The U.S. :Surviving the New World Economy

I was talking to my God-Daughter and her boyfriend who she plans to marry within the year.  They were telling me of all the people they know who cannot finds jobs after graduating college and who are now going bankrupt trying to pay off their student loans. Though I had heard of this before knowing people for whom this is their friends everyday experience brings it much closer to home.

So, I was thinking how to redesign the U.S. economy to make this nation great again. The best way to start is to look at how we became a great economic power in the first place. And then next, to redesign our system in regard to how we operate economically so we are competitive in a world filled with State Capitalism as in China and Saudi Arabia. No nation can  effectively compete against State Capitalist nations because the basis of state capitalism is maintaining the power of that state rather than free capitalism where some people get very wealthy and hopefully through that the whole nation does too.

So, when there is state capitalism like there is now it games the free market against all those who continue to be Free Market economies. They don't really have a chance against State Capitalistic economies. This includes our country not being competitive against state capitalistic countries.

For example, Saudi Arabia artificially controls oil prices which means that gas prices at the pump worldwide tend to be 2 to 3 times what they would have been in normal circumstances. In the case of China's State Capitalist system, all China's companies that started in China are treated like "Golden Boys" and all other countries companies are treated like Bastard Sons. In other words foreign companies are promised the whole world and then given nothing in the end.

So, in a real world where there is no equality between free market capitalistic nations and state capitalistic nations there can be no "fairness" present. Without fairness, there is no trust. Without trust there can not be a world Free market economy that works for all.

So, I was thinking today how to make the U.S. more competitive in such a world. So let us return to how we became a great economic power in the first place and move on from there.

First, the U.S. had a highly trained and educated workforce compared to the rest of the world at the close of World War II. Second, all the other world economies had more or less collapsed under the weight of battle, bombings, and mass deaths of every kind including atomic.

So, basically, the U.S. was "The last man standing" and also we had a big ocean between us and all other really powerful or potentially powerful nations at least at that time. So, because we had natural resources, a better educated nation than most at that time and the will to do it, we rebuilt the world from the ground up so to speak.

But, that was then and it's all gone now. What do we have now? First, our wages are too high to compete with the world. Second, we are NOT a State Capitalist system, so we have two strikes against us to begin with.

But, what do we still have? We still have a well educated country and some of the best universities on Earth. We still have abundant natural resources in mineral, oil, farming, timber, etc.

So, how to we maximize what we do have left? Since the 1980s our major contribution to the world has been Personal Computers and the Internet. This has created Globalization which has created many solutions as well as many problems for everyone on earth.

Where did the basic innovations for personal computers and the internet come from? If we are looking at the technological innovations they mostly came originally from NASA. The same technology that led us to the Moon also created the spin-offs and innovations in order to make the internet and cell phones practical and useful to the whole world.

So, what I'm moving towards is how can we benefit from some of the Research and Development of a program like NASA without trying to return to the moon? I think the government through our Universities needs to create grants for "Seed technological ideas" so that Research and Development leads us out of our present mess. However, we no longer have the initial protections that we had at the end of world war II. So, we have to protect our innovations so they are built and developed here an not other places around the world first. Unless we can innnovate here and build here and manufacture here in the U.S. then I think that we will likely just become a third rate power within 50 years.

So, it is in finding how to both innovate and to protect technical and intellectual properties from other nations stealing our ideas. If this cannot be done usefully and efficiently then it will be necessary to go back to the drawing board to redesign how we do business within the U.S. and around the world. We no longer have a world "Free Market" economy and without it the honesty and openness of the U.S. will only lead to our demise as a free nation unless we find a way to protect or technical and intellectual properties from being stolen by other nations.

So, Unless we can be sure our ideas are profitable FIRST for our nation I think you will see a reluctance on the part of both educated Americans and their government to continue to innovate. So, some way to keep our innovations here to become profitable to our nation first must be devised or we as a nation will tend to stop innovating.

In order that enough of you actually understand what State Capitalism is I will define it:

State Capitalism's sole purpose is to maintain the Government of that nation. It is not about anyone becoming successful separate from the Government sustaining and maintaining power and preventing any other system from taking that government's  place. Resources obtained from State capitalism enrich the ruling elite, build strong armies which are then used to maintain the supremacy of that government and that system into perpetuity.

On one level, this is how feudal states operated in Europe in the middle Ages to give perspective to  how ancient State Capitalism actually is.