Divine Wind
Platinum Member
Back in 1989-1990 I earned an MA in International Relations from Troy State University, 3/4's of which was paid courtesy of American tax payers. Thanks guys and gals!
Besides bragging rights, the year and a quarter of night and weekend classes at Hulburt AFB also introduced me to one of the best political magazines on the planet; the Economist.
This article is a taste of why it's a great analysis of current geopolitical, economic and military situations around the globe.
Schumpeter: American idiocracy | The Economist
A few highlights:
Besides bragging rights, the year and a quarter of night and weekend classes at Hulburt AFB also introduced me to one of the best political magazines on the planet; the Economist.
This article is a taste of why it's a great analysis of current geopolitical, economic and military situations around the globe.
Schumpeter: American idiocracy | The Economist
A few highlights:
After studying 10,000 firms in 20 countries, Nicholas Bloom of Stanford University and three other academics concluded that American firms are the worlds best managed, with German, Japanese and Swedish firms a short way behind and Chinese and Indian ones trailing badly.
Yet Americas politicians are intent on squandering this painfully accumulated capital. As it revoked Americas triple-A credit rating on August 5th, Standard & Poors explained that the gulf between the political parties was becoming unbridgeable, and that policymaking was becoming unpredictable. Other sober institutions concur. The World Economic Forum has downgraded America from second place in 2009 to fourth place in 2010 in its annual global competitiveness rankings. By the forums reckoning, America comes a lowly 40th for the quality of its institutions, 54th for trust in its politicians, 68th for government waste and a dismal 87th for its macroeconomic environment. The World Bank sees a relentless decline in various indicators of American governance. Daniel Kaufmann of the Brookings Institution notes that last year 33% of American business leaders told pollsters that a big constraint was the instability of the policy framework. The figure for France was 14%; for Chile, 5%.
This ideological civil war has led to the marginalisation of corporate America. In the Republican Party country-club types have been elbowed aside by Rush Limbaugh listeners. In the Democratic Party the business-friendly centrists who flourished under Bill Clinton have been sidelined by Ivy League intellectuals and trade-union and minority activists. Granted, Mitt Romney, the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, looks like a made-for-television business candidate: a Harvard Business School graduate and Bain consultant who helped to create successful companies such as Home Depot. But on the campaign trail he has devoted more effort to wooing Mr Limbaughs legions than to crafting businesslike solutions for America.
The civil war is creating two obvious problems for American business: paralysis and uncertainty.
All this has immediate consequences for business. The federal government not only runs basic services such as the Federal Aviation Authority (where thousands of workers were briefly laid off because Congress refused to renew the FAAs authority). It also accounts for a quarter of the economy. Scott Davis, the boss of UPS, the worlds largest package-delivery company, recently complained that FAA funding disputes made him unsure how many of his aeroplanes to fit with new air-traffic-control gear, while the failure to ratify a trade pact with South Korea weakened the case for expanding his fleet of aircraft and lorries.
The direst consequences of all this lie in the future, however. Americas health-care system consumes a sixth of GDP but produces only mediocre results. Americas schools produce run-of-the-mill results despite generous funding. The immigration system leaves 11m people in the shadows and condemns many of the brightest graduates of American universities to years of grovelling before bureaucrats if they want to stay in America. Many give up and take their skills back to India or China.