Selling America to the World

This article amazed me. I picked it up from an associate of mine. At first, it sounded like a fabulous idea. I loved the idea of making things more efficient, and delegating tasks. Having a top quality assistant, that would not only do my business tasks for me, but also my most menial day to day tasks for CHEAP. It seemed so obvious, that I couldn't imagine things going any other way. And they may not.

But that concerns me. I was talking to my Grandpa the other day about where America is headed. We started by talking about how good Japanese cars are, and how expensive it is to manufacture cars in America, due to the price of labor. But what are the answers to the problems? Can we sustain manufacturing in the US? Goverment subsidies would just distribute the costs among society, not eliminate them. And if we're not manufacturing, what are we exporting?

In a conversation with my buddy Dave we were trying to figure out what we could export that other nations couldn't do better or cheaper. We came up with Investment Banking, and that's about it. And it won't take long for us to be surpassed in that. Our wealth has to come from somewhere, and with increasing deficits, it's looking like it will rapidly dissipate. What can we export though?

We need to exploit something that the rest of the world needs, and does not have if we want to maintain our lifestyles. I can't imagine what that would be. Other countries do better than us in almost every area. Education, technology, science, labor...it almost makes me feel guilty about having it so good. What do we do that merits it? I'm not in any way disparaging what America has done in the past, but I do think it is a mistake to rest on our laurels. We are still a superpower. We need to make sure we continue to deserve to be.