Kerry: Innovated in the US, made in China

[ProSense]

Innovated in the US, made in China

By Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)

America has always been the world’s innovator — it’s defined in our DNA. That’s why I’ve been particularly concerned by what I hear as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee: Our global economic rivals are cheering and our allies are perplexed by an America still relatively sitting on the sidelines in one important area that will define the global economy for years to come — clean energy.

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Kevin Parker, the head of asset management at Deutsche Bank, says we’re “asleep at the wheel on this industrial revolution taking place in the energy industry.” And he’s right. The current energy economy is a $6 trillion market with 4 billion users, and the fastest growing segment of that is green energy — projected at $2.3 trillion in 2020. We need to harness this incredible opportunity to create jobs and strengthen our economy, but instead right now we’re on track to let most of this investment go overseas. Unless we make some big changes, and soon, the United States is at risk of sleeping through an economic opportunity of extraordinary proportions.

Ironically, other countries are raking in profits and creating jobs thanks to our earlier — but relatively abandoned — efforts. We can’t allow the bumper sticker of the 21st century to become: “Invented in the United States, Made in China.”

Consider this: In 1995, the U.S. led worldwide supply of photovoltaic cells and modules, manufacturing roughly 43 percent of the total global market. By 2009, U.S. leadership eroded to less than 6 percent market share. Alarmingly, it’s just one example of many.

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[YvonneCa]

1. Excellent article by...

...the Senator. My comment is awaiting moderation... ;)

[blm]

2. gets it

,

[applegrove]

3. And once the inventor has handed off the innovation to the manufacturer the manufacturer

can become innovative themselves. So we are loosing the 2nd and 3rd generation of innovation by sending the work overseas.

[karynnj]

4. True - and the US has reduced the funding for research

This added to greedy people forcing the break up of AT&T, which had been a source of a huge amount of excellent pure research in its Bell Laboratories.

[golfguru]

5. Break up of AT&T was the biggest blunder ever

in economic world.

[Citizen Worker]

6. Quit giving tax breaks to corporations that move jobs overseas. How much deep analytical thought

does that take Kerry?

[karynnj]

7. Probably very little. Not everything that needs to be done is something that is not pretty apparent

Would you prefer that the Senator ONLY speak of things that DO require a thorough analysis of the economic ramifications of policy.

Sometimes the most obvious things that should be done and aren't being done need people of his standing to advocate for. (Kerry is a senior member of the Finance Committee that oversees tax policy.) The fact is that is something that he spoke of from at least 2004. He DID try to get provisions in bills to change that it in the tax code, but the fact is there is STILL a tax advantage given to companies that send jobs overseas.

Kerry has also spoken of making it harder to hide money offshore - and he and Baucus wrote the provision that DID stop some ways of doing it - and the tax revenue increase from that was the offset for the Fall 2010 Small business jobs bill. That was a pretty obvious thing to - conceptually - do. Would you prefer they had not done that? The jobs bill would not have gained LeMieux or Voinivich if it were "not paid for".

[blm]

9. He campaigned on that in 2003-4....a 'citizen' paying attention would know that.

.

[dkf]

8. It's the vision thing.