American Innovation Lies on Weak Foundation - NYTimes.com

From an R&D reality check; perhaps the author would be more optimistic if he read the new Elon Musk biography

"Apple, Procter & Gamble, 3M — American businesses dominate the list of the most innovative companies in the world. And new companies trumpeting new products, financed by dynamic venture capital operations, continue to emerge from Silicon Valley, the Boston region, New York, Northern Virginia and elsewhere.

But talk to a scientist in a research lab almost anywhere and you are likely to hear that the edifice of American innovation rests on an increasingly rickety foundation.

Investment in research and development has flatlined over the last several years as a share of the economy, stabilizing at about 2.9 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product in 2012, according to the National Science Foundation."

American Innovation Lies on Weak Foundation - NYTimes.com