Fareed’s Economic Fix

I hope you watched Fareed Zakaria’s GPS this morning.  It was a great show about the role that innovation has played and should play in the American economy.
Walter Isaccson talked about the vortex of Bay Area circumstances that, along with Jobs natural gifts, created Apple and Silicon Valley.
Fareed interviewed James Dyson about innovation.  James said that innovation is mostly about persistence through failure.  He build more than 5000 prototypes of his famous vacuum cleaner before getting it just right.  Dyson urged more problem-based education rather than a reliance on rote learning.
Nobel laureate Michael Spence outlined a strategy for rebuilding the American economy–it largely mirrored what Fareed talks about every week: investing in infrastructure and education, reducing business taxes, gradually tacking the deficit.
Here’s the punch line from Fareed’s opening take:

America’s problems are not economic, demographic or technological. They are political. Simple policy measures can change our fate. If we built out our infrastructure, kept monetary policy pro-growth and reformed our tax code to encourage business investment, we would have growth, a manageable deficit and a bright future.  So be thankful, Americans, that we live in a great country. And call your Congress member to tell him or her to stop stalling and start actually doing something.