Is that our productivity is up but we aren't producing enough.

We've got all of these people who are unemployed or underemployed or who've exited the market. We have all of this potential energy that we aren't applying.

At the same time we're operating a dangerous trade deficit. The world doesn't want what we're selling. Not enough of it anyway. Read Buffet and Gross.

And we're exporting jobs, good ones, which is only going to contribute to that trade deficit.

Economists have been saying throughout the downturn that its not as if consumers are being stingy. If consumers reacted to this crash as the last one we'd be in another depression. We're not, because people are confident in general. What economists are saying is lacking is corporate investment. Companies are not building for the future. They're not creating new products.

Venture Capital is a wasteland. Years later they are still in maintenance mode. They aren't investing in new companies. They are trying to keep their present ventures afloat. No new companies. No new innovation. The VC are trying to give money back to their investors.

Steve Roach responded to discussions about outsourcing by specifically saying that it is critically important that we determine where the growth is going to come from.

Said another way, we're not growing.

Our productivity is up. We're cutting the bottom lines. Everything is on the up and up for business owners, but not in a real positive way. Saving money is only useful if you have a way to apply it. Money is a means and not an end. Money that isn't moving doesn't exist. Economic success is a measure of the velocity of money. Depressions in history were created by individuals who hoarded money. Today it is the leadership who is doing it. The outcome is the same.

Eventually the bottom is going to fall out of this thing. Everyone who should know is saying it. This is not sustainable.

There is but one reasonable way to address this problem, and that is to innovate. We need people who are offering a vision of a better future. There are many technologies we ought to pursue. There are great ideas from the dotcom boom that were run into the ground by people who tried to crunch ten year business plans into 2 years. There are new possibilities in the fields of robotics, new networking technologies, and new biotech. Right now Japan is blowing our doors off in pursuit of two out of three of those things. They are going to end up with a lot of people who know an awful lot about two very important industries in a few years, and we're going to be buying it all from them. They have the patience to see these things through even if they don't have an "exit event" in the extreme short term.

What are we focused on? Healthcare. Yes. Very important. I don't want to disparage that at all. But all this focus on it is rooted in our narcissism. *WE* having an "aging population" but the WORLD does not!!! The world isn't going to be buying all of these products for the maintenance of the old. I'm really glad we're going to have them, as I'll reach that age at some point too, but is our real growth going to come from here?? This is baby boomer bullshit. They are too selfish to see past the end of their own lives. They'll have our whole country twisted up to serve them and when a smaller generation replaces them in that point of life the economic infrastructure they've built will be useless.

The world is young. The future belongs to the young. The biggest markets are international markets serving young families.

We need better leadership. We need people who are looking out at the possibilities and are ready to work toward a better future. We need people who know how to use all of the resources that are underutilized today to make those visions a reality.

And thats why I'm pissed. Because for the unprecedented salaries our leaders are bringing home, they don't seem to be doing a hell of a lot of leadership. They are risk adverse, unvisionary, selfish, overstuffed, and bored. And they are hauling all of us down with them.

The Problem...