The Post-American World: Release 2.0 (41 page)

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Of course, information from public companies represents only part of the picture, because more than three-quarters of the world’s 4,203 biotech companies are held privately. Europe has a larger share of the world’s private biotech companies, representing 42 percent of the total (compared with 31 percent in America). The United States, by contrast, is home to a greater share of public biotech companies (50 percent versus Europe’s 18 percent), perhaps indicating the greater maturity of the U.S. market.

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MGI’s figure includes graduates trained in engineering, finance and accounting, life science research, and “professional generalists,” such as call center operatives. Young professionals are defined as graduates with up to seven years of experience.

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The right-wing attack on American universities as being out-of-touch ivory towers has always puzzled me. In a highly competitive global environment, these institutions dominate the field.

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Birthrates in China could be underreported owing to the government’s one-child policy. However, the demographic consensus holds that the total fertility rate has been below replacement level in China for fifteen years or more.

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Consumer durables, education, and R&D amount to 8.6 percent, 7.3 percent, and 2.8 percent of GDP, respectively. Adding this to the 15 percent saved by more traditional means yielded just over 33 percent of GDP in national savings in 2005.

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I would not add fixing health care to this list, because that is not an easy problem with an easy fix. Most problems in Washington have simple policy solutions but face political paralysis. Health care is an issue that is complex in both policy and political terms. The health care reform bill of 2010 was a political success—but a flawed bill with few genuine efforts to control costs. Truly solving this country’s health care problems would be difficult under any circumstances, and is especially so given the other pressing economic problems of the day.

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It is not a subject for this book, but I was in favor of the effort to oust Saddam Hussein, though I argued from the start for a much larger force and an internationally sanctioned intervention and occupation. My reasoning was mostly related to the fact that Western policy toward Iraq had collapsed—sanctions were leaking, countless civilians were dying because of the embargo, Al Qaeda was enraged by our base in Saudi Arabia, from which we operated the no-fly zone—and I believed that a more modern and moderate Iraq in the middle of the Arab world would help break the dysfunctional political dynamics of the Arab world. I opposed, from the first few weeks, Washington’s occupation policies. In retrospect, I underestimated not merely the administration’s arrogance and incompetence but also the inherent difficulty of the task. I continue to believe that a modern, moderate Iraq would make an important difference in the politics of the Middle East. I hope that Iraq will, in the long run, evolve into such a place, but the costs have been ruinously high—for Americans, for America’s reputation, but especially for Iraqis. And foreign policy is a matter of costs and benefits, not theology.