20090904
Innovation, Jobs, and the Economic Future of the US
I’ve been wanting to write about the economy again, but just could not get my thoughts together when I had the time to write. A friend at work sent me a link to an excellent article that captured most of what I was thinking. You can find the article here at Business Week. The article missed one of my points though. Without innovation defining new products that drive exports, jobs, and investment in the US, the US will become the economic equivalent of an oil well. The rest of the world will maintain/grow the current trade imbalance and pump money out of the US until we run dry. Then they will abandon us and move on. Rather than legislating band-aids, like health insurance reform, the congress needs to be worried about the education of our people (not foreigners), and investing in long-term fundamental research. Growth, jobs, and economic stability will return eventually.
Hooda Thunkit said,
September 8, 2009 @ 1726
Joe,
That was an eye-opening article.
And the author accurately points out that corporations are no longer willing to invest in pure research when there is no payoff every 90-days; they need to adjust their thinking to look at gains over decades, not quarters.
I fear that they[the corporations] will leave the pure research to the government; an organization notoriously unreliable at staying the course over the long haul.
As you have stated, congress to address long-term, fundamental/pure research if we are to recapture our former stature and reap the benefits that pure, fundamental research eventually produces.
Our country has plenty of coal, oil, oil shale and natural gas, so research on making these fuel sources CLEAN would seem to be a high priority.
Further, medical research on developing cures vs. control of disease would also seem to be a worthy effort.
Joe Zawodny » DeGlobalization said,
September 14, 2009 @ 2130
[...] and the lack of sufficient quality jobs in the US runs the risk unrest. See my earlier post on the subject of jobs. Globalization has failed mostly due to the inability of the market to raise the standards of [...]