America the innovative?

nytimes.com

5 points·flexie··4 comments

"Another concern is that American corporations have been moving their R&D operations offshore. According to the National Science Foundation, fully 27 percent of all employees in United States multinational corporations’ research departments were based abroad as of 2009, up from 16 percent in 2004."

Is this a cost cutting move, or is there some other set of benefits that these companies will get by moving research abroad?

In the first decade of the 1900's, governments around the world were spending hundreds of billions (at today's values) to develop the first viable aircraft. Yet they lost to a couple of hackers working out of a bicycle repair shop.

Money != and will never == innovation.

You might have a point, but don't forget that America's population is overwhelmingly immigration based. The american immigrants chose America for a reason, and as easily (for similar reasons, say because of the American environment getting harsher) a lot of them might as well leave for greener pastures, taking their inventing potential with them.

True, but that's a separable issue. Immigration has always made America stronger, it's almost redundant to state this given that our country exists as a result of immigration.

My contention is that more "R&D" spend (particularly by government) will not lead to better outcomes in innovation.

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