Dr. John Rutledge, Chairman of Rutledge Capital, President of the Business School at the Mundell International University of Entreprenuership in Beijing, and PFF Director, looks at China:

After spending the last week in China, I can tell you that the Chinese government understands the only way to deliver high growth and increase living standards without further fouling the air and running out of energy is to focus on IT, communications, and the financial service sector. The Chinese are putting a full court press on innovation and entrepreneurship by aggressively investing in tech education and pursuing policies to attract foreign capital to relocate to China--especially such as R&D operations.

What are we doing?

I have also spent time recently with leaders who definitely do not get it. Unfortunately, they are our leaders. In a world where countries are scrambling to attract capital -- especially high-tech capital -- Congress is too concerned with lobby groups, earmarked expenditures, and mid-term elections to worry about attracting and holding capital. Like Nero, they are fiddling while Rome burns, wasting their time fighting over non-issues like so-called network neutrality and deciding which snouts will enjoy the $7.3 billion Universal Service Fund trough instead of passing the communications legislation overhaul we need to drive investment and productivity higher. Meanwhile, company after company is moving R&D facilities offshore--the share of US companies in the global telecom equipment market has fallen from 40% to 20% in the past 5 years.