Competitiveness

...We are experiencing another competitiveness panic. These occur every 15 or 20 years. There's an outpouring of worried reports and articles. After Sputnik in 1957 -- the first artificial earth satellite -- we were supposedly doomed to be overtaken by the Soviet Union. In the late 1970s and 1980s, it was Germany and then Japan. Lately, China and India have been the threats. ...

One problem with these debates is that competitiveness is a vague term. What does it mean? If it means keeping the lead in every industry where we once led, we're doomed. ... Similarly, if competitiveness requires the United States to maintain its present share of the world economy, we are also probably doomed. ...more>>