"Welfare" is a general term that applies to a series of programs that date back to the 1930s, in the USA. So, it's existed for much more than a decade. I think we might be misunderstanding each other here.

Peter Theil is, you're right, a libertarian, as I mentioned. Libertarians are those who believe in the non-aggression principle. The nonaggression principle simply stated is this: "The initiation of force against an innocent person is immoral." You're correct that Peter and I agree with this. But that doesn't mean we necessarily agree in other areas. However, I suspect Peter is a fan of Hayek, and I am certainly a fan of the Austrian economists of that school, though they don't always agree, they do share the thesis that, when people are free to choose, rather than having choices forced on them by violence, the economy does better.

There's no contradiction between the claim that american manufacturing is not competitive, and america is still an innovative country. Just because America is still innovative (even if it is on the decline) doesn't presume that there's no innovation, and my general point is to argue, in fact, for the innovation of a particular american designed product.

You're right that american manufacturing has benefited from automation. In fact, american manufacturing capacity is higher than it has been in the past. But the jobs have not disappeared because of automation. Economically, automation tends to create more jobs, by providing increased leverage of each worker. American manufacturing jobs have disappeared because they are no longer competitive globally, because regulation, which allows unions to force employees to join the union, and which forced employers to deal with unions, which give unions a stranglehold on the companies. Companies which are able to avoid it via automation survive, those that can't- like much of the car industry- go bankrupt.

Please notice that I did not bring up tax policies in my article. There are many ways to measure whether a country is "pro-business and pro-entrepreneurship". Specifically I was talking about regulations.

However, since you have brought up taxation, please be aware that there are two forms of redistribution. While the tax rates may be low, we have seen record "redistribution" of wealth in the past decade. The government spent $4T in only the past severel years, in fact, which is such a massive sum that the only way to wrap your head around it is to recognize that before this happened there were only $10T in money supply in existence!

That is effectively a %40 inflation rate, cumulative, and consequently a massive hidden tax on the people.

You're absolutely right that the USA used british industrial innovation to kickstart our industrial revolution, and I don't begrudge the Japanes, or the Thai, Vietnamese, Chinese, etc, from doing similar deals to kickstart their industrial revolutions.

The massive increase in overall wealth in China and India-- at least a doubling of the average income for over 2Billion people over 20 years, is long-term very good for the world.

Further, economics is not a zero sum game, thus it is not the case that for China and India to lift their people out of poverty, the USA has to suffer.

No, all of the wounds the USA is suffering are self inflicted.

PS- apologies to everyone else in the western hemisphere for using the term "america" to refer to the USA. I know, south america is also "america" as well. Its an old habit.