Can America Still Innovate?

newsweek.com

30 points·mjfern··8 comments

Obviously Newsweek can't.

They run this story twice per business cycle, and have been since the 1970s.

Given that most of the data they cite is from after 2000, I think it would have been quite prescient of them to write the article in the 1970s.

They find new data. There's an industry that produces it, and it's quite innovative in finding new sources.

Yes.

But as a percentage of innovation worldwide, not as much as historically.

The US has done a great job of teaching other nations how to execute, which is to say, how to set up an environment within which motivated people can be rewarded for being successful.

Perhaps not ironically, some of those other countries have learned the negative lessons within such a system (for example, a lack of financial regulation and oversight), and have done more work to mitigate the negative impact than the US has.

The key for the US will be to see if it too can learn from its own mistakes, and from the success of others.

Bit overstated, but he raises good points. I'd highly recommend Zakaria's book, "The Post-American World". Really a great book.

I would agree that the tax system needs an overhaul. Though a lot about these GDP type measures are ridiculous- based on what??

In the Corporate Patent State, innovation is illegal.

You should have said "copyright state". Remember, writing a computer program that allows someone to copy their legally-purchased DVD to their legally-purchased portable video player is a crime in the US. Needless to say, the only innovation in that sector comes from entities outside the US.

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