We're number one!

The National Academy released a new review of its 2005 recommendations (here) for how the US can maintain or increase its standing in an array of global measures of productivity and success (free PDF here).  As you might imagine, the title of this post is satirical.



Before you read through this depressing list, consider the economic backdrop of the times in which we live now versus our parents' generation:

The Tea Partyers are right to be wary of income redistribution, but if they had even the slightest openness to empiricism, they'd see that the redistribution of the past 30 years has all been upward -- radically upward. From 1950 through 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent of Americans -- effectively, all but the rich -- increased from 64 percent to 65 percent, according to an analysis of tax data by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. Because the nation's economy was growing handsomely, that means that the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent was growing, too -- from $17,719 in 1950 to $30,941 in 1980 -- a 75 percent increase in income in constant 2008 dollars.

Since 1980, it's been a very different story. The economy has continued to grow handsomely, but for the bottom 90 percent of Americans, it's been a time of stagnation and loss. Since 1980, the share of all income in America going to the bottom 90 percent has declined from 65 percent to 52 percent. In actual dollars, the average income of Americans in the bottom 90 percent flat-lined -- going from the $30,941 of 1980 to $31,244 in 2008.

In short, the economic life and prospects for Americans since the Reagan Revolution have grown dim, while the lives of the rich -- the super-rich in particular -- have never been brighter. The share of income accruing to America's wealthiest 1 percent rose from 9 percent in 1974 to a tidy 23.5 percent in 2007.

So keep in mind 90% of America has been under constant financial stress while the rich just keep on tricking them with bullshit and buying tax cuts in Washington.

A Few Factoids

• Thirty years ago, ten percent of California’s general fund went to higher education and three percent to prisons. Today, nearly eleven percent goes to prisons and eight percent to higher education.1
• China is now second in the world in its publication of biomedical research articles, having recently surpassed Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, France, Canada and Spain.2
• The United States now ranks 22nd among the world’s nations in the density of broadband Internet penetration and 72nd in the density of mobile telephony subscriptions.3
• In 2009, 51 percent of United States patents were awarded to non-United States companies.4
• The World Economic Forum ranks the United States 48th in quality of mathematics and science education.5
• Of Wal-Mart’s 6,000 suppliers, 5,000 are in China.6
• There are sixteen energy companies in the world with larger reserves than the largest United States company.7
• IBM’s once promising PC business is now owned by a Chinese company.8
• The legendary Bell Laboratories is now owned by a French company.9
• Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. (computer manufacturing) employs more people than the worldwide employment of Apple, Dell, Microsoft, Intel and Sony combined.10
• No new nuclear plants and no new petroleum refineries have been built in the United States in a third of a century, a period characterized by intermittent energy-related crises.11
• Only four of the top ten companies receiving United States patents last year were United States companies.12
• United States consumers spend significantly more on potato chips than the government devotes to energy R&D.13
• The world’s largest airport is now in China.14
• In 2000 the number of foreign students studying the physical sciences and engineering in United States graduate schools for the first time surpassed the number of United States students.15
• Federal funding of research in the physical sciences as a fraction of GDP fell by 54 percent in the 25 years after 1970. The decline in engineering funding was 51 percent.16
• GE has now located the majority of its R&D personnel outside the United States.17
• Manufacturing employment in the U.S. computer industry is now lower than when the first personal computer was built in 1975.18
• In the 2009 rankings of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation the U.S. was in sixth place in global innovation-based competitiveness, but ranked 40th in the rate of change over the past decade.19
• China has now replaced the United States as the world’s number one high-technology exporter.20
• In 1998 China produced about 20,000 research articles, but by 2006 the output had reached 83,000 . . . overtaking Japan, Germany and the U.K.21
• Eight of the ten global companies with the largest R&D budgets have established R&D facilities in China, India or both.22
• During a recent period during which two high-rise buildings were constructed in Los Angeles, over 5,000 were built in Shanghai.23
• In a survey of global firms planning to build new R&D facilities, 77 percent say they will build in China or India.24
• China has a $196 billion positive trade balance. The United States’ balance is negative $379 billion.25
• Sixty-nine percent of United States public school students in fifth through eighth grade are taught mathematics by a teacher without a degree or certificate in mathematics.26
• Ninety-three percent of United States public school students in fifth through eighth grade are taught the physical sciences by a teacher without a degree or certificate in the physical sciences.27
• Of the Big Three American automakers, one is now owned by a firm in Italy (after having been previously sold by a German firm), and another is 60 percent owned by the United States government.28
• The United States ranks 27th among developed nations in the proportion of college students receiving undergraduate degrees in science or engineering.29
• Forty-nine percent of United States adults do not know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.30
• The United States graduates more visual arts and performing arts majors than engineers.31
• The total annual federal investment in research in mathematics, the physical sciences and engineering is now equal to the increase in United States healthcare costs every nine weeks.32
• Bethlehem Steel marked its 100th birthday by declaring bankruptcy.33
• The United States ranks 20th in high school completion rate among industrialized nations and 16th in college completion rate.34
• In less than 15 years, China has moved from 14th place to second place in published research articles (behind the United States).35
• China’s real annual GDP growth over the past thirty years has been 10 percent.36
• According to OECD data the United States ranks 24th among thirty wealthy countries in life expectancy at birth.37
• For the next 5-7 years the United States, due to budget limitations, will only be able to send astronauts to the Space Station by purchasing rides on Russian rockets.38
• The average American K-12 student spends four hours a day in front of a TV.39
• China’s Tsinghua and Peking Universities are the two largest suppliers of students who receive PhD’s—in the United States.40
• Sixty-eight percent of U.S. state prison inmates are high school dropouts or otherwise did not qualify for a diploma.41
• The United States has fallen from first to eleventh place in the OECD in the fraction 25-34 year olds that has graduated high school. The older portion of the U.S. workforce ranks first among OECD populations of the same age.42
• When MIT put its course materials on the worldwide web, over half of the users were outside the United States.43
• Six of the ten best-selling vehicles in the United States are now foreign models.44
• Since 1995 the United States share of world shipments of photovoltaics has fallen from over 40 percent to well under 10 percent—while the overall market has grown by nearly a factor of one hundred.45
• Among manufacturers of photovoltaics, wind turbines and advanced batteries, the top ten global firms by market capitalization include two, one and one United States firms, respectively. The other firms are from China, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Spain, Taiwan and the U.K.46
• An American company recently opened the world’s largest private solar R&D facility . . . in Xian, China.47
• By 2008, public spending in the United States on energy R&D had declined to less than half what it was three decades ago in real purchasing power. By 2005, private investment had declined to less than one-third of the total.48
• A single Japanese automobile model constitutes about half of the U.S. hybrid market.49
• Last year Mitsubishi introduced the world’s first mass-produced all-electric car.50
• A Japanese company produces over 75 percent of the world’s nickel metal hydride batteries used in vehicles.51
• Japan has 1524 miles of high speed rail; France has 1163; and China just passed 742 miles. The United States has 225. China has 5612 miles now under construction and one plant produces 200 trains each year capable of operating at 217 mph. The United States has none under construction.52
• Roughly half of America’s outstanding public debt is now foreign-owned—with China the largest holder.53
• The increase in cost of higher education in America has substantially surpassed the growth in family income in recent decades. United States current and former students have amassed $633 billion in student loan debt.54
• There are 60 new nuclear power plants currently being built in the world. One of these is in the United States.55
• In 2008, 770,000 people worked in the United States correction sector, a number which is projected to grow. During the same year there were 880,000 workers in the entire United States automobile manufacturing sector.56
• Between 1996 and 1999, 157 new drugs were approved in the United States. In a corresponding period ten years later the number dropped to 74.57
• All the National Academies Gathering Storm committee’s 2005 recommendations could have been fully implemented with the sum America spends on cigarettes each year—with $60 billion left over.58
• Youths between the ages of 8 and 18 average seven-and-a-half hours a day in front of video games, television and computers—often multi-tasking.59
• In 2007 China became second only to the United States in the estimated number of people engaged in scientific and engineering research and development.60
• In January 2010, China’s BGI made the biggest purchase of genome sequencing equipment ever.61
• In May 2010, a supercomputer produced in China was ranked the world’s second-fastest.62
• Almost one-third of U.S. manufacturing companies responding to a recent survey say they are suffering from some level of skills shortages.63
• According to the ACT College Readiness report, 78 percent of high school graduates did not meet the readiness benchmark levels for one or more entry-level college courses in mathematics, science, reading and English.64

No, there is no silver bullet or magical solution for all of these problems.  But I'll tell you one thing that won't work -- cutting more education, research and science spending, which the Republicans have promised to do, while at the same time giving more tax cuts to billionaires and millionaires.  How has that worked out for us?

Endnotes
1 J. Steinhauer, Schwarzenegger Seeks Shift From Prisons to Schools, The New York Times, January 6, 2010.
2 J. Karlberg. Biomedical Publication Trends by Geographic Area. Clinical Trial Magnifier. 2 (12), December, 2009.
3 S. Dutta and I. Mia, Global Information Technology Report 2009–2010: ICT for Sustainability, World Economic Forum, 2010.
4 T. Donohue, Testimony to the House Committee on Science and Technology on The Reauthorization of the America COMPETES Act, January 20, 2010. Available at: https://www.uschamber.com/issues/testimony/2010/100119_americacompetes.htm. See also: http://www.ificlaims.com/IFI%202009%20patents%20011210%20final.htm.
5 World Economic Forum, The Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010, Available at: http://www.weforum.org/pdf/GCR09/Report/Countries/United%20States.pdf.
6 P. Goodman and P. Pan, Chinese Workers Pay for Wal-Mart’s Low Prices: Retailer Squeezes Its Asian Suppliers to Cut Costs, The Washington Post, February 8, 2004.
7 See: http://www.petrostrategies.org/Links/Worlds_Largest_Oil_and_Gas_Companies_Sites.htm (accessed August 23, 2010).
8 N. Augustine, Is America Falling Off the Flat Earth? National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, Institute of Medicine, 2007, page 17; Available at: http://www.nap.edu/openbook.php.
9 J. Zarroli, French Telecom Company Alcatel Merging with Lucent, NPR, April 3, 2006.
10 J. DiPietro, Silicon Valley Is Dead, The Motley Fool, July, 27, 2010. Available at: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2010/07/27/silicon-valley-is-dead.aspx.
11 N. Augustine, 2007.
12 T. Donohue, 2010.
13 For 2009 U.S. potato chip sales of $7.1 billion, see https://www.aibonline.org/resources/statistics/2009snack.htm. For U.S. federal government spending on energy R&D of $5.1 billion, see American Energy Innovation Council, A Business Plan for America’s Energy Future, 2010.
14 Beijing’s Giant Airport Terminal To Open, BusinessWeek, February 27, 2008.
15 Measuring the Moment: Innovation, National Security, and Economic Competitiveness, The Task Force on the Future of American Innovation. Available at: http://futureofinnovation.org/PDF/BII-FINAL-HighRes-11-14-06_nocover.pdf.
16 N. Augustine, 2007.
17 R. Hira, U.S. Workers in a Global Job Market, Issues in Science and Technology, Spring 2009, Available at: http://www.issues.org/25.3/hira.html.
18 A. Grove, How to Make an American Job Before It’s Too Late, Bloomberg, July 1, 2010.
19 Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, The Atlantic Century: Benchmarking EU & U.S. Innovation and Competitiveness, February 2009. See: http://www.itif.org/files/2009-atlantic-century.pdf.
20 T. Meri, Eurostat: Statistics in Focus, 2009; Available at: http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/cache/ITY_OFFPUB/KS-SF-09-025/EN/KS-SF-09-025-EN.PDF.
21 J. Adams, Science heads east, New Scientist, Volume 205, Issue 2742, January 9, 2010.
22 From R. Atkinson, The Globalization of R&D and Innovation: How Do Companies Choose Where to Build R&D Facilities? Testimony, Committee on Science and Technology, Subcommittee on Technology and Innovation, U.S. House of Representatives, October 4, 2007.
23 H. Fineberg, Address to The Academy of Medicine, Engineering & Science of Texas Annual Meeting, January 5, 2006.
24 T. Goldbrunner, Y. Doz, and K. Wilson The Well-Designed Global R&D Network, Strategy+Business, May 30, 2006.
25 For China, J.R. Wu, China’s Exports Turn Upward in December, The Wall Street Journal, January 11, 2010; for the United States, see: http://www.census.gov/foreign-trade/Press-Release/2010pr/01/ft900.pdf.
26 National Center for Education Statistics, Qualifications of the Public School Teacher Workforce: Prevalence of Out-of-Field Teaching 1987-1988 and 1999-2000, Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Education, 2003.
27 Ibid.
28 D. Silver, General Motors Files Bankruptcy, WStreet.com, June 2, 2009. Available at: http://www.wstreet.com/investing/stocks/17551_general_motors_files_bankruptcy.html.
29 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Education at a Glance 2009: OECD Indicators; Table A-3.5.
30 National Science Board, Science and Engineering Indicators: 2010, Arlington, VA, Appendix Table 7-9.
31 National Center for Education Statistics, Digest of Education Statistics: 2009, Washington, DC. See: http://www.nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/tables/dt09_271.asp?referrer=list.
32 For figures on research, see NSB, 2010, Appendix Table 4-23. For figures on healthcare spending see Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, National Health Expenditures Aggregate, Per Capita Amounts, Percent Distribution, and Average Annual Percent Growth, by Source of Funds: Selected Calendar Years 1960-2008. Available at: http://www.cms.gov/NationalHealthExpendData/downloads/tables.pdf.
33 N. Augustine, Learning to Compete, Princeton Alumni Weekly, March 7, 2007. Available at: http://www.princeton.edu/~paw/archive_new/PAW06-07/09-0307/perspective.html.
34 OECD, 2009. Rankings include OECD members and partners, and college graduation ranking is based on Tertiary-A institutions. See: Tables A2.1 and A3.1 in http://www.oecd.org/document/24/0,3343,en_2649_39263238_43586328_1_1_1_1,00.html.
35 J. Pomfret, China pushing the envelope on science, and sometimes ethics, The Washington Post, June 28, 2010.
36 International Monetary Fund data available here: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo/ 2010/01/weodata/weoselgr.aspx.
37 Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Health at a Glance 2009, Paris, 2009. Available at: Available at: http://www.oecd.org/health/healthataglance.
38 Obama aims to send astronauts to Mars orbit in 2030s, PhysOrg.com, April 15, 2010. Available at: http://www.physorg.com/news190564316.html.
39 P. McDonough, TV Viewing Among Kids at an Eight-Year High, Nielsen Wire, October 26, 2009. Available at: http://blog.nielsen.com/nielsenwire/media_entertainment/tv-viewing-among-kids-at-an-eight-year-high/.
40 J. Mervis, Top Ph.D. Feeder Schools Are Now Chinese, Science, July 11, 2008.
41 C. Harlow, Educational and Correctional Populations, Bureau of Justice Statistics Special Report, January 2003. Available at: http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/content/pub/pdf/ecp.pdf.
42 OECD, 2009. See Chart A1.2 at http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/41/25/43636332.pdf.
43 MIT OpenCourseWare, 2005 Program Evaluation Findings Report, June 5, 2006. Available at: http://ocw.mit.edu/ans7870/global/05_Prog_Eval_Report_Final.pdf.
44 The Best Selling Cars of 2009, U.S. News and World Report, January 4, 2010. Available at: http://usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/cars-trucks/daily-news/100104-The-Best-Selling-Cars-Of-2009/.
45 From the Statement of Arun Majumdar, Director, Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), U.S. Department of Energy, Before the Committee on Science and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives, January 27, 2010.
46 The President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, Memorandum for the President on Energy, the Environment and Technology, June 17, 2009. Available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/microsites/090520_perab_climateMemo.pdf.
47 Applied Materials Opens Solar Technology Center in Xian, China, TechOn, October 27, 2009. Available at: http://techon.nikkeibp.co.jp/english/NEWS_EN/20091027/176977/.
48 J. Dooley, U.S. Federal Investments in Energy R&D: 1961-2008, U.S. Department of Energy, PNNL-17952, October 2008. Available at: http://www.greentechhistory.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/federal-investment-in-energy-rd-2008.pdf. See also: D. Kammen and G. Nemet, Reversing the Incredible Shrinking Energy R&D Budget, Issues in Science and Technology, Fall 2005.
49 Best Selling Hybrid Cars in 2009, Hybrid Cars, March 4, 2010. Available at: http://www.hybrid-cars.org/announcements/top-hybrid-car-2009.
50 Mitsubishi unveils first mass-market electric car from a major car maker, The Guardian, January 20, 2010. See: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jan/20/greentech-travelandtransport.
51 M. Huckerbee, S. Wong, T. Cai, China’s intervention in global M&A heats up while AML private actions cool down, Mallesons Stephen Jaques website, November 2009, See: http://www.mallesons.com/publications/2009/Nov/10131333w.htm.
52 K. Richburg, China is pulling ahead in worldwide race for high-speed rail transportation, The Washington Post, May 12, 2010.
53 Information on foreign holdings of U.S, treasury securities is available at: http://www.ustreas.gov/tic/mfh.txt. Total debt held by the public is available at: http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/NPGateway.
54 A. Damast, Asking for Student Loan Forgiveness, BusinessWeek, March 24, 2009.
55 International Atomic Energy Agency. See: http://www.iaea.org/cgi-bin/db.page.pl/pris.reaucct.htm (Accessed August 26, 2010).
56 S. Kirchhoff, Economic Impacts of Prison Growth, Congressional Research Service, 7-5700, April 13, 2010
57 Approvals of new molecular entities (NMEs) are counted. See J. Owens, 2006 Drug Approvals: Finding the Niche, Nature Reviews Drug Discovery, February 2007. Available at: http://www.nature.com/nrd/journal/v6/n2/fig_tab/nrd2247_F1.html; M. Martino, 2007 FDA Approvals, Fierce Biotech, January 14, 2008. Available at: http://www.fiercebiotech.com/special-reports/2007-fda-approvals; and M. Arnold, FDA BLA approvals rose in 2009 while NMEs stumbled, Medical Marketing and Media, December 31, 2009. Available at: http://www.mmm-online.com/fda-bla-approvals-rose-in-2009-while-nmes-stumbled/article/160496/.
58 For spending on cigarettes, see: http://www.cdc.gov/tobacco/data_statistics/fact_sheets/economics/econ_facts/. For cost estimates of the Gathering Storm committee’s recommendations, see National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, Rising Above the Gathering Storm: Energizing and Employing America for a Brighter Economic Future, Washington, DC, 2007,
Appendix E.
59 V. Rideout, U. G. Foehr, and D. F. Roberts, Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds, Kaiser Family Foundation, January 2010.
60 NSB, 2010.
61 J. Pomfret, China pushing the envelope on science, and sometimes ethics, Washington Post, June 28, 2010.
62 Ibid.
63 Deloitte, Oracle, and the Manufacturing Institute, People and profitability: A time for change, 2009.
64 Note that the ACT estimates that students meeting the readiness standard in a given subject have a 75 percent chance of getting a C and a 50 percent chance of getting a B in an entry level course. Information available at the ACT website: http://www.act.org/news/releases/2008/crr.html.