Please read first: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/06/gordon.htm
USA has been living a heavy economical paralysis since the first years of the 21st century. Although during this season some of their most important companies in the world were consolidate such as Microsoft, Google and Apple. This hasn´t been enough to continue with such a large and a steady grow showed in the decades of 50 and 60. Three factors that have been harmful for this country are lack of vision and innovation, poor investment in new ideas or technologies and low productivity due to departure of big manufacturers to the third world countries. And also I will like to add, globalization and the shortage of intellectual talent.
As many can remember, after two world wars, USA was the only country that came out without any damage in its territory. While others in the same time were rebuilding their main cities or obeying the imposed punishments. USA was improving the quality of life and basic services of its people, manufacturing in its own territory and creating new innovative ideas.
Despite of USA quickly became a world economic potential without precedents, they still can´t continue growing with the same rhythm as they showed before the 70´s. Although they had good and innovative ideas, that were adopted quickly by many countries. For instance, big warehouse stores, ATM services, electronic devices, etc. Nowadays all these examples need an innovation upgrade and a different approach, all these tasks are being done exactly the same as 20 years ago.
USA is experiencing a shortage of investments and the key concept is easy to follow, if you are not able to do something different you won’t get different results. Due to the lack of new ideas and disrupted innovations, companies and institutions have decided to keep their money and not invest in research and development, but they are doing their investments in other countries.
In the last decades USA has invested and transferred biggest manufacturing factories to third world countries, reducing productivity in their country but reducing the cost of production due to a cheaper labor force. This action also has created a quickly globalization of products and services and making markets more competitive.
The fact that many other countries are able to develop their own products and technologies have caused that population around the world had improved their intellectual level significantly. Although USA has the best companies and educational institutions in the world, they have not been able to cover all the specialized vacancies the enterprises are requesting with their own labor force and they are still relying on hiring foreigners to fulfill them.
To conclude I just want to mention that even when the future looks complicated for this nation, USA will be able to face this stagnation, go ahead and be the lion king they used to be. This country has the correct tools to do it, the best universities, innovative companies, strong intellectual capital and winning mentality.
Gordon, R. J., 2016. Off Its Pinnacle. [Online]
Available at: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/fandd/2016/06/gordon.htm
[Accessed 02 October 2016].
