America's Trajectory for Economic Success in the 21st Century

I’m having a conversation in email with a reader who asks me if I think America will be able to survive economically past the next few years.

I agree that the U.S. looks woefully unprepared to compete effectively and prosper in the 21st Century, due to the confluence of many factors:  the decline in work ethic and educational standards among the young, the deterioration of honesty in government, and the waning size and strength of the middle class.  Simultaneously, we have the rise of Asia, along with America’s inexplicable ignoring the importance of cleantech, thus actively encouraging the rest of the world to dominate Earth’s most important industry of the next 50 years. Our major products are Big Macs, crooked financial derivatives, litigation, war machines and anti-depressants.  I hope we’ll have plenty of manufacturing capacity for this last category, as we’ll need an ever-increasing supply if these trends continue and the seeds of our destruction continue to sprout and come into full bloom over the coming years.

Having said this, I love my country, and continue to do what I can to spread what I believe to be the right messages on behalf of her people.  As I mentioned in an earlier post this morning, today (the 4th of July) is a good time for all Americans to take a look around themselves and make an honest assessment of where we’re going.  We have the opportunity to put the ship back on course if we take the challenge seriously.  As I’ve said and written literally hundreds of times, cleantech offers a huge opportunity for the U.S. if we can muster the political will to embrace it.