The Future is Full of Opportunity

In today's America, the public is increasingly invested in business and that has significant benefits, but it also has some challenging side effects.  Understandably, the public wants the best return on it's investment that it can obtain.  Capital literally moves all around the world in search of maximum returns.  At the same time, in it's role as consumer, the public demands the lowest price possible for the goods and services that it purchases.  As a result, the public is simultaneously exerting forces on the market place that are at odds with one another.  Profit and low prices at the same time.  There are a lot of different things that come into play including production efficiencies, transportation advantages, government involvement, etc, etc, etc, but, at the end of the day, labor is the one component of price that usually takes the biggest hit.  In today's global marketplace, that gives economic advantage to poorer countries and those that can organize themselves sufficiently to take advantage of it are doing better than they have ever done before.

As American companies, including those that are owned by the public, seek to be competitive, they have sought to take advantage of the lower cost of labor in foreign places to meet the demand for profit generated at home.  The result is that American jobs have flowed offshore and American capital has followed.  It is a fact of life in today's global economy and it is obviously a very complicated fact of life.  Here at home, while we bemoan the loss of good paying jobs and are forced to take lower paying positions or government handouts, we have considerable political turmoil and confusion.  Some advocate "getting tough" with our trading partners and demanding a "more equitable" trading relationship.  There is no question about this.  We need to do everything that we can to ensure that our trading partners are playing by the rules of free trade, but that, by itself, is not going to satisfactorily deal with the challenge adequately.  We must find ways to leverage our current technological superiority (while we still have it) to find ways to produce high value products efficiently and better than the competition.

We have moved past the industrial revolution and we must adapt to that fact of life.  We can still benefit from a few old fashioned blue collar manufacturing jobs, but the bulk of our huge labor force is going to have to transition to highly skilled positions producing high value products that are difficult to produce elsewhere.  Today, we wear clothing manufactured in Latin America, drive automobiles with parts produced in Canada, Japan and Mexico, eat grapes grown in Chile, and play Angry Bird on tablets and phones produced in China.  The good news is that with economic advances being made around the world, the market for those high value items will be there and the money necessary to purchase them will be too.  The problem that faces America today is not unlike that which faced our great grandparents when they left the farm and took jobs in the factory.  Once again we have to demonstrate the capability to adapt to changed circumstances.  Adapt and we will succeed.  Fail to change our ways and we will go into decline.

So what are these high value products of the future?  I am not smart enough to know what they are specifically, but I know where to look.  Many of them are where the problems are.  With seven billion people on earth we are going to severely test our global supply of fresh water and we are going to need more and better agricultural production.  As economies all over the globe progress, they will need more energy.  The health of the global population is an obvious challenge right now and it is going to get even more challenging in the decades ahead.  In short, look at the big problems that we face on this tiny spinning green sphere and you find the economic opportunities that beg to be addressed.  America has the basics necessary to make this transition, but we sorely need the leadership that will get us pulling together to do what is necessary to meet the challenge.  This is one of those places where I credit our president with understanding the problem, but I fault him for not finding workable solutions and providing the leadership necessary to make the transition.  Mr. Obama needs to be reassigned to a job where he can help with new ideas, but not hinder with bad policies and divisive rhetoric.