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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This is so much bull crap.
If it were true then China wouldn’t be trying to steal industrial and IT innovations from us all the time.
The government they have in China smothers creative thinking.
But the rate of our people earning engineering degrees has dropped in this country because companies here prefer to hire foreigners rather than U.S. citizens.
having been their recently this is in deed a fact... it is true ... having worked with their science departments they are are leading the thinking in all major sciences. We have cut off thinking in our universities.
Yeah, this free trade idea was a great idea. The only problem is that it is not free as far as our trading partners are concerned. China has attached itself to our economy like a blood sucking leech, and won’t stop until we are a hollowed out corpse. The one true mechanism that would eventually be expected to een the playing field - currency fluctuations has been co-opted and manipulated by China such that we will never get a fair shake from them. Its far too late, I fear as China now owns so many dollars they can essentially flood the market with US dollars and US bonds, essentially bankrupting us in a week. Unfortunately, our politicians are either complicit in this scheme, or they are too ignorant to qualify for a drivers license. Our debt has now become a bargaining chip to the Chinese to use in any foreign policy disputes as they see fit. Now that we can look back at these WTO and NAFTA agreements and see the harm they have caused to our economy its probably a good time to begin to investigate the politicians that were involved and to what extent they were “bought”. If it can be proven they were illicitly involved in corruption alongside their votes, treason is the charge that should be leveled given the irreparable damage they have caused to our economy. It’s long past time for us to demand an end to “free” trade, and also to demand accountability for the damage that has been caused.
btt
“We have cut off thinking in our universities.”
One major problem IMHO is that we like foreign grad students, post-docs, etc. because they work cheaper than US students and are often funded by their home countries.
it is predicted and probably true that china wants to create exportable scientists and engineers in the next century. this would allow them to be privy to ever development on the planet.
That is one major problem. The other is copyrighting. Companies try to copyright EVERYTHING. I can guarantee you that the innovation you come up with will face litigation from someone holding a copyright that is in some way similar. You can innovate, provided you have a team of lawyers behind you. This is NOT what this country was founded upon, but it’s what we’ve turned into.
Somewhere John Edwards is smiling over this fact.
“this would allow them to be privy to ever development on the planet.”
If our University is any example, they’re doing a good job now.
Remember the old Soviet Communist saying: "The capitalists will sell us the rope we use to hang them with?"
it is where they learned it ...
“capitalists”
Sadly, too many of my fellow faculty members only connection to capitalism is their desire for a larger salary.
true
good luck with that.
ever since the H1-b program was signed into law by BJClinton, the majority of entry level positions have been going to people from 3rd world countries.
and without the entry level position... you won’t become a mid to senior level person... the ones they normally look to for innovation
on top of that, since the late 90s, if you wanted VC funding, you better have been using offshore labor to reduce costs, otherwise you won’t be getting the $$
I recently heard a speech given by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson. He more or less said the same thing. The US used to be great in connection with innovation, but we are rapidly losing ground to the eastern Asian nations.
They don’t hate their smart, they love them, They encourage kids to be smart and show they have a brain. They don’t allow bullying in their schools.
Well, maybe if we didn’t let balck racists sue on whim or extort money in face of threats for boycotts/protests and then the million little regulations to prevent feelings from being hurt we wouldn’t be losing companies now would we? Same thing with AA. We’ve done a lot of damage to ourselves and we’ve failed to succeed in making our country business friendly.
These days it’s impossible to run your own little shop or cafe/restaurant without a handful of regulations just to get a permit. We scream about how the Chinese are ripping us off, but it’s not like we didn’t contribute to this. What do you think we should do to make business feel safe to do business here? Look at Obama taking charge of GM and no one stands up to him to protect the businesses of this country from extortion by racists like Jesse Jackson. Where was the government when Jesse Jackson was threatening CEOs with boycotts if they didn’t donate to Rainbow Coalition?
The Chinese aren’t pushing companies to hire unqualified women and minorities, they aren’t suing over percieved racism, and they aren’t screeching for the CEOs to be shot in the streets for making fat salaries.
We have exported our engineering. What the hell do people expect?
they will be a next exporter of scientist and engineers their best high value export in about 10 yrs. This is their objective. It is a very valuable asset that they have cultivated and we will be importing their engineers and scientist. We will lose they will win. simple
Keep telling yourself that, but it's far from true. As long as your creativity is not directed towards overthrowing the goverment or criticism of the ruling party, china loves creativity. And to think that chinese are somehow inherently uncreative or stupid is just plain naive. If anything, we are now reaping to fruit of our own seeding. There are scores of chinese that are both ambitious and industrious and it's not going to be long before we'll be stealing their technology.
In comparison to the western world, China used to lack three things: markets, capital and education. Well, we gave them access to our markets, we seeded them with captial and they used the dividends of that to build schools. In addition, by outsourcing everything from industrial production to IT management and development we gave them instant access to all our methods, technology and know-how. Some of us may be surprised at how fast the caught up to us, but it was always an inevitability that eventually, they would.
It used to be a common practice among companies that sourced their production to China to make a deal where the chinese factory would produce their product 2 shifts a day and on the third shift they could make the same product, but brand it with their own brand and sell it on the side. In particular a lot of electronics and clothing companies did this in return for better rates by the producer. It's a little harder to be forceful in talking about copyright enforcment when a lot of that behaviour was encouraged by us at the earlier stages.
Another poster also commented on the oftentimes insane patent and copyright laws we employ in the western world, particularly in the US, where innovation today is practically impossible for all but the few multinational corporations that can afford the legions of lawyers required. The fact that you today can patent a conceptual idea without providing any proof of concept, prototype or even a rough sketch of implementation is mad.
A company like Xerox or Microsoft can hold patents on Star-trek like techologies like warp-drive and transporters that are beyond fiction. Effectivly blocking anyone else from ever persuing development in that area for fear of patent-hijacking down the line. Extreme example, but it's a reality in many, many fields today where "ideas" are held hostage by vague patents just so no one else can attempt to realize them.
Of course, we have numerous legitimate grievances against China with regards to infringments of valid immaterial rights and patents but if we want to find a government that is smothering creative thinking, we need not look beyond our own borders. Our stagnation is of our own making and we'll never regain our edge by whining like kids at the schoolyard about it.
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