China Overtakes U.S. For First Time as Top Spender on R&D in 2024

There are two things that I feel impacted the US here:

1. the R&D tax credit was gone from 2022 - 2025 thanks to the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act signed in 2017.

2. private equity does not invest in R&D

If China is to the 21st century what the US were to the 20th century - economically, scientifically, industrially - what should I do as a US citizen working in tech, besides signing up my kids and myself for Chinese classes?

I'm ready to blame the current admin, federal funding cuts, and cuts to immigration, but we all do need to check that the year for this change is clearly 2024... (But I am also ready to be even more depressed by 2025 stats!)

The way the US is aggressively footgunning itself, while China (and others) win by default is so frustrating. The US could have invested in clean energy, in social programs to help towns experiencing economic depression.

Like, it's really not that hard. Yes, we'd have to squeeze the richest people and share a little more equally. But not even that much. Like, the rich would still be astonishingly wealthy.

It's just... devastating to see oligarchs who can't just accept being slightly less oligarchic resulting in the collapse of an entire country.

archived, no trackers: https://nonograph.com/china-overtakes-us-for-first-time-as-t...

You found me at a very chinese time in my life

And increasingly so. R&D requires excess wealth, the US has a structural deficit it cannot plug growing faster than inflation.

Engineers vs lawyers

Not to sound like a broken record here but the big problem is housing. When housing becomes the best investment, it cannibalizes capital investment into productive output.

There have been other errors along the way, such as the Bayh-Doyle Act [1], a law signed by Jimmy Carter in a lame duck session after losing to Ronald Reagan to essentially give away NIH research. I'm a firm believer that federal research dollars should come with equity strings attached in the results. Otherwise, fund your own research. And in pharmaceuticals, it's basically all federal research, despite the myth that Big Pharma invests in a lot of research. It doesn't. Actually there's one thing it does invest in: patent extension.

Also, we've addicted to fossil fuels, IMHO because it induces demand for weapons.

One big difference between the US and China is that China has significant capital controls so China has a captive market of over $100T in household savings that has to be invested in something and it can't just leave. This too creates problems but the gains in China and decrease in costs cannot be dismissed easily. Also, China has basically managed to recreate all the technologies the US has tried to restrict from being exported to China, everything from welding large container ships to the latest and greatest lithography and manufacturing.

But housing absolutely needs to stop being an investment. It's a huge reason why the manufacturing sector has been hollowed out in the West.

[1]: https://issues.org/bayh-dole-innovation-policy-woodson/

Every year, there is an issue with stats coming from China. Be it casualties, deficit, populations. It's always proven to be wrong after a decade.

This 2024 will be the same as the historical data shows, as China number is never right.

Upvote this in 2034 until then chinese will downvote the crap outta my comment.

It's true that China is remarkable, but the concern is that China is too large. Basically, these cutting-edge industries require industrial chains to be connected across different countries, but China can do almost everything within its own borders. China's greatness is greatness, but if China becomes highly developed, will this kind of technological development spread to neighboring countries?

U.S. industry, for one, spreads to many countries through outsourcing. But China can consume outsourcing within its own borders. If that happens, what will become of it?

Assuming the expected thing happens and Trump gets shellacked in the midterms, do Americans think this will have some impact (ie reverse or accelerate) the current trend of cuts to science, cracking down on foreign students, cuts to NIH, HHS etc? Those being big recent change in this area.

Trump administration has done such a deep and lasting damage on USA