Two weeks ago, we tried something a bit out of the ordinary in our Agurban with our "Wall or Main" piece. The response was overwhelming. Since then, the markets have gyrated up and down, but mostly down, and appear to be stabilizing this week. As with any market crises, this one will also fade into the rear view mirror. Here's my vision for our future. What do you think? What is your vision for our country? Let us know and we will print some responses in next week's Agurban.  

 

I'm tired! I'm really tired of the political season already.  I'm exhausted by all of the negative advertising. And, on both sides of the aisle!

Here's my issue. 

Today, I see huge potential in a world that is developing out of a cocoon where countries' economies were centrally controlled to one that is dispersed. Central control is dying quickly. Think General Motors. With dispersed, think entrepreneurs, who are blossoming all over the world. These tens of millions of new entrepreneurs are improving their lot in life and are going to be spending and investing trillions of dollars in the next several years. That is trillions as in $1,000,000,000,000 (twelve zeros is a trillion).
           

The USA population is just over 300 million people out of a world population that is quickly approaching 7 billion. We only have a little over 4% of the world's population! Think of the potential that we as a country have if we can help the 96% of the world outside of our borders to become more entrepreneurial. We've got the potential to greatly expand the entire world's economy, growing the pie, if you will. So even if the USA's piece of that pie shrinks in size, the fact that we are able to grow the world-wide pie larger in size, then we as a country win in the long term. 

It is not a zero-sum game in which gains in China, India or Brazil are losses for us. Gains for them are also gains for us in the long term. If they gain new business and improve their net incomes, we gain by selling them more equipment, movies, crops, etc. We do what we do best just as they do what they do best.

 

It is a concept that President John F. Kennedy first said - "a rising tide lifts all boats."  We've got a unique opportunity to lift all of the boats in the world and our big yacht of a country will rise buoyantly even as other boats get bigger in size. 

So now, in 2008, I'm looking for a president who gets this and knows that if we as a country can help to expand the world economy, other issues in this country will improve with it as our own tide continues to rise.  I'm trying to figure out which one "gets it"; gets this opportunity that we have today.  I'm much rather listen to the candidates talk about the potential that we have around the world, rather than listening to them attack each other.