Monday, November 14, 2011

The Hard Truth About Going 'Soft"

I read an article today in Time magazine about Obama saying America has gone soft. The direct quote from Obama is "The way I think about it is, you know, this is a great, great country that had gotten a little soft, and we didn't have that same competitive edge that we needed over the last couple of decades. We need to get back on track." He received a lot of flak for pointing this fact out, but unfortunately he is correct and there are many statistics that back up his point. To start the U.S. is slipping in most measures of global competitiveness. The World Economic Forum's ranks the U.S. No. 5 behind Sweden, Singapore, Finland, and Switzerland. The most crucial area of measurement that the United States is falling behind in is our educational attainment, especially in science, math and engineering. A decade ago the U.S. led the world in college graduates, today we are ranked 9th. As well, in the 1950's, household debt was just 34% of disposable income, currently it is 115%. These changes are greatly hurting the United States and it is due to our own choices, especially the federal, state and local governments choice to now spend less money investing in the future. The structure that has developed in the United States does not lead to a more competitive society, we support "consumption over investment, the present over the future, ourselves over our children." Overall, the essence of the article pointed out that there needs to be a change in our ideals and we must push to be more competitive in the global economy.

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