The evidence is appearing in their own backyard. While Americans are patenting fewer inventions, the Japanese and West Germans have led a huge increase in the number of foreign inventions being patented in the U.S. Though America's trade surplus in high-technology goods continues to grow, so does its deficit in goods that are less technologically exciting. In these latter goods, which make up the bulk of goods in world trade, the addition of technological wizardry has often been overlooked by Americans. but not by their competitors.

A main explanation. In both America and Britain, half the total government outlay for R&.D is related to defence. The West German government spends only 11 percent of its research budget on defence ,and Japan just 2%.

上述情况在他们自己的后院里已显露出来。美国人登记专利的发明创造项目在减少，与此同时，在美国登记专利的外国发明创造项目的数量却在大大增加，面在这方面日本人和西德人的发明创造项目又居于首位。尽管在高技术商品方面美国的贸易顺差在继续增长，但在技术性不那么强的商品方面，美国的逆差也在增长。美国人往往忽视在这后一类商品(这类商品在世界贸易中占大部分)的生产方面实行技术革新，而美国的竞争者却不然。

一个主要的解释是，无论在美国还是在英国，政府的研究与发展总开支中有一半是和国防有关的。面德政府只将其科研预算的11%用于国防，面日本仅用2%。

The $10 billion a year spent by the American government on defence R&D, mainly in industrial contracts, is widely regarded as a major subsidy to civilian research. But it may also make industrial laboratories too fat to run.

Defence can also distort a company's perspective. Carried away with advanced military miracles, management can make a muddle of the commercial market place. Electronics, for example, is the guts of modern weaponry --- none more advanced than America's. But American electronics companies lag in many consumer electronics products. America can operate robots on Mars by remote control, but cannot sell a competitive citizens' band radio. It can photograph from a satellite a Siberian scientist going for his tea break, but the American consumer increasingly turns to imported Japanese televisions, based on German technology.

The thrust of Japanese innovation is not only in new products (despite Japan's amazing consumer electronics),but also in new production processes to make products better and cheaper.

美国政府在与国防有关的研究与发展方面每年要花费100亿美元(主要是通过签订工业合同的方式)，人们普遍认为这是给民用科研事业一大笔补贴。但是这也可能使工业实验室养尊处优面不思进取。国防科研也能使公司畸形发展，由于资方醉心于先进的军事奇迹，他们可能把市场搞得一团精。例如，电子学是现代武器的关键，在这方面没有哪个国家比美国更先进。但是，美国的电子公司在许多消费性电子产品方面是落后的。美国能通过遥控，操纵机器人在火星上工作，却没有具有竞争力的民用波段收音机可供出售。美国能够从人造卫星上把一位西伯利亚科学家去喝茶小憩的情况拍摄下来，然面，越来越多的美国消费者却愿意去买进口的、根据德国技术制

造的日本电视机。

日本技术革新的锋芒所向不仅在开发新产品方面（尽管日本的电子消费品的质量是惊人的)，而且还表现在创造使产品质量更好、价格更便宜的新的生产技术和工艺方面。

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