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vikrv wrote:

LindsayRichards wrote:

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That's called American innovation, just like fracking. You can down play it all you wish, but private innovation is responsible for most of the world's successes. The TVA hasn't done too much lately.

There is incremental innovation and breakthrough innovation. Smart phones already existed when Apple came out with the first iPhone in 2007. MP3 players already existed, such as the Creative Zen, when Apple came out with the iPod. What Apple has done is to create carefully stylized gadgets that create a cultlike desire in consumers. They also have the ecosystem with the iTunes stores to make it easy for consumers to buy downloadable music and applications.

As far as fracking, the first commercially fracked well occurred in 1949. Directional drilling has occurred since 1934. So no breakthrough innovation there in the Bakken. Just more incremental refinement.

Most American innovation proceeded from large government financed and managed projects. Federal support for Air Mail gave birth to Boeing and Douglas, who wanted to build the airmail planes. United Airlines and others started by selling passenger space on mail planes. Lindbergh was an experienced Air Mail pilot who teamed up with the Ryan aircraft company and their head engineer Donald Hall to customize a Ryan Air Mail plane to fly the atlantic.

Same thing with this here very internet. The net itself was built by government scientists who wanted to exchange data and papers and ideas. The first browser. Mosaic, was defined and built by Berners-Lee at CERN, a government lab in switzerland.

And so it was. If we had relied on commercial companies we'd all be using SNA today, at 30cps terminals costing $2000 per month.

Most of the great American companies came from some government operation that would never have happed had their fate been left to private enterprise.