It is somewhat amusing that Americans taught the Japanese about quality control after WWII (Google Dr. W. Edwards Deming) and the Japanese ended up kicking America’s ass as far as producing a quality product at a reasonable price is concerned
At one point, if I remember correctly, the Japanese government required the automakers to do joint research – new technology could be taken at some point and used by each of the companies – I don’t know if this still happens – I think the idea was to prevent the wasting of resources that would occur by having 5 different companies researching the most aerodynamic way to implement windshield wipers (for example)
~
One of the biggest challenges we (Americans) face, IMO, is our own arrogance
We assume that if we didn’t invent it here, it can’t be a decent product – or if it is a decent product, that ‘they’ somehow copied or stole our technology
The underlying arrogance in this type of thinking is that we (Americans) are somehow superior to the rest of the world
To make it worse, we totally ignore history and assume that if it didn’t happen in our lifetimes it doesn’t matter – perhaps this is where a lot of the “it’s different this time” thinking comes from
