Market Forces

Here is an article that explains why it is so hard to start a business in America that if it fails has no residual value. As opposed to starting a retail store or investing in real estate.

"The way business works here is simple," says David J. Farber. "In America, if you have a potential product, you do research, you try to figure out the size of the potential market. And if it's a totally new, totally innovative thing, where no one has any idea of the size of the market, and there's no guaranteed return on a large investment, well, forget it. No American company will touch it. In Japan, it's usually quite the opposite: manufacturers know that the home market loves new stuff; they'll take risks there, hoping that something will catch fire and take off. The only U.S. company that's doing that is Apple, and, honestly, I don't think that even Steve Jobs, in all of his infinite wisdom, thought that the iPod was going to take off the way it has."

Which means that for the foreseeable future, American technophiles will continue to experience a chronic case of gadget envy. Hey, is that a brand-new buggy whip I see under the Christmas tree?

I guess I should have been Japanese. Well being a big guy I do like the larger American houses. I suppose if I was a Japanese I'd have been smaller.

Well any way it is my contention that America must work harder and spend more to close the innovation gap. Soon I hope.