Seriously, there's no chance that the present setup is ever going to give scientists or engineers higher salaries or even more prestige.  In most large corporations, the employee evaluation criteria have been gradually changed to favor MBA type skills. It's more important to do meetings well than have any technical skills.

The lack of engineers may or may not be a problem (I think it will be a catastrophe) but it's obvious that the U.S. is going to try to get by on managers and marketing.