My Sputnik Moment
Bill McGurn ·
Jan 27, 2011 at 1:17pm
I was a year away from being born when Sputnik was launched, so have no first-hand memories. However, I had my own Sputnik moment while re-reading President Obama's lines about India and China in the context of his call for more "investments" (federal spending).
Isn't the obvious point -- so obvious that it has escaped most of Washington -- that China and India became competitive only when their governments started moving away from involvement in the economy? Even Deng Xiaoping once justified those moves by saying something I wish I would hear from President Obama: "to get rich is glorious."
I've been waiting for someone to take on the competiveness issue
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May '10
Re: My Sputnik Moment
My edition of Thomas Sowell's "Basic Economics" has many great examples of India's going from a centrally planned economy to a free market. I wish it had been on Mr. Obama's reading list before he went into politics, but I don't think it was.
Dec '10
Re: My Sputnik Moment
A somewhat related issue: we are told that Indian and Chinese children receive much better educations than American children do at the elementary and secondary level, and that children in those countries outperform American kids in math, science and other areas.
Yet we know that in India and in China, huge swathes of the population live in agrarian communities. Am I really to believe that a village school in the poorest state of India turns out educated high school graduates?
Am I wrong to believe that in the United States, there are more educational opportunities afforded to a wider cross-section of the population than in those other societies?
Re: My Sputnik Moment
One reason the Sputnik metaphor is attractive to the White House is that the American response was a largely government space program.
The best thing we could do to be competitive is fix our government-run schools by getting the government out of them and demanding accountability.
Nov '10
Re: My Sputnik Moment
Bill McGurn:
Isn't the obvious point -- so obvious that it has escaped most of Washington -- that China and India became competitive only when their governments started moving away from involvement in the economy?
You'd think so, but that may be asking too much.
I'm reminded of Tom Friedman's book "The Earth is Flat". The first three quarters of that book is an exploration of how up-in-comers like India and China have thrown off the shackles of government control and, consequently, have become powerhouses of productivity and wealth-creation. And then the last quarter or so of the book is an impassioned plea to America to ditch the free market and put our ruling class in complete, absolute charge of our economy.
The funny thing is that Friedman's book made it through God knows how many editors and reviewers, and nobody spotted the fundamental disconnect between the body of the book and the conclusions that the author draws. I just don't see how that's possible.
Re: My Sputnik Moment
Stuart, you are right that there is a huge have and have-not situation in China and India viz schools. However, because of the size of the population, they still have a large and growing middle class of several hundred million. And because many people in these countries know what it's like to be poor, they insist on standards. So while it's true that not everyone is benefiting, many many are -- with no excuses.
Dec '10
Re: My Sputnik Moment
The space program was government funded, but the equipment was and is designed and built by private entities. Right problem, wrong solution.
Wednesday, Obama celebrated "new green technology" being exported from a GE facility, to India. The technology is a gas turbine, made by a (semi) private company and sold to another country, where it will burn natural gas to generate electricty. Private companies don't need government incentives to make a desirable product to sell to a willing buyer. If using "new green technology" gas turbines is something to be lauded, you would think that the development of our own, huge natural gas reserves would be considered a good thing and not subject to a moratorium!
Dec '10
Re: My Sputnik Moment
The prospect of America-sized populations of middle class, educated people competing with the United States is daunting.
But the prospect of those people representing the haves in countries with as many -- or perhaps far more -- have nots has to be frightening to the elites in those countries. And that there are more educated young people in those countries than there are opportunities for them ought to terrify those elites.
In Italy, 21 percent of young people between ages 15 and 29 are "NEET" - Not in Employment, Education or Training." What are the NEET levels in the USA, China and India, I wonder?
And how do we induce our young people to use our schools for learning?
Re: My Sputnik Moment
These are all interesting issues. My main point, however, was simply that the rise of India and China refute President Obama's contention that the answer is more government direction of the economy.
Jul '10
Re: My Sputnik Moment
Absolutely. There is a reason he had to reach back over 50 years for an American example. He is a foolish, tragic mistake borne of unfounded hopes and accompliced by dishonest media.
I once sat in a Kenilworth Ave. Mexican place next to a table full of WETA, DC public television staff. In over an hour, the conversation kept coming back to how this or that service or product could never have come into existence without direct government intervention guiding those poor, benighted, profit-addled businessmen. I have not seen that same dimensional rift so fully in force again until this SOTU.
Edited on Jan 27, 2011 at 9:57pmDec '10
Re: My Sputnik Moment
I agree with your point.
He also trotted out the tired claim that we're doomed because we don't crank out as many scientists and engineers as China and India and that the only acceptable solution is to "invest" more in our educational system. I think that's dovetailed with his call for more government control of the economy in general -- in fact, I think that the appeal to education spending "for the children" is one of the biggest vehicles the Left uses to channel ever more taxpayer money into government institutions. (And then when anyone proposes cuts to government spending, the Left always frames those cuts as "robbing our children" by denying them education funding.)
Dec '10
Re: My Sputnik Moment
Deng Xiaoping "To get rich is glorious."
President Obama: "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money."
Jul '10
Re: My Sputnik Moment
Stuart Creque: ...
President Obama: "I do think at a certain point you've made enough money." · Jan 27 at 4:12pm
This is certainly true of Socialist Presidents.
Re: My Sputnik Moment
Good one, Stuart!
Jun '10
Re: My Sputnik Moment
Name for me a single Chinese invention produced in the last 100 years. I'll wait while you cogitate . . . .
The list of American inventions literally fills an encyclopedia (H/T the French for the invention of the encyclopedia). And why do you suppose America has produced everything from refrigeration to space travel over the last 100 years? Liberty. And that's what it's all about. Period.
Dec '10
Re: My Sputnik Moment
Another reason the Sputnik metaphor is attractive to the White House consists of our historic first Islamic apostate president’s morbid predilection for tormenting his, presumably, fellow countrymen (the majority of whose votes he spent $639 million of other people’s money to win).
He uses instances, factual or mythical (in reference to Sputnik, factual), that satisfy his animosity towards his, presumably, fellow countrymen to belittle—oh how shrewdly—their achievements when a rival to our way of life, here, the Soviets, can be lauded for their one-upmanship.
Sep '10
Re: My Sputnik Moment
Bill McGurn: One reason the Sputnik metaphor is attractive to the White House is that the American response was a largely government space program.
· Jan 27 at 1:50pm
Agreed. I think they also thought this would appeal to Republicans since they always lauded the space program and could understand at least that here was a massive project government undertook and succeeded. And the metaphor attractive viscerally as Charles Gordon's post above points out.
But I found it quite strange in general. Is it just me? I am actually outraged. 10 years after 9/11 we are having a Sputnik moment? We are in debt 14 trillion and the remedy is green jobs and science courses?
This from the guy who just de-funded NASA? From a party that always mocked Republicans for considering the Soviet Union a threat? The same folks that called Reagan's SDI "Star Wars" and continually derided and mocked it? From the party who elected Bill Clinton who gave away gratis the missile technology achieved through the space race to the Chinese?