"Ed Huntress" wrote in message . net...
"bg" wrote in message
om...


The bottom line on all of this is that the sources and rates of
innovation
have little connection today to the economic benefits from those
innovations. For that, follow the capital flow. Where the capital goes
so
goes the employment, the machine purchases, and the value-added that
accrues
to the local economy in the form of employment income and savings,
wherever
that may be.

I disagree wholeheartedly. Source of innovation is exactly where the
benefit goes. Even in cases where there is no mfg benefit, there is
till benefit to be had in the innovating country. You still need
service people, marketing, administrative personnel, all of whom earn
a living and pay taxes. Do you think Motorola USA does not benefit
from having their largest factory in Tianjin, China? Of course they
do. Without the profit from those China operations, I can assure you
of USA layoffs.

Bg, you need to put some numbers on these opinions of yours and start
evaluating which ideas are real and which are a delusion. There is only one
reason there are so many opinions about the issue: most people don't make
the effort to track down the quantitative values that lie behind them, which
would replace their opinions with facts. Popular discussions about it
quickly turn into a bunch of qualitative mush because nobody knows what's
significant and what's not.

What are you saying Ed? I am giving you examples. I cant also give you
the formulas and do the complete research myself. (No one has paid me
yet). I can give you more examples if you choose, but i dont see it
necessary. I am not saying our MFG base will not suffer. They are and
will continue to suffer. But the best medicine is for greater
innovation. Innovation is our advantage at this moment in time. we
need to take advantage of that in ways that go beyond our current
methods. The industry I speak of, energy is just in my opinion, the
best candidate for an all out effort, the likes of which have not been
seen since the Manhattan project. But many other industries currently
are also representative of our innovation.

I have not even mentioned Nanotechnology, which is receiving huge
amounts of money for research and development. It is a viable,
tangible technology, that has few visible limits at the moment. It
would take generations for countries like India to catch up to that
research. Just because eventually they will catch up someday, does not
detract from the benefits the USA will receive from it. At the moment,
no one is coming close to the USA in this field, which has the
potential to employs a large amount of mfg workers in the USA.

When you examine the numbers behind conventional ideas about what we should
do, you find that most of them are 5% solutions to a 95% problem. They are
palliatives, grasped by politicians who are looking for any scapegoats they
can find to avoid facing the real problem. And the real problem is this: You
can't compete with a country that makes decent products with a wage rate of
80 cents/hour. No way. It's the definition of "competition" that has to be
examined. And the public has to be made aware of the underlying ideas behind
our trade policies. If we saw them in the light of day, we may decide we
don't particularly like their objectives.

I personally dont have a problem with the current objectives the way
they stand now. It is cyclical. The countries who beneft today will
eventually raise their standard of living to the point where it is
cheaper to MFG somewhere else. Though with China's size, she has a
great advantage over the rest of the world for decades to come. But it
will happen. It is already beginning. Have you seen the golf courses,
country clubs, Mercedes', real estate values in China lately? It is
just slow moving, because of the sheer numbers involved.

No, we cannot compete in mfg the same items as a country with $.80/hr
wages. But we can have a mfg base that produces items that represent
the latest in innovation and design. Business must learn to transform
itself and adapt. If it does not adapt, it will perish, and maybe
rightly so.