[mrjangles]

>Are you really saying all that R&D spending in other countries is going towards copy-pasting stuff made in the US?

Yes. I can barely think of any examples to the contrary. 90% of technology being used around the world today was developed in the US. More importantly, R&D money spent by governments usually amounts to absolutely nothing. R&D spent by private companies can be ground breaking, or it can just be a nonsense tax break, or it can be spent learning to reproduce what others have already invented.

So simply looking at R&D spending is pretty useless. Instead look at the results.