FIXING THE ECONOMY

The WSJ recently published an article by Jeffry Sparshott, "Want to Fix the U.S. Economy?  Start With the Broken Political System."*  Reading the entire particle is highly recommended.  The article contains some quotes  by Harvard Prof. Michael Porter and his colleagues.  Referenced below is the entire 70 page article by Porter and colleagues.**

“The political system is obstructing our economy,” said Michael Porter, a professor and co-author of a new report on U.S. competitiveness in the global economy.
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“Overall, we believe that dysfunction in America’s political system has now become the single most important problem facing America,” Mr. Porter and fellow faculty members Jan Rivkin, Mihir Desai and Manjari Raman wrote.  The Sparshott article also contains a number of figures, one of which is shown below demonstarting the decreease in productivity  over the last 60 yrs.

The political problem is caused by the American voters repeatedly voting for gridlock.  When they do throw out some of the rascals, they seem to be replaced by people even worse.   An example is the Tea Party.  I was impressed in the early days of the Tea Party how many of the adherents had been unemployed for a long time.  I can understand that they felt that the government had failed them so who needs it.  I sympathize with such people, but it is hurting America.

What’s the solution?  ... For example, the White House and lawmakers from both parties have long called for an overhaul of the corporate tax code but there hasn’t been any progress. The report also highlights “distortions and abuses” in the international trading system, lagging infrastructure investment, burdensome regulations and an unsustainable federal budget as areas demanding attention.*

But not everything is bleak/  As the WSJ by Sparshott article concedes and  quotes:

To be sure, the outlook isn’t entirely bleak. Messrs. Porter and Rivkin said businesses are taking a more active role in local communities again while local and regional initiatives have been taking the lead on workforce training and infrastructure development.*
“And we have got enormous strengths for which any other country would kill,” Mr. Rivkin said, citing entrepreneurship, innovation, capital markets and management skills. “We’ve got strengths on which we can build, weaknesses we can fix.”*

American business is to be complemented for the remarkable recovery from the Great Recession, a near death financial collapse, where one political party has refused to let the government help; yet complain that the recovery is so slow..

* http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/09/15/want-to-fix-the-u-s-economy-start-with-the-broken-political-system/?mod=djemRTE_h
** http://www.hbs.edu/competitiveness/Documents/problems-unsolved-and-a-nation-divided.pdf