Gary Shapiro is the President & CEO of the Consumer Electronics Association.

Blog Entries by Gary Shapiro

Reflections on Lou Dobbs' Turbulent Departure

Posted November 13, 2009 | 08:59 AM (EST)


Lou Dobbs quickly and unexpectedly announced his resignation from CNN this week, terminating his reported multi-year contract with the cable network. I have been calling publicly for months for CNN to stop putting Dobbs on the air, so I think it worthwhile to reflect for a moment on...

Read Post

Dear FCC, Please Don't Let Hollywood Break My TV

2 Comments | Posted November 12, 2009 | 09:47 AM (EST)


Four years ago, the motion picture industry convinced the Senate Judiciary Committee to hold a hearing to explore what Hollywood studios claimed was rampant piracy of movies occurring through the so-called "analog hole." (For non-engineers, the "analog hole" is the movie industry's term for any content-playing device connected to a...

Read Post

American Exporters Bleeding to Death as Trade Deals Languish

1 Comments | Posted November 5, 2009 | 10:23 AM (EST)


As the U.S. unemployment rate climbs toward 10 percent and the economy faces a lengthy and uncertain recovery process, Congress and the last two administrations have caved to political pressures by protecting domestic firms and jobs with taxpayer money. Throughout history, when times are tough, the government almost always...

Read Post

Innovation in America: An Autobahn, or a Suburban Street With Speed Bumps?

1 Comments | Posted November 3, 2009 | 09:35 AM (EST)


When I was a child the innovations of the day included black-and-white televisions, copy machines and the first satellite, Sputnik. Truly groundbreaking innovation came once a year or even less frequently. But more recently, technological innovation has moved at the speed of light. In recent years I have witnessed the...

Read Post

United States Needs to Rethink How It Treats International Guests

4 Comments | Posted October 6, 2009 | 11:28 AM (EST)


When President Obama presented Friday to the International Olympic Committee, the Pakistani representative asked him how the United States would make international visitors feel more welcomed. President Obama admitted that we need to do better.

Our shabby treatment of international guests has cost us more...

Read Post

Pittsburgh Model Dramatizes Lessons for G-20 Summit

3 Comments | Posted September 23, 2009 | 09:55 AM (EST)


If world leaders gathering for this week's G20 summit need evidence of the economic importance of trade and global engagement, they need look no further than their host city.

When the bottom fell out of the U.S. steel industry, Pittsburgh suffered one of the most devastating collapses of a major...

Read Post

Technology Rx for Health Care Reform

2 Comments | Posted September 2, 2009 | 09:10 AM (EST)


The consumer electronics industry is defined by rapid innovation and falling prices. Its success has allowed content creators, service providers, Web sites, blogs and all sorts of new media to flourish. It is intensely competitive yet loved by consumers. This fast moving, deflationary, job-creating $160 billion industry has several basic...

Read Post

Trucks, Drugs and NAFTA: Time for Congress to do the Right Thing

6 Comments | Posted July 29, 2009 | 09:55 AM (EST)


Rarely a day goes by without a new story of troubles roiling our southern border. Violent drug gangs outgun the Mexican army, and the Mexican government struggles to restore civil society and rule of law.

Further south, police and demonstrators face off in the streets of Honduras. Avowed U.S....

Read Post

Why China's Green Dam Proposal Endangers American Technology and Human Rights

4 Comments | Posted June 23, 2009 | 10:25 AM (EST)


China recently announced a policy that every computer sold must be packaged with specific software that bars it from being used to visit certain Internet sites. This so-called "Green Dam" software ostensibly is aimed at blocking child pornography and other vile sites. In Chinese, "green" and "clean" are interchangeable...

Read Post

Building a National Innovation Movement

2 Comments | Posted June 17, 2009 | 10:20 AM (EST)


In the next decade, will the United States remain an economic leader?

In a new national survey from Zogby International, commissioned by the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), just 13 percent of Americans say that the United States would remain the most innovative leader in ten years, while 36 percent...

Read Post

Court Review of SOX Gives Hope for New U.S. Jobs

3 Comments | Posted June 12, 2009 | 04:30 PM (EST)


American-based companies compete weighed down with uniquely American costs. American employees are well paid, yet U.S. companies pay the second highest corporate tax rate in the developed world. Most larger companies bear the cost of employee health care compared to other countries where governments or the employees themselves pay. We...

Read Post

Copyright Needs Limits, As It Restricts Innovation

45 Comments | Posted May 27, 2009 | 09:59 AM (EST)


In recent weeks, the chorus of calls for further "protections" for copyright owners has grown louder (see, for example, Mark Helprin's May 11 broadside in the Wall Street Journal against copyright critics: "Copyright Critics Rationalize Theft"). Yet these copyright apologists ignore how copyright owners overreach and hurt innovation. Representing...

Read Post

EU Intel Fine and New DoJ Antitrust Ambiguity Hurts America's Crown Jewel Tech Companies

3 Comments | Posted May 15, 2009 | 10:55 AM (EST)


I am sad to see one of America's greatest technology companies saddled with a record-setting $1.4 billion fine, a payment which will simply fund the EU government and do nothing for consumers or competition. No consumer paid more for a computer for Intel's success - indeed the evidence is...

Read Post

Card Check Is Not the Solution for Pension Mismanagement

28 Comments | Posted May 13, 2009 | 10:13 AM (EST)


At a time of unprecedented economic uncertainty, the union promise of jobs and better wages is deeply alluring -- but their mechanism to securing them, so-called "card check," is fundamentally flawed. The basic premise of card check, the focal point of the Employee Free Choice Act before Congress, is that...

Read Post

American Brain Drain: Why We Need H1B Visa Immigration Reform

33 Comments | Posted May 4, 2009 | 10:23 AM (EST)



America's immigration system is broken. While most focus on illegal immigration or changing ethnicities of legal immigration, what concerns me is that we are losing our historic ability to attract and retain the word's brightest and most entrepreneurial workers.

Silicon Valley exemplifies an American success story threatened by...

Read Post

Card Check Dilemma: How Can Well-Meaning Americans Be So Far Apart?

Posted April 7, 2009 | 12:43 PM (EST)


The Employee Free Choice Act, aka "card check" is the most contentious issue now before Congress. The proposal would change labor law so that a union could be created if union organizers obtain over half of the employees' signatures. No private ballot would be required unless 30 percent of workers...

Read Post

Advice to Obama at G-20 Summit: A Rising Tide Lifts All Boats

Posted March 31, 2009 | 11:50 AM (EST)


I don't know precisely when progressives in this country gave up on free trade. Because when they did, without perhaps even realizing it, they turned their backs on the developing world. In the 1960s, President Kennedy outlined a global vision based on the premise that a "rising tide lifts all...

Read Post

Obama's Panama Opportunity

Posted March 20, 2009 | 12:20 PM (EST)


President Barack Obama will soon be making his first trip to Latin America to attend the Summit of the Americas. This visit is an important opportunity for the President to promote core U.S. values of democracy and freedom. Before his historic trip, President Obama should lay the foundation of these...

Read Post

How Big Media Misses the Biggest Stories and Some More Stories They Will Miss

Posted March 2, 2009 | 01:47 PM (EST)


Our nation is in a panic, and the media keeps missing the story.

Perhaps events are changing too quickly -- since September it has been a blur. The stock market's sudden fall. AIG and brokerage houses collapsing. The on-again, off-again bailouts. The election. The first black president. Bush leaving....

Read Post

President Obama Sounds Like a Free Trader, So Why Are His Actions Contradicting His Words?

Posted February 25, 2009 | 06:00 PM (EST)


Listening to President Barack Obama's speech Tuesday night to a joint session of Congress, I did a double take.

"The only way to fully restore America's economic strength is to make the long-term investments that will lead to new jobs, new industries, and a renewed ability...

Read Post