

Can America compete? - pge
http://harvardmagazine.com/2012/09/can-america-compete

======
russell
The article actually supposes that large businesses really care to think
locally. If a business can shut down a factory in Michigan and reopen in China
for some perceived cost advantage or switch from a local supplier to a foreign
one, think locally isnt going to produce anything.

I would posit that rethinking manufacturing (entrepreneurially) to take
advantage of our skilled workforce and superior design capabilities would be
the way to go.

One suggestion did make sense: reduce the influence of stock based incentives.
Even more importantly, get away from decisions being driven by quarterly
reports.

~~~
enraged_camel
>>If a business can shut down a factory in Michigan and reopen in China for
some _perceived cost advantage_...

In the vast majority of cases, the "perceived" cost advantage is real, and
very significant.

------
johnohara
Possible, but difficult, given current obligations.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_War>
<http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0933935.html>

~~~
russell
Declare victory and come home. Leave nation building to the natives not the
contractors.

Fix the tax code so that the rich pay taxes commensurate with the rest of us,
so that corporations cant shift earnings offshore, so that resource extraction
companies dont get depletion allowance, so that excessive earnings get put to
productive use, on and on. Then we will have money to pay down our debt and to
move forward.

~~~
Daniel_Newby
This is great material for a bunch of teenagers protesting The Man, but how do
you propose to keep earnings out of foreign countries? I.e., how can you ban a
German subsidiary from holding the German profits?

How do you define "excessive earnings" or windfalls or other such garbage?
Many businesses are cyclical, like venture capital and energy. If you tax away
the profitable part of the cycle, they will shut down and tax revenue actually
falls.

I had better stop talking or I will end up waving my cane and shouting about
the Laffer curve.

~~~
yzhengyu
I think no one has issues with say, the German subsidiary holding onto profits
generated in Germany.

The primary observation now is large corporations channeling their reserves
and holding them in various locations that is friendly to capital - i.e. no
taxes or other costs in simply holding large amounts of cash in reserve.

I think at this stage of global economic development, it is an issue the world
has to face. How in the world are you going to incentivise these entities
holding all these vast amounts of capital to put this capital to real wealth
generating activities instead of sitting on it or leaving it to the financial
sector to push it around?

------
doggonematte
What's that corollary about titles that ask questions?

~~~
weaksauce
Betteridge's Law of Headlines – In journalism, "any headline which ends in a
question mark can be answered by the word 'no'".

from: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_laws>

~~~
pyre
How about:

    
    
      Will the answer to this headline be 'no?'

------
dreamdu5t
Compete by what standard? The article doesn't even define the premise it's
referring to.

------
lifeisstillgood
Yes.

Next.

