American Competitiveness (July 6, 2006)

Since around the first of this year, Jacobus Boers and I have been talking about a subject that we both thought would make an excellent topic for one of our Thursday evening IIF discussions: American Competitiveness. There were two things that led us to this conclusion. First was the publication of Tom Friedman's latest book, The World is Flat; the paperback edition, which contains some new material, came out recently. Second was the presentation to Congress last fall of a report from the National Academy of Sciences, "Rising Above the Gathering Storm," prepared by a committee of scientists, academic leaders, and business executives. "It is the unanimous view of our committee," testified one member, "that America today faces a serious and intensifying challenge with regard to its future competitiveness and standard of living. Further, we appear to be on a losing path."

Since the group decided to postpone our discussion on the Mexican presidential election until July 13, so that former Mexican Consul Teodoro Maus would be able to join us as our guest, this presented the perfect opportunity to have the discussion that Jacobus and I had planned about American competitiveness. That will take place this coming Thursday, July 6, and Jacobus will be our moderator.

In case you need some reading material for the long holiday weekend, here are some items that deal with Friedman's book and the National Academy's report:
From The New York Times Magazine, here is an article by Tom Friedman that came out at the time his book was published:
It's a Flat World, After All by Thomas L. Friedman

From the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia, here is a compilation of quotes from the book:
The World is Flat

And here is web site where Sabrina DeJoannis told me you can find a "Cliff's Notes" version of the book:
www.latech.edu/coes/assets/flat_world.pptIf the link doesn't work, type World is Flat Engineering in the Google search field and this is the first hit.
Here is the executive summary of the National Academy's report:
Rising Above the Gathering Storm - Executive Summary

Here is the Congressional testimony of some of the members of the committee that prepared the report:
The National Academies Testimony before Congress

This article originally appeared in the journal Physics Today:
'Gathering Storm' Report Urges Strong Federal Action to Save US Science and Technology Leadership
'Rising Above the Gathering Storm'

Tom Friedman discussed his reaction to the report in this article:
Facts and Folly by Thomas L. Friedman

Finally, here is a point of view from an Indian newspaper, The Financial Express:
Rising above the gathering storm