Posted on 02/04/2010 11:08:05 AM PST by blam
America Must Innovate Or Die As China Scientist Lead The World In Research Growth
Economics / Technology
Feb 04, 2010 - 12:44 PM
By: Gordon T Long
US innovation is plummeting faster than our Financial Markets did during the 2008 financial crisis!
The future of America is presently in peril, not just because of the “banksters’’ shadowy ways, but because of a sputtering Innovation Engine that has had the fuel “choked off’. It has now gone “critical” and can no longer be left to only the carping of the academic community.
The chart to the right from the Financial Times: “China scientists lead world in research growth” is frightening in its implications. It requires an immediate and serious congressional public policy response. Unfortunately most of those on the front lines are skeptical about Washington’s ability to either recognize the gravity of the situation or legislate any meaningful and appropriate response.
President Obama’s State-of-the-Union address had one overriding theme – Jobs, Jobs, and Jobs. Consider that 50% of all jobs in America are in small business and 70% of new jobs have been coming from Small Business in recent years, as corporate America ‘downsized’, ‘right-sized’ and ‘outsourced’.
The US has statistically been creating 30 Million new jobs a year to offset 28 Million jobs that disappear through the capitalist system’s process of ‘creative destruction’ (1). The job destruction element continues to advance and we are possibly witnessing even accelerating rates of obsolescence. The jobs creation element however is at a standstill in the US.
The “State-of –the-Union” address coyly spoke of the 2 Million jobs ‘saved’, because the actual ‘new’ jobs created was statistically too small and embarrassing to highlight (2)(3) . Recent years have seen job creation in retail, real estate, health care and government which economists consider ‘consumption’ jobs. Where are our new types of work that are economically considered national ‘productivity’ jobs and create exportable product or services that others will pay for?
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I'll bet they keep a close eye on the value of their real estate too! But what I had in mind was the fact we're outsourcing both our capitalism-produced technical knowledge and industry. What info they can't steal through espionage, we teach them at MIT, Caltech, etc. We live in temporary comfort by borrowing from enemies who eventually will hang us with our own short-sighted folly.
Let me tell you both a story:
In the early twentieth century a young graduate student at Princeton believed it was physically impossible for a particular essential part of radios to be made smaller. That was to be the subject of his doctorate thesis. It was never written due to events recounted in the following paragraph. (The fact I can’t remember this guy’s name speaks for itself concerning his achievements.)
In another part of the country was an engineer who knew he could make a great deal of money making that same particular part for radios much smaller, and then patenting it. You see, he didn’t know it was impossible according to folks in universities. Bill Lear just went ahead, designed it, patented it, and made a hell of a lot of money. That’s how he (yeah - the Bill Lear of Lear Jets fame) made his first fortune.
I’ve just riddled all your damn arguments with bullet holes. Think about the above story, about how having a patent system engenders creativity and a free market system produces wealth.
Our main problem is the so-called Progressives (Socialists) infiltrated the education system and the government, killed independent thought and stifled innovation. They are also trying to smear the concept of earning money as evil.
I am not naive. Neither do I think the Chinese lacking in creativity or genius. Quite the contrary. One thing I do know to be universally true: people work more enthusiastically when they are free and it benefits themselves monetarily rather than when they are forced to do so by government edict backed up by threats or the barrel of a gun.
“What info they can’t steal through espionage, we teach them at MIT, Caltech, etc.”
Biotechnology is definitely on the fast track. Proteomics is one area where they are on the move.
I confess I had to look that one up. Thanks for stretching my mind and knowledge a bit. Yes, the fields you mention are going to be critical in the near future. Aldous Huxley now looks positively prophetic.
Our core proteomics mass spectrometry lab is run by a Chinese that barely speaks English, but is good at his job. The truth is that they usually aren’t as good as their American counterparts because of the language barrier.
That right there in bold is the key. If this had been today, some guy who thought that "maybe we can make radio's smaller" could have patented that idea right off the bat, calling it "coneptual idea for compact radio transmitter" or whatever. Mr Lear, hapilly tinkering along in his lab, would have spent endless hours actually BUILDING a smaller radio just to be stripped of the results because some other schmuck already patented the "idea" before him. Today, you can patent something without having a clue as to how to acutally build it. THAT is what is stifling innovation today and THAT was the point I was trying to make. Mr Lear wouldn't have been building any jets, he would have been busy in courts for the rest of his life.
I can give you concrete example. About a year ago (some of you might remember), Blackberry got involved in a patent infringment lawsuit where another company held a patent for "transmission of electronic messages with a wireless device". That was it - no implementation, no feasible product description, nothing. Just a "I thought of this really nifty idea" bullshit conceptual patent. Blackberry ended up having to pay over a hundred million dollars in license-fees.
I'm not some hippie who thinks patents and copyrights are wrong, bad we're in serious need of reform in our current legislation. And if you don't think we do, try to think of one, serious independant innovation in the last 15 years. Try to name one entreprenur who's made it big like Mr Lear from an original innovation in the last 15 years.
“...we’re in serious need of reform in our current legislation [patent laws]...”
I totally agree with you.
My purpose in writing that response was to demonstrate two things: the U.S. has had patent laws for over a century and it has had enormous benefits to individuals and this nation; and that freedom must endure if we are to continue to know success as a nation.
Please note that China has neither of the above. When the U.S. can no longer afford to buy goods made in China, what will happen to the Chinese economy? Any quesses?
My guess is China will go to war with another nation just to use up the angst and energy of its people.
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