We won’t get it all back…but I think it’s pretty guaranteed that we’ll get some of it back. The falling dollar makes our products and services more attractive over seas…and also makes investing in manufacturing here more attractive. Like you said, even the Chinese may invest in building plants here…certainly the Japanese and Europeans have plants here in the US to produce products destined for here.
I call bullshit. Do you have a cite to back this up or is it just something you pulled out of your ass? What industries that have gone abroad have sent their R&D abroad as well?? Can you demonstrate that even a minority of industries that have outsourced have moved their R&D abroad as well?
http://www.bioteams.com/2005/07/26/outsourcing_rd_and.html This indicates that 6 out of the top 10 R @ D projects were outsourced to India and China. Their engineers are 20 percent the cost of ours. China and India graduate Engineers and Techs at a much greater rate than we do. Does not look good.
No actually, it doesn’t. Even if we take this at face value, what is actually says is:
So, what it actually says is of the top 10 AUTO R&D projects (and gods know what that actually means…there isn’t a cite as to where this info is purportedly coming from, or how a top 10 of projects is actually measured or ranked), 6 of 10 were based in China, India, Thailand and Brazil. It is talking strictly about the auto industry…and it doesn’t break them down as to where those supposed 6 top 10 projects were actually done (nor, as I said, what they are basing their ranking on exactly).
Granted, I didn’t follow every link there so perhaps you’d care to dig a bit more and flesh out an actual post showing something? My questions would be…where are they getting this info from? How are they ranking the top 10 R&D projects exactly?
And this hasn’t been the case for…well, for a long time now? I’m unsure what exactly you (or the author) feels this proves exactly. Or why this stunning news was put on top of such a prestigious web site as the Bumble Bee’s bullet list.
Yes, I can read the bullet list to. You really should have cited all these breathless pronouncements though…and then perhaps put in your own words some thoughts on why you think it’s important. I’m no mod, but your post is kind of skating on thin ice since nearly every word you didn’t quote is from the Bumble Bee cite link you provided. Do you think you could maybe quote the stuff from the cite next time and actually put some effort into writing some of YOUR thoughts down?
Why? Could you elaborate? It’s not like this is a new thing here…it’s been this way for quite a long time. It still doesn’t show that companies are predominantly outsourcing their R&D to other countries btw…which was the assertion you made and the question I was asking you to cite. You were supposed to back this up (in case you forgot):
Your, um, cite doesn’t show anything about that (it really doesn’t say anything about anything actually, just makes some vague and scary sounding assertions).
However, let’s assume for a moment that your cite actually says something, and that it really doesn’t look good (whatever that means). What is your answer to that? How do we ‘fix’ this ‘problem’ of China and India (and gods know who else) graduating more engineers who are willing to be paid less? Do you have any actual thoughts on what to do about it?
Notice that the U.S. has increased R&D spending every year from 1980 to 1999, and that the increase from 98 to 99 was higher than at any time in the previous 18 years.
Not only did it increase in absolute amounts, but as a percentage of GDP, from 2.79% to 2.87% between 1980 and 1999.
Since then, it has increased even more. Total R&D spending in the U.S. in 1999 was 247 billion dollars. In 2004, the latest numbers I could find, it was 301 billion.
http://www.inovacao.unicamp.br/report/Gerpisa05.pdf This is a paper which is pushing for more industrial R@D in Brazil. It makes the point that R@D outsourcing in Brazil is larger than generally acknowledged and has been growing. He then says that there is ground for substantially increasing R@D due to the accumulated knowledge and the maturing of the industry.
That is what happens when you give away your manufacturing base. This is just Brazil. China, India and others will go much farther. But short term profits will increase making todays execs wealthier.
So much for those rosy statistics of increasing R&D Spending. By the way, just quoting R&D spending proves nothing. If the company is spending that R&D budget in China and India to make those dollars go farther, the fact that it’s a US company spending those bucks says nothing about R&D here in the US.
R&D in many disciplines – optics, physical sciences, much specialized bio – is being done more at universities than company labs. (A lot of company R&D funds go to university laboratories, not company facilities).
You picked the one short period where R&D spending growth slowed - and as your own cite said, it slowed because the economy as a whole slowed. The very next year R&D spending jumped from $291 billion to $301 billion.
And the share of research being done by companies vs academia and government is increasing, not decreasing.
…have a poor record of innovation ($/invention). Bell labs did a lot of basic research, but most semiconductor development was done by entreprenuers who started their own companies.
GE got rid ofits semiconductor R&D, because the scientists were interested in publishing papers, not inventing new devices.
The USA has a very good record of fostering innovation, and the current anomaly (of china taking over low-cost manufacturing) will not last. Eventually, it will become too expensive to ship finished goods from asia.
A lot? I just know electronics. I’ve funded some university research, and have been involved in a semiconductor industry wide group funding universities and review committees in major companies funding universities, and the amount of the R&D budget going to this is trivial. (Big for the universities.) I support it, but you can’t expect that much. There are three problems. The first is having the time to keep the universities focused, and to keep the work relevant. I’ve seen a lot of work done on things that don’t scale to real designs. Second, universities want to publish, and industry wants to capitalize on the work before it gets out. Industry funding a university has the advantage of seeing the results first, but then they have to move quickly. Lots of universities want the IP for work they do, even if funded by industry. Third, it is hard to transfer technology from industry research labs to development. It is twice as hard to do this for university research.
There have been a few successful products from university research that I know of, but most have been developed by start ups.
Industrial policy was the big fad of the 70’s, and it did great damage before we smartened up and stopped trying to centrally manage things.
That industrial policy sure worked wonders for Japan, didn’t it? MITI was a great boon, eh? And the whole Concorde thing worked out so well for Britain and France.
I find it interesting that some people will whine on and on about corporations getting government handouts and subsidies and incentives, then turn around and say that industrial policy is a good thing. That’s exactly what these tax incentives and tax breaks and subsidies and tariffs are - an attempt to ‘manage’ industry.
An enlightened policy would be a good thing. A policy set by international corporations ,not so good. We are just another market to those corps. If they can make money faster elsewhere it will go. We probably can not prevent moving jobs and business abroad,but what kind of national policy is it that pays corporations to move. To note that companies are getting tax breaks to move American Jobs abroad is not whining. It begins to sound like Friedman. People who disagree spout or spurt their opinions. He calmly tells his. It is a propaganda technique which is accepted too much nowadays.
However, arguably what is whining is continuously pointing out problems with the American economy and its legislative framework and never offering any solutions. You came close with this post, though.
What specific subsidies are you talking about “which pays corporations to move.” What specific tax policy are you talking about “that gives companies tax breaks to move American Jobs.”
Identify the specific policies you are talking about and then offer an alternative, if you don’t mind.
What ‘national policy’ pays corporations to move? I’m not aware of any, so feel free to fight my ignorance. If there IS such a policy I may even agree with you that it’s a bad move…of course, I’m against subsidies for business by and large anyway. So…lets see a cite ehe, so we can evaluate this policy.
Well, why don’t you CITE that US companies get tax breaks to move American jobs abroad? Again, I’m not aware of any such tax breaks…and if there are indeed such tax breaks I would probably agree with you that they are bad. So…why don’t you cite the tax breaks so we can discuss them.
Just as a personal favor, cite a main stream source…shouldn’t be to hard if in fact these policies, subsidies and taxes you claim are real. You shouldn’t NEED to go to such pillars of journalism as the Bumble Bee for your cites, ehe?
I’ll leave it at that as the rest of your post is somewhat obscure.
Now I think we’ll probably see another cyclical downturn coming up, but I really don’t see the “OMFG we don’t make ANYTHING here anymore!1”.
I think people don’t realize that the vast majority of industrial production/operations is invisible to the consumer, and they only see the very small portion of it that IS seen, i.e. labour intensive, low-capital light industries, move overseas.
