New York Times reported something that’s hardly a news: China now dominates world’s solar cell production. Geez, can someone name anything that China does not?
The sensation of the report is on the high-technology nature of the product. This is no clothing, toy, car parts, MP3 players, or cell phones that the US either do not care about or, by action, had no interest of trying to win. This is green technology. Something the Obama government emphasized and pour money into subsidizing. This industry is the innovation, the future, the jobs, the game the US wanted to win.
Why does Solyndra bankrupt and its Chinese counter-parts thrive? One reason quoted is that Chinese government gives the industry subsidy grants for companies to buy from China companies. I don’t know if Obama’s job bill included any such subsidy.
It also seemed to me that the US companies focused too much on the innovation part of the business and missed the rest of the business execution: budgeting, schedule, cost control, distribution, selling, etc. They focused a lot on the creation of great technologies, instead of trying to make money from such creation. They make something that is very cool, but ended up losing money in the process. Once in a long while, we have an Apple that makes cool and profitable products. Don’t forget that Steve Job’s NeXT was a commercial disaster and ended up only as a footnote in the computer history book.
Good old Chinese pragmatism. Can we put that in Obama’s job bill?