"bg" wrote in message
om...
As you say, China's best manufacturing
companies now have some of the world's best technology. So the
"innovation"
argument is a dead-flat loser.

IT wasnt a loser. It was pure American innovation, with everyone else
jumping on the bandwagon.

Back to manufacturing. IT has had profound effects on metalworking
manufacturing. Now, who is making the CNCs and the machine tools that they
control? Who is making the computer components? How long did the U.S.
"innovation" remain a winner for us, in terms of trade? Not very long. I
watched it disappear in the '70s.

That's the point. It doesn't matter where these things are invented anymore.
What matters, in terms of trade, is where they're put to use. To the extent
that IT is a productivity booster for manufacturing, the benefit follows the
manufacturing itself. And manufacturing in the U.S. is in decline, once you
adjust for the booms and busts.

Bio tech boom in the late 80's/early 90's
wasnt a loser. We put the money up here for research in both fields
and have been all the better for it.

Again, you're getting pretty far afield from manufacturing. If you're saying
that we'd may as well kiss manufacturing goodbye and focus on other things,
there are a lot of economists who agree with you.

But even biotech is vulnerable to the low-wage exodus. Do a search on Google
for "biotech industry" and you'll find that very few of the hits have
anything to do with the US. The whole world has jumped on that bandwagon.
Expect the Indians to be very, very good at it within a few years.

Innovations used to provide long-term benefits because they tended to be
implemented where they were created. No more. Technology is a commodity.
Innovation isn't what it used to be, in economic terms.


Regarding energy, what is it you're thinking about? Fusion? Solar? What?
What is it that we could innovate that wouldn't show up in China before
you've turned your back?

That is not my job, man. I cant say which type of energy is best to
invest in. Maybe they should be investing in all of them, including
Hydrogen, magnetics, etc. My argument was simply stating that "energy"
and investment in it, would show the greatest ROI, when comparing it
to any other industry. If that is not the case, then Maybe someone
could come up with something better. I am listening with an open mind.

No one has shown any economic benefit to alternative energy -- except maybe
Iceland, and that's still a question mark.

It's a social/political thing, not an economic thing. I watched half a
billion dollars go into the Tokomak at Princeton three decades ago (in fact,
I helped make thousands of parts that went into it). I have yet to see an
economic benefit. It made a lot of people feel good, though.



Here's the question you have to ask yourself: Who has the capital to
implement these things, and where is it in their interest to implement
them?
The first answer is, large multinationals. The second answer is, where
it
will be most profitable for them. And the answer to that is China.

Who has the capital to implement these things? Great question.
especially since we just saw Fiberoptic infrastructure investment put
many a company 6 ft under. The only realistic answer is the good ole
US Of A. Uncle Sam. Uncle Sam can start by issuing bonds for the
project.

Which project? Does somebody out there know something about alternative
energy that they aren't telling us?

BTW, I made my living off of alternative energy for several years. Besides
being part owner of a shop that supplied parts for Forrestal's Tokomak, I
did materials-application research for MITI. Among my projects were
ocean-thermal energy generation (I machined the heat exchangers and made the
final assembly of the prototype OTE cell that used thermoelectric cells to
generate power -- it was a fun toy g) and a research paper on fluorescent
enhancement of solar cells, based on research done at MIT.

It's been a terrific way to keep a lot of PhD's off the street and a bunch
of government money floating around the research labs. It's been a lousy way
to produce electric power.

--
Ed Huntress
(remove "3" from email address for email reply)