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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Elroy who wrote (319688)	1/9/2007 12:11:31 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 1586857

"The Japanese can manufacture amazingly well, but I don't know if that's due to creativity or critical thinking." They are exceptional in cost reducing a product without sacrificing robustness or manufacturability, and that takes both.

To: Elroy who wrote (319688)	1/9/2007 1:00:30 PM
From: RetiredNow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1586857

You want Japanese innovation? Take a look at Honda, Sony, and NTT DoCoMo. They are both doing amazing things. Everyone knows that when it comes to robotics for instance, Japan is a leader. Check out this article: msnbc.msn.com It's not all about manufacturing anymore in Japan. You and I grew up in an era when everyone talked about the Japanese taking over and everyone was afraid we were losing our leadership. Then that was followed by the era of everyone saying the Japanese are just good at manufacturing, but they don't invent anything. That is no longer true. They are very innovative and every bit as creative as we are. Difference is they are more highly educated on average. Then look at India and China. Both countries churn out more engineers per year than the US does and the quality of their engineers are every bit as good as ours.

To: Elroy who wrote (319688)	1/9/2007 2:33:12 PM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1586857

"The Japanese can manufacture amazingly well, but I don't know if that's due to creativity or critical thinking." This is a very provincial and jingoistic sentiment, racist really.

To: Elroy who wrote (319688)	1/10/2007 2:27:27 AM
From: tejek	Respond to of 1586857

The Japanese excel at manufacturing. That makes sense given their education of rote memorization - even their schools are like factories. If the US is being overtaken in the Internet, who is Japanese competitor against the worldwide leader in infrastructure (CSCO)? Or the Japanese MSFT or Intel. Yeah, I've also never heard of that Japanese company because it doesn't exist. Come on, you really are buying this crap, are you? Certainly, the US has innovative/creative people but there are a lot of innovative people in other countries. And yes, there are some who have been attracted to this country because in the past, we regulated our industry much less than other developed nations, allowing these creative types more opportunities to make beaucoup money. And of course, because the US was less restrictive, this country experienced considerable environmental degradation and other negatives because of weak oversight. There was a downside to all this critical thinking. Having said that, our success in transmitting the American culture to the rest of the world is not just because we are innovative or critical thinkers. Its due to a whole host of attributes that have as much or even more of an impact than our ability to innovate. The truth is we had some important advantages from the get go. Unlike most of the rest of the world, North America was pretty much vacant when Europeans starting moving in. The US has/had an extraordinary variety of resources in almost every important grouping that was needed for successful industrialization. We have had a very liberal immigration policy. We fortuitously chose to adopt a semi democratic form of gov't. We have not had a financially draining nobility to support. Unlike other countries, we fought no destructive-to-the-infrastructure wars on our own soil other than our own civil war. And finally, we have had the good fortune to see the English language become the lingua franca to the world. And that doesn't mean we stand alone in that arena. There are other countries as innovative and inventive as the US if not more so........countries like Germany [its amazing how many global companies have their headquarters in Germany esp when you consider there are probably only about 150 million ethnic Germans in the world]; India [INFY is a global company that competes head to head with American software companies and is just one of a number of growing hi tech, companies with Indian roots], China [BIDU has presented all kinds of problems for GOOG in Chinese speaking nations and is an important competitor]; Israel has a burgeoning tech industry; now Ireland is stepping into the fray. I am sure there are others that I have missed. So sure, Japan may be more about manufacturing and not critical thinking but there are other nations that think just as critically and innovatively as we do. And so, yes, MM's point about the lagging quality of American education is an important one. Most developed countries don't have a slew of underequipped and badly maintained, inner city schools that are hotbeds of violence and experience significant dropout rates like we do. And high dropout rates are not just the exclusive domain of inner city schools........we are finding out that states as disparate as WA, Indiana and OH have dropout rates in some middle class suburban and rural schools that range from 14-30%......a number way to high: Schools in East Central Indiana aim efforts thestarpress.com In fact, during the past year, Muncie, Indiana's schools were featured on 60 minutes because of their dropout problems. Bottomline: there are some real problems with the American educational system, particularly the portion that is public. Those problems need to be addressed if we are to remain competitive in a global economy.