The New York Times > The Nation of the Future

[Owen Densmore]

Interesting article by David Brooks, an admitted consertive, but  
still encouraging when we get overwhelmed with all the problems we  
see here in the US.  Probably flawed, but none the less interesting  
perspective.  I'd like to know more, for example, about where these  
numbers come from.

Love to see Tom Friedman write a response!

(I'm including the text 'cause it's NYTSelect, subscribers can see  
the original at http://tinyurl.com/ba6ok)


     -- Owen

Owen Densmore
http://backspaces.net - http://redfish.com - http://friam.org

The Nation of the Future by David Brooks
Copyright New York Times Company Feb 2, 2006

Everywhere I go people tell me China and India are going to blow by  
us in the coming decades. They've got the hunger. They've got the  
people. They've got the future. We're a tired old power, destined to  
fade back to the second tier of nations, like Britain did in the 20th  
century.

This sentiment is everywhere -- except in the evidence. The facts and  
figures tell a different story.

Has the United States lost its vitality? No. Americans remain the  
hardest working people on the face of the earth and the most  
productive. As William W. Lewis, the founding director of the  
McKinsey Global Institute, wrote, ''The United States is the  
productivity leader in virtually every industry.'' And productivity  
rates are surging faster now than they did even in the 1990's.

Has the United States stopped investing in the future? No. The U.S.  
accounts for roughly 40 percent of the world's R. & D. spending. More  
money was invested in research and development in this country than  
in the other G-7 nations combined.

Is the United States becoming a less important player in the world  
economy? Not yet. In 1971, the U.S. economy accounted for 30.52  
percent of the world's G.D.P. Since then, we've seen the rise of  
Japan, China, India and the Asian tigers. The U.S. now accounts for  
30.74 percent of world G.D.P., a slightly higher figure.

What about the shortage of scientists and engineers? Vastly  
overblown. According to Duke School of Engineering researchers, the  
U.S. produces more engineers per capita than China or India.  
According to The Wall Street Journal, firms with engineering openings  
find themselves flooded with resumes. Unemployment rates for  
scientists and engineers are no lower than for other professions, and  
in some specialties, such as electrical engineering, they are notably  
higher.

Michael Teitelbaum of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation told The Wall  
Street Journal last November, ''No one I know who has looked at the  
data with an open mind has been able to find any sign of a current  
shortage.'' The G.A.O., the RAND Corporation and many other  
researchers have picked apart the quickie studies that warn of a  
science and engineering gap. ''We did not find evidence that such  
shortages have existed at least since 1990, nor that they are on the  
horizon,'' the RAND report concluded.

What about America's lamentable education system? Well, it's true we  
do a mediocre job of educating people from age 0 to 18, even though  
we spend by far more per pupil than any other nation on earth. But we  
do an outstanding job of training people from ages 18 to 65.

At least 22 out of the top 30 universities in the world are American.  
More foreign students come to American universities now than before  
9/11.

More important, the American workplace is so competitive, companies  
are compelled to promote lifelong learning. A U.N. report this year  
ranked the U.S. third in the world in ease of doing business, after  
New Zealand and Singapore. The U.S. has the second most competitive  
economy on earth, after Finland, according the latest Global  
Competitiveness Report. As Michael Porter of Harvard told The  
National Journal, ''The U.S. is second to none in terms of innovation  
and an innovative environment.''

What about partisan gridlock and our dysfunctional political system?  
Well, entitlement debt remains the biggest threat to the country's  
well-being, but in one area vital to the country's future posterity,  
we have reached a beneficent consensus. American liberals have given  
up on industrial policy, and American conservatives now embrace an  
aggressive federal role for basic research.

Ford and G.M. totter and almost nobody suggests using public money to  
prop them up. On the other hand, President Bush, reputed to be  
hostile to science, has increased the federal scientific research  
budget by 50 percent since taking office, to $137 billion annually.  
Senators Lamar Alexander and Jeff Bingaman have proposed excellent  
legislation that would double the R. & D. tax credit and create a  
Darpa-style lab in the Department of Energy, devoting $9 billion for  
scientific research and education. That bill has 60 co-sponsors, 30  
Democrats and 30 Republicans.

Recent polling suggests that people in Afghanistan and Iraq are more  
optimistic about their nations' futures than people in the United  
States. That's just crazy, even given our problems with health care,  
growing inequality and such. America's problem over the next 50 years  
will not be wrestling with decline. It will be helping the frustrated  
individuals and nations left so far behind.