generate the revenue that the government can use to create an educational system that trains people in those skills and provides incentives for people to leave colleges and universities with degrees in those field. Our current system is far too broken in this regard. Educational spending is far too low, the result of thirty years of Republicans blowing up the taxes on corporations and the richest 1%.

It seems to me that too many entrepreneurs have tunnel vision, asking "Why do I have to pay all these taxes?" and "Why can't I bring in the skilled labor I need from other countries?" The frame for these questions is self-centered. If the entrepreneur expands his frame of reference beyond himself to ask, "Who's paying to support society at this point in history?" and "Why can't I find the skilled labor I need in this country?" then the solutions to these problems become clear, and they require a progressive push even stronger than what Obama's achieved thus far.