Loosely related to my own economic recovery plan… From the October 30, 2008 BusinessWeek, Michael Porter writes “Why America Needs an Economic Strategy”. Some excerpts:
“An inadequate rate of reinvestment in science and technology is hampering America’s feeder system for entrepreneurship. Research and development as a share of GDP has actually declined, while it has risen in many other countries.”
“America now ranks 12th in tertiary (college or higher) educational attainment for 25- to 34-year-olds. We have made no progress in this vital area over the past 30 years, unlike almost every other country. This is an ominous trend in an economy that must have the skills to justify its high wages” [philg: it would be more interesting to focus on how much people learn than how many degrees they collect]
“The job training system is ineffective and receives less and less funding each year.”
“Federal polices have hobbled America’s entrepreneurial strength by needlessly driving up the cost and complexity of doing business, especially for smaller companies. Cumbersome regulation of employment, the environment, and product liability needs to give way to better approaches involving less cost and litigation, yet special interests block reform. The U.S. has become a high-tax country not only in terms of rates but also administrative hassle.”
“Infrastructure bottlenecks, due to neglect and poorly directed spending, are driving up costs in an economy increasingly dependent on logistics.” [philg: this ties into my constant calls for congestion pricing on our roads]
“A final strategic failure is in many ways the most disconcerting. All Americans know that the public education system is a serious weakness. Fewer may realize that citizens retiring today are better educated than the young people entering the workforce. In the global economy, just being an American is no longer enough to guarantee a good job at a good wage.” [philg: though Obama has promised us that we will get paid a lot, no matter how dumb we are!]
“Unless we significantly improve the performance of our public schools, there is no scenario in which many Americans will escape continued pressure on their standard of living. And legal and illegal immigration of low-skilled workers cannot help but make the problem worse for less-skilled Americans. ”
“Democrats, meanwhile, keep talking as if they want to penalize investment and economic success. They defend unions obstructing change in areas like education, cling to cumbersome regulatory approaches, and resist ways to get litigation costs for business in line with other countries.”
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My take-aways from the article… (1) if we could improve education at all levels, from elementary school to job retraining for laid-off workers, we could survive all of the other handicaps that we’ve created for ourselves, (2) there is absolutely nothing in common between Porter’s suggestions and what our politicians are doing.
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(still loving the Kindle for travel when a book is 100 percent text; the Kindle is also good for use on treadmill; the Kindle is useless for books with illustrations due to its lack of pan and zoom).
(remarkably readable despite deep scholarship).