re: #1 Bob Levin

I would disagree. The American experience is that innovation does lead to growth and prosperity. For years the US led the world, and most likely still does, lead the world in patents, which have lead to new companies.

Microsoft and Apple saved the US economy in the 1980 and 1990s. Now, whether a telephone/Batman Tool Belt is what we all need, that’s another issue.

I don’t know about MS and Apple ever saving the US economy 20 or 30 years ago (when outsourcing was just starting in a large scale), but innovation by a small number of engineers (many of which are now foreign or foreign based) does little for the overall employment rate in the USA in 2011.

As to patents, China has surpassed the USA in numbers of patents in 2010-2011, and patents themselves are becoming problematic in an international economy where only some honor them and it takes more lawyers and other overhead to monitor patents than it often does to create the ideas.