Monday, January 30, 2012

America's Bright Future -- Maybe! --

Mark P. Mills and Julio M. Ottino wrote an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal this morning. They project that the future of the U.S. is bright. They see these key factors:

Information technology has entered a big-data era.

Smart manufacturing

the unfolding communications revolution

The American culture is particularly suited to times of tumult and challenge


Then there's our educational system -- more than half of the world's top 100 universities remain in America
So there’s a strong argument for an American boom through most of the 21st century.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203471004577140413041646048.html

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Comments by the Blog Author

I think Mills and Ottino would have had a stronger argument if they went back 100 years and looked at a major economic power that didn’t make it, that shrank and sunk over its own weight.

Argentina was the fifth biggest economic power in 1912. Through economic mismanagement in an environment of centralizing power, and through financial chaos resulting in hyper-inflation, Argentina has moved from being the world’s fifth biggest economy to about 80th place.

Therefore I agree about America’s bright future if, and only if, the dollar is stable and the U.S.A. moves rapidly toward a balanced budget and expenses well below it’s G.DP.. To achieve this in a world of competing talent, America will need to sunset entitlements; the government itself admits that the unfunded promises of social security and Medicare amount to at least $45 trillion dollars. We need to balance the budget year after year, decade after decade, unless there is an on-going major war that threatens the nation itself.

With runaway entitlements, cowardly politicians, and money leaking away in expensive brushfire wars that aren’t strategically necessary, America could be this century’s Argentina. Let’s lock out that nightmare scenario before we gloat about ourselves.

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