I strongly agree that the real story is in why R&D spending is stagnating or dropping in comparison to earnings. Personally, I think there a number of contributing factors including less competition from new businesses (new businesses starts with employees are way down from previous decades), decreased competition from large competitors (see Disney buying up everyone in the entertainment industry as an example), regulatory capture, increased risk aversion in the corporate world, and just the fact that low hanging fruit are mostly picked at this point so that the next major improvement might require way more investment than a lot of companies are comfortable with (see the massive increase in new semiconductor fabs and drug discovery as examples).