American Global Competitiveness Requires Investment in Cleantech
The pic of the peas here inspires both laughter and terror. Yes, it could be part of the endless “you had one job” series, and that’s always good for a smile.
More seriously, it’s a reminder of what needs to change if young Americans are going to be successful in the workplace of the 2020s and into the foreseeable future. Here are a few areas to address:
Educational Standards. Next time you go to see your doctor, check out the sign that lists all the physicians in that building, and note that, for every one with a surname that suggests heritage from Western Europe, there is at least one that suggests China, South Korea, India, Pakistan, the Middle East, or Eastern Asia. This balance is shifting further in the direction of this latter group with each passing year. There’s a reason for that: American educational standards have slipped from the highest levels on Earth a few decades ago to somewhere between #14 and #38 last year (depending on how the ranking is performed).
Globalization. Despite what our president told us at the onset of the tariffs on China, trade wars are not “easy to win,” and they create grievous casualties on both sides. Our manufacturing sector continues to sputter (though this might have occurred even if the tariffs weren’t driving up the cost of new materials), and it’s hard for even the most patriotic CEO to figure out how to build something here and sell it in a competitive market when the equivalent factory worker in Mexico is earning less than $2 per hour.
Automation. Economists are hopeful that, as jobs are lost to automation, new ones will come along that haven’t yet been conceived of; I suppose everyone shares that hope, though it seems hard to accept. And it’s not just factory workers whose careers are being lost to robotics; it’s professionals of all types: dentists, surgeons, lawyers, engineers, etc.
National Debt. The tax breaks that our president gave, primarily to the super-wealthy and corporations, tacked $1.5 trillion onto the debt, which will eventually be paid for in draconian taxation of future generations. Moreover, the processes by which the uber-rich and their brilliant attorneys hide money overseas continue to become increasingly sophisticated.
Cleantech Missing in Action. When I mill around at the huge renewable shows like AWEA (American Wind Energy Association) or Solar Power International or InterSolar. I notice that the U.S. doesn’t really play in these markets. I’ll ask, “Who offers the best prices on solar panels?” China. “Whose are the highest quality?” Oh, that’s Germany. “What does America make?” I don’t know, blockbuster movies? Attack helicopters? Canned hams? That can’t be a good strategy in a world in which sustainable energy, transportation, and agriculture are destined to dominate the 21st Century.
Of course, what could happen is some sort of Green New Deal, which will go a long way toward creating millions of high-paying jobs while rebuilding America’s competitiveness in important world markets.
And the companies that seem to have benefited most from the “tax break” seem to be those more capable of dirtying up the planet.
Craig,
The current President didn’t create the ill effects of “globalization” on the American economy.
Globalization began in the late 1970’s as a result of the growth of the twentieth century US multi-national corporate behemoths and gained rapid momentum with the opening of the previously closed economy of the People Republic of China in the late 1980’s.
The era between 1972 and 2016 saw an unchallenged period of US internal economic decay and the economic transfer of US wealth and technology to developing nations with cheaper and hungrier labour markets, primarily in Asia.
The Reagan administration did manage to destroy the threat of Soviet totalitarian aggression, but it cost a terrible loss of wealth and economic momentum.
The Clinton-Bush-Obama era, will be seen as the time the US wasted its power and economic might on introspection, useless military adventures and grand empty symbolism.
The rise of Asia caught the US completely unprepared for tough new competition. For a long time the US ignored the jackals of the EU tearing chunks out of the US economy, while surrendering to the challenge of wily Asians.
The US colossus provided the means of its own destruction.
The Obama era saw the US throw a self-indulgent, decadent party of self-delusion, full of grand dreams and schemes paid for by squandering the last of the wealth accumulated in the 19th and first three-quarters of the twentieth century.
This is the ‘legacy’ President Trump has inherited. Although in many way a highly unusual and difficult personality for a US President, Donald Trump is exactly the man the US needs at the hour in US history.
He may be crude and brutal, but that’s the price of stopping the self-delusion of US ‘liberals’. The long party is over, and like all great parties when they come to an end, there’s the inevitable hangover and the catering bill to face in the cold grey light of dawn.
But there are revelers still addicted to the fun of what seemed an endless swirl of gaiety within the false atmosphere of illusion. These are the “green new deal” dreamers.
Full of expensive idealistic “solutions’ for problems that either don’t exist, can’t be afforded or are just fantasies.
The same fantasists gather together to stop US pipelines, but are full of praise for the the enormous and very environmentally damaging Nord 2 Russian-German Baltic pipeline.
The explanation for this curious paradox, is simple. The pipeline is politically essential to Western Europe if the illusion of “Green Energy” is to be maintained.
Never-mind the pipeline will make Germany and most of Western Europe strategically dependent of Russian energy, or more importantly supporting a project in which Vladimir Putin has invested his political prestige and personal wealth.
The cravenly desperate collection of EU politicians and EU officials are only to eager to do a deal with the devil to save their own collective hides and not admit the adveture with “green” energy has failed.
Alone the US President has led the campaign against this pipeline. This week he succeeded in imposing sanctions to prevent construction being completed.
The forces against him are formidable. Sadly these include the American left. In an amazing burst of hypocrisy, they remain fantasizing about Trump and Putin, while refusing to join the fight against Putin’s pipeline!
Weird!
The President is already scoring success in his long fight to restructure the US away from useless symbolism, waste, social and economic decay.
He is beginning to score the first victories in what will be a decades long trade war with China.
Meanwhile the US left still wants to go back to trowing a party it can no longer afford, this time on someone else’s credit card!
The concept of structural unemployment gets little serious attention. We are still in the denial phase regarding the majority of physical tasks in the world going away, and intellectual tasks by their very nature require minimal numbers of participants to accomplish all that is needed. We seem to be headed towards a crossroads where an economic system that requires gainful employment in order to participate in society will break down. We can already see the stress fractures now.