Can We Compete with China and Russia?

C&EN's quote of the week is, "We may just press the pause button here for several years. But China is pressing the fast-forward button."

I will now add to that. "We have been eating political cheese for years, and we are now constipated."

The opportunities for private enterprise are now in China and Russia. Not in the US or Western Europe.

The reason for this is that China and Russia never established impediments to private industry. In their recent history of Communism/Socialism, private industry did not exist and therefore did not require any restrictions. Private industry now has a clear field in those countries.

Contrarily in the United States, we have continued year after year to establish private industry restrictions and have now reached the constipation stage. If private industry wants to do anything fast, they do it in China or Russia. It can't be done in the United States.

This does not necessarily mean that we are doomed to become a third world country equivalent to West Africa. It only means that we have to work twice as hard as China and Russia, because we must first undo all of the damage that was done in past years. However, before we can start on such a program, we must first recognize the problem, in government and in the people. As Pogo said, "We have met the enemy, and they are us."


Government is always in the leadership position. If it maintains its policy, as we have continued for the last two administrations and even before, it will become doomsday. First need is for government to recognize the requirement to do an about-face. It is doubtful that this will occur through the Present Administration. Our only hope is to get some kind of immediate response by a strong Congress. There's always a possibility of a new Administration in 2012, but every day that we wait is to our disadvantage.