The Peculiar American

Speaking of Emerging Powers...
Read this interview with Intel Chairman Andy Grove where he's worried about declining American competitiveness in the high-tech sector:

"Grove, 67, singled out China and India as key threats. India's booming software industry, which is increasingly doing work for U.S. companies, could surpass the United States in software and tech-service jobs by 2010, he said.
More ominously, Grove said, the software and services industries -- strong drivers of U.S. economic growth for nearly two decades -- show signs of emulating the struggles of the U.S. steel and semiconductor industries.
In the case of steel, U.S. companies never recovered, dropping from nearly 90 percent of worldwide market share to roughly 10 percent. The semiconductor industry, Intel's core business, faced similar challenges in the 1980s, when it began its drop from 90 percent to 40 percent of the world market, Grove said, before aggressive trade and other U.S. policies helped it recover and stabilize at about 50 percent."

Grove is obviously biased, looking at the world through the lense of his industry's experience. Sure, the American share of the steel industry has dropped dramatically in the last 20 years. But during the same time we've taken the lead in new industries like Biotech. Still, Grove's warnings are worth listening to and it would be dumb to ignore the role government does play in supporting key industries.