After getting out of one industry after another, the USA is running out of businesses to get out of. From an opinion piece by former Intel Chairman Andy Grove in the 5 July edition of Bloomberg Businessweek:
“Manufacturing employment in the US computer industry today is about 166,000. One company in Taiwan and China, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co., also known as Foxconn, employs more than 800,000. This is more than the combined headcount of Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, Intel and Sony….
“New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman recently wrote that if Washington really wants to create jobs, it should back startups. Friedman is wrong. Startups are a wonderful thing, but they cannot by themselves increase tech employment….
“In a thorough study of the industrial development of East Asia, Robert Wade of the London School of Economics found that these economies turned in precedent- shattering economic performances over the 1970s and 1980s in large part because of the effective involvement of the government in targeting the growth of manufacturing industries….
“If we want to remain a leading economy, we change on our own, or change will continue to be forced upon us.”
