>>> The US is not particulary known as an innovative country you'd like to think of. A few examples:
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>>Honestly Walter - these examples are ridiculous.
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>Not more than the originating message saying that europe is not innovative. I'd like add one another example. Our national Philips holds an awfull lot of soft and hardware patents which were really innovative. Like for example the Audio tape, DCC, Compact disc.

To call Philips a Dutch company is really ignoring the trans-national / international nature that this company really is. It is not Dutch anymore.



>>Picking a few subjective examples to back up an already silly statement. The US is clearly a huge source of innovation in a large number of fields. It's not all research done by others with US funding. (But even if it were it shows that the US apparently know how to make the money :)
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>The US by its size probably has developped numerous innovative technologies. I have trouble to think of specific ones. My statement is however that innovation does not neccesarely happen in the US, and certainly not more than elsewhere. There certainly are areas where the US is NOT innovative.

For every example you give I am sure there are many examples where the US lead the way or are #2 or #3; NASA, science, biology, genetics, software, computers, space exploration, military, semi-conductors, astronomy, hollywood, sport science, etc. Which country garners the most Nobel prizes in the various categories might be an interesting metric.