Posted on 01/27/2011 7:41:33 PM PST by FromLori
The truth that China's dictatorship and America's multinational corporations don't want you to know
We’ve heard it a thousand times, from American CEOs, pundits and politicians. And we’ll probably hear it again from President Obama, in his State of the Union address. The U.S., we are told, is losing its manufacturing industries to competitors like China because America is falling behind in innovation and education.
It’s not true.
U.S.-based multinationals are not transferring production to China and other countries because those nations surpass the U.S. in innovation. The U.S. remains the leader in global innovation, with a sophisticated system of creative interaction among universities, business, venture capitalists and government. Other countries are trying to catch up, but that is nothing new. China recently alarmed many Americans with its policy of "indigenizing" innovation. But ever since the 1970s East Asian and European countries have been trying to create their own artificial "Silicon Valleys," usually with limited success despite huge investments.
It will be years if not decades before the flow of inventions and intellectual property across the Pacific reverses its course, if it does at all. Indeed, the piracy of American intellectual property, tolerated by the Chinese dictatorship as part of its industry-poaching national development policy, is itself testimony to the superiority of America’s innovation policies. If China could compete with the U.S. in innovation, it would not need to steal.
(Excerpt) Read more at salon.com ...
So, here's the solution -- we reform our education system, and get more kids going to college and then going on to get graduate degrees. Then, they get out and start companies, and invent "stuff" and manufacture the "stuff" and hire people!
Yeah!! In 10 or 15 years, all the people who have been out of work for 17 years will be getting jobs! Whoo-Hoo!
Did you read the whole thing? I hope so there’s a lot more in there kind of surprising.
My Walmart, Target, Costco and just about every other retailer out there doesn’t care about innovation they care that their shipments from China keep rolling in.
US politicians and officials of trans-national corporations have been telling the same lies for years: that more must be invested in education, and that displaced American workers will be retrained for the high tech, high paying jobs of the future.
What they don't say is that the high tech, paying jobs of the future will also be exported to cheap labor and lax regulation nations (and nations that apparently heavily subsidize (bribe) US companies to relocate).
The article is inaccurate in that it tries to give the impression that if you take out blacks and “hispanics” all is well. Here is what Avhieve says: “Especially disturbing is the fact that even the top performers in the United State do not perform as well as other countries’ top performers -” See www.achieve.org
That should become the policy of the US of most all nations: produce it where you plan to sell it.
Must disagree with Mr Lind.
Innovation is great. But it’s only one step. After a product is “innovated”, it must be manufactured and distributed. And, with certain counter-balancing considerations, companies will ALWAYS opt for the overall most economical means of manufacturing their products and distributing them to the global marketplace. For all Mr Lind’s complaints about Chinese cajolery, pressure, bribery, etc, the simple fact of the matter is that Asia today offers the best overall manufacturing venue. China is an easy target today, but the fact of the matter is that the manufacturing economies of just about every Asian nation from Japan, to Taiwan, to Thailand, to the Philippines, to Singapore, to Malaysia, to Indonesia, etc, have grown at the expense of the post-WW2 US manufacturing economy. It’s neither right nor wrong; it’s simply a fact of economic life. America has no divine right claim to perpetual global manufacturing dominance; we have to work to earn it just like anyone else - and in that we have been embarrassingly lax over the past thirty or forty years, sitting on our well-larded asses and fantasizing about the false allure of “the service economy” as a substitute for real industrial activity.
My opinion.
>>My Walmart, Target, Costco and just about every other retailer out there doesn’t care about innovation they care that their shipments from China keep rolling in.
<<
Buy low, sell high. I am sure Target, Costco, Walmart, et. al. don’t care about innovation so long as they can use that quaint “capitalistic” system to make a profit.
Whether the source is China or Chino has more to do with how the respective governments treat the producers.
Of course they have. It's the Asian model for growth: gain maximum possible access to the US market, export as much as possible to the US while keeping the home Asian markets largely closed to US products.
That worked wonderfully for Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and now China. And it has more to do with the US going along with one-sided trade arrangements than it has to do with anything those Asian nations did well.
The US has tolerated all shorts of one-sided trade with Asia for various reasons, often having nothing to do with sound economics or trade policy. Japan was given great access to the US market starting in the 1950s, and the purpose was to help rebuilt Japan into a strong Cold War ally. Similar motives also in Taiwan and South Korea.
The US has given away far too much in trade relationships and it's long past time that stopped.
No - our capital wealth has been confiscated from us by democrats and RINO's and given to the unproductive folks addicted to OPiuM - Other People's Money.
HUD officials apparently spend it on belly dancers and luxury bags.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2664546/posts
And if that's true, it would seem such practices would definitely be in violation of GATT and WTO rules. Seems some one in the US should be filing unfair trade practices complaints.
When they are not shunted from the economy and politics, those desirous enough to teach themselves can be inventive enough to give America what it needs. Enjoy the ride. Our business, political and academic leaders earned it.
One thing that I know is true all those crappy free trade agreements were unfair to Americans because of skewered import/export taxes.
Look at what that has done to our economy not to mention how it built up the military of the commies.
Frankly I am sick of hearing how stupid we are and how far behind we are and I thought some of the points in this article were very good.
I’ve never worried much about the so-called achievement gap for students for reasons mentioned in the article. And the US and Europe are still where most inventions and innovations take place. So many of the huge success stories of recent decades are college drop-outs, and I think individual freedom is by far the greatest ingredient necessary for continued new ideas and innovation.
The nations with longer school years and more rigorous curricula for all students still lag in innovation and inventions.
ALPAPilot wrote: “No - our capital wealth has been confiscated from us by democrats and RINO’s”
..... True, except for the capital that fled the US and was invested in erecting the factories and infrastructure of the Asian tigers and now China. And that was no mean sum of money.
No one seems to understand what education has to do with Obama’s plan for jobs. Obama’s mention of education was nothing less that a shout out to the minorities and the SEIU. Obama’s plan for education is to make the 11th and 12th grades optional and put the little gang bangers directly into union apprenticeships and training schools for jobs in the SEIU, for health care and other first responders.
Obama doesn’t care about health care or insurance. He cares about union jobs in health care and plans to fill them with inner city minorities who don’t even legitimately graduate from high school.
The governor of WA state has already made proposals to the state legislature to create public pre-school/day care and make the 12th grade a “launch” year, launching the potential drop outs into labor union apprenticeships and training schools.
Watch out, it’s coming to a school district near you.
I think everyone on this board has a valid point. There have to be short-term, intermediate-term, and long-term solutions. Short-term we obviously need to cut taxes and decrease regulation to help get things moving again, but if we don't have longer-term vision we won't inspire the confidence that is required to encourage people to invest and take risks.
Over the long-haul we must have innovation and a revived entrepreneurial spirit to lead the world. That doesn't work very well when government punishes the successful and uses them as scapegoats for all the social ills in society.
The democrats have been for decades buying votes on the backs of those who work hardest in our country. They play to their base by browbeating the successful with heated accusatory rhetoric, and then they lament that society isn't ‘civil’ enough. Obama talks about supporting education to allow us to compete in the world, but his policies and ideology discourage people from making long-term commitment to prolonged training and education. Why delay gratification and put in years of hard work when your own government says it's not ‘fair’ when you are eventually successful and distinguish yourself by making more money and having more socioeconomic success than those who didn't make that investment?
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