Submitted by: Submitted by abuchli
Views: 399
Words: 3929
Pages: 16
Category: Business and Industry
Date Submitted: 04/09/2012 10:57 AM
Alex Buchli
Innovation Slump
America’s influence on the rest of world has, according to Stephen Cohen and Jim Bradford DeLong came to an end. In the past decade or so the influence of America can be seen in the spread of our cultural to other nations through movies, music, fashion, and how teenagers carry themselves. Cohen and Delong talked about this “The American-designed, Asian manufactured iPods fill their heads with the same harsh music; the instant-message, tweak, and twitter” (pg62). This quote points out two important shifts that have happened in the past decade or so being the export of our culture and innovation to other countries. The export of innovation and technology is stressed by the authors numerous times and the importance of these shifts has been chipping away at our economy for a long time. We have been taking advantage of low wages in Asia which have decreased the amount of goods manufactured in the US and have provided job growth in Asia. And that increase in jobs in other countries is reflected in the America’s growing deficits and the increase in household debt which has been financed by other countries. This increase in debt is also reflected in the growing deficit that we currently have with Asia. Cohen and DeLong also reference the effects of the neoliberal position on the industries and financial sector in the US.
The continued deregulation (thanks in part to Neoliberals and profit taking) of the financial sector provided unprecedented growth in the financial sector, with most of it being in the hands of a few large corporations. This has resulted in a decline of output and innovation that had been in the manufacturing and technological sector which is an important part of our GDP. Had the growth in financial sector been stable and not in the innovation of fancy derivatives that very few people understood we might have been in a different situation, but this is just one of the problems facing America that needs to be...