This goes beyond Ford. R&D spending by companies is growing quickly, but it is weighted towards development rather than research... So R&D money is spent on the marginal innovations related to the commercialization of old research than the longer-term pursuit of new discoveries... The federal spending on basic research has also dropped... So... While we can make short to medium term profit on research $$$ we spent long time ago, we'll be unable to do so 10 or 20 years from now as we really do not spend that much on 'true research'...
Meanwhile in China, things are different, the f---ers are looking at things with a 100 year horizon in front of them...