| The biggest difference here is that Blockbuster and Movie Gallery which was #2 and has already Chapter 7 liquidated earlier this year are in a fairly zero-sum market. To a significant extent the success of Netflix and Redbox was taken out of their hide. Another very big factor was the development of the sell-through market for home video (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sell-through), which was pioneered by Disney and by the time of the DVD was the model by which they were sold. "The Wealth of Nations" as Adam Smith put it is not overall a zero-sum game. We're on very solid footing in a lot more areas that software development, e.g. aerospace (Boeing) and heavy equipment (Caterpillar); our manufacturing output has not declined at the same time our manufacturing employment has. That said, we are excessively complacent in a number of areas where, irrespective of competition from other nations, we simply can't continue a lot of our current ... luxuries. NIMBY has become BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anything). Unsustainable 1.5 trillion dollar annual Federal deficits and compensation for public sector employees at all levels of government. A figuratively criminal education system that was clearly so in 1955 (publication of Why Johnny Can't Read) that just keeps getting worse with each new top down nostrum. And I could go on and on. That said, we have some advantages that are simply not shared by many of our up and coming competitors. The rule of law (or why you didn't include Russia as is usual when describing the BRIC countries). The world's best universities (Feynman conceived of his cargo cult science meme during his stay in Brazil). A society and culture that's friendly to startups. Heck, start with the theoretically simple detail of starting a company, any company. Here's the first site I found with Google: http://www.doingbusiness.org/economyrankings/ Look were Brazil scores, 126th "best" out of 183 countries in which to start a legal company. China is at 159 and India is near the bottom at 169 (the License Raj has not hardly been dismantled) and all are across the board quite bad (China is the only country to partly surmount these problems where guanxi makes all the difference). As for the "large segment of the U.S that are nostalgic to a past perceived American glory" the last thing they're doing is "yearn[ing] for even more complacency". A whole bunch have been pushed too far and are holding Tea Parties with the explicit goal of changing the system (back to a past "perceived" American glory, yes, but perhaps we should give it a try again, seeing as how the new ways are abjectly failing?). |