There's nothing weird or strange about foreign owned companies here in the US, most people aren't even aware they're foreign - BP is a good example. There's nothing wrong with those companies staking claims here in the US, their products can be just as good as a US product. There's nothing magical about merchandising that the US has the lock on the market.

But there is something to concern ourselves. The intrusion of more and more foreign companies signals the decline of America as a world power. Perhaps now we are more a world equal, but that is something we'll have to swallow along with our pride. However there are a few things that go with foreign companies that we need to be worried about. How do the host countries of those companies view industrial espionage? How do foreign company's labor laws compare with our own and how does that clash with our culture.

Foreign espionage is increasingly important, as not every country differentiates between company and country when it comes to spying. France and China both routinely steal secrets from other companies and apply them directly to their national security policy. Currency and economic strength is a security policy too. While that may not be very meaningful when talking about a coffee shop or gas chain, it becomes very real when discussing aerospace, industrial manufacturing, and software development. Let's say a foreign firm wants to plop down a factory in the midwest and start building say...tanks. Do we really want a company who's parent government will benefit by learning our technology building our defence products? Do we even want them involved at any level? Could you ever trust them, even if they did it through a partnership with a struggling American company?

That's just one hypothetical, and that isn't even the worst case scenario. China is the biggest and worst of all copyright and patent infringers. (And lest you think I'm spouting off, just Google it, there are plenty of instances documented already just with France alone) In capitalist societies corporations are relatively neutral entities who's loyalties are for whatever currency they deal in. That isn't necessarily true in socialist and communist countries. We need to exercise caution as a country and not let the lure of profit or product erode our country's defences. We may not be killing each other on the battlefield, but every country in the world is battling ferociously to undermine the others in a slow game of domination of politics and finances. The US was on top for a long time, but we over-extended ourselves and now the world has regrouped and is going for the throat.

Economic domination is a form of slavery and only slightly less undesirable than military domination. Both are forms of conflict where one side struggles to gain advantage and dominance over the other with the end result of increasing itself at the others expense. Imagine a war where one side develops a weapon, say the bow and arrow, (or the hydrogen bomb), that provides an undeniable and insurmountable advantage for itself. Does the other side simply concede and become slaves, or do what it can to neutralize the advantage possessed by its opponent. Those who posses bows and arrows are most anxious to protect the copyright and patents of same. It is indeed true that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.... and survival. Imitation is a primary engine that drives innovation and helps prevent nations, companies, and individuals from retiring on the laurels of one or a few innovations. In many cases the innovator sells his innovation to a company or nation who in turn uses it to dominate an industry or opponent. Let us not forget that all technical inventions and developments depend directly on what has come before and that without the knowledge of geometry and mathematicians from ancient Egypt and Babalonia there is no Euclid. Without ancient Greece there is no Western Civilization. The argument that, without copyright protection that innovation will be stifled strikes me as self-serving and contradictory. There will always be an advantage associated with being first. Let that be the incentive to create. It seems to me that what is most valuable and desirable is creating a society and culture where innovation and creativity are encouraged. This we should encourage to have copied everywhere. It may be the case that any advantage that is institutionalized and too great carries with it the seeds of its own destruction. Attempts to protect such advantages are doomed to failure. Protecting property rights at the expense of human rights will end in the decline of both. People will not passively sit by allow themselves and their children to be marginalized indefinitely. G. W. Bush is just such an example of an undesirable outcome for the world as a result of protection of institutionalized advantage or privilege.

Please, you argue as if everyone around us are altruistic dreamers. Why you chose to mention Bush I can't imagine, perhaps you need to get out of the rut you're in, but he is of zero consequence to the argument. His administration certainly didn't invent and implement current US trade policy.

Innovation has driven world history, but lest you forget, those secrets were protected just as viciously back then as they are today - even something as trivial as number systems that include zero. Those secrets weren't just passed around by dreamy eyed hippies. Oftentimes the most groundbreaking innovations were locked away like a miser's gold, until another culture stole it through conquest.

Is that a good thing - yes. While I'm sure your buddies in China would love to remove US patent laws so they could legally sell what they steal currently, I doubt Microsoft, IBM, RedHat, Novell (shall I go on?) would see it from your perspective.

Perhaps the US should adopts your policy of open thinking - but only after China, France, Israel, and German adopt that policy first.

BP is an excellent example. It has learned to behave like an American company as well. According to today's Chicago Tribune, with the promise of some jobs, it has persuaded the state of Indiana to grant it a waiver to increase its pollution of Lake Michigan (the EPA as well) in connection with the expansion of its refinery in Whiting. Standard Oil, who used to own the refinery, couldn't have done better.

Why you would presume to imagine that I am in a rut is a mystery that only you can answer. The issues of protecting and preserving intellectual property and wealth are connected. You incorrectly assume that I am against both. It's not that simple. It is for me a question of balance. I have a business whose place in the market depends on being the first to do certain things. I must continue to stay one step in front of my competitors. If I could construct barriers to keep others from copying what I do it would help my company immensely. I could add at least one more zero to my bank account. While such protection may benefit me it does little to encourage more innovation. Just the opposite. While there is a natural inherit advantage associated with invention and discovery that benefits the innovator the protection sought by owners of patents and copyrights often goes far beyond the natural advantage associated with the innovation and creates artificial barriers that stifle competition and keep prices artificially high. If pharmaceutical companies had their way patents would exist indefinitely. What one company describes as copyright protection another sees as state sponsored Monopoly. Many of the secrets that you describe including the principal of zero are not, thank God, patentable. Einstein, Euclid, and Copernicus, did not and could not patent their monumental discoveries because they are laws of nature.

Your strongly held conviction that to hide and withhold knowledge "Is a good thing" deserves some deeper scrutiny. No one discovers anything independent of everyone and everything. Bill Gates would be the first to admit this. Laws championed by companies or individuals to protect an advantage that is otherwise indefensible deserve some scrutiny as well. This statement does not mean that I am against copyright protection. I happen to be a strong advocate of free and open competition in the marketplace. I strongly believe in a system that rewards on the basis of merit. What you appear to be in favor of is a system where government intervenes in the marketplace to enforce, protect and sustain an advantage by virtue of being first to the patent office. There is no substitute for original research and discovery. It brings intrinsic rewards unique and valuable in themselves. No amount of reverse engineering will produce the same reward. A copy is not the same as an original and if it is then there is no such thing as an original. It is true that the concentration of wealth, power and advantage held by companies like Microsoft, IBM, RedHat, Novell, ADM, Cargill, Monsanto, and Merc would be far more difficult to sustain but that does not translate into less innovation and less competition in the marketplace. It is not just the Chinese, the French and the Germans who practice copyright infringement. American download daily millions of dollars worth of copyrighted material. You assume that you know my perspective and you don't. What you imagine is your own distorted version of it. It is not only possible but desirable to hold and examine differing points of view at the same time. This is called having an open mind. I am often wrong, even on Sundays.

The fact that America is losing manufacturing is a cause to worry. But it is a symptom, not a disease itself. The real question is - what is the American government doing wrong - and why do the American companies either outsource or lose competition. Maybe the labor laws are to stringent? Maybe the enviromental regulations went too far? Maybe the current judicial system makes it more difficult for American companies to prosper? Maybe the tax burden is too tight? Maybe the government has too many regulations that make it difficult to produce goods and services in the US?

These are all the questions we should ask ourselves.

casa sera

Labor Laws to stringent? Compared to who? Certainly not compared to other industrialized nations.

Environmental regulations went too far? Compared to who? East Germany during the cold war?

Judicial system...American companies to prosper? How much "free" money do share holders have to "make" before you consider them prosperous?

Tax burden too tight? You have to be kidding me. America is one of the most under taxed civilized/modern/industrialize­d (whatever) countries around.

Too many regulations? Again...compared to who? China?

Maybe the real problem in America is the insatiable greed of the few - sucking the life blood out of this country.