[elbucko]

Europeans and Japanese are marvelous in improving the production process and reverse-engineer the existing process. But what about the ideas themselves, the new products? Why is it that they invariably come from the States?

With all due respect, the history of technology does not quite agree with your implication. The airplane, the automobile, electronics were all originally invented in the US. If US companies lost domestic or world share for these products it was, nearly always, the result of the companies that produced the product allowing the quality to deteriorate. When management becomes lazy or arrogant, quality suffers.

[TopQuark]

airplane, the automobile, electronics were all originally invented in the US.

That's what I said.

[observer5]

"ideas themselves, the new products? Why is it that they invariably come from the States?"

... you mean as in Apple, the only PC manufacturer that actually innovates and owns 3 times more patents than M$.

[Lessismore]

The airplane, the automobile, electronics were all originally invented in the US.

Research on "cathode rays" was carried on in Britain, France and Germany. J. J. Thompson is credited with discovering the electron around 1897, and John A Fleming invented the diode vacuum tube. They were both Brits.

Karl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler, Germans, are usually credited with inventing the automobile in 1884.

The Wright brothers did invent the airplane in the United States in 1903, but its development languished here. By the beginning of World War I, the British, French and Germans were far ahead. IIRC, the US Army Air Corp bought French (gasp!) planes when we entered the war.