Inc. Magazine ran an interesting interview with Amar Bhide, a professor at Columbia University, which discusses the strength and resiliency of the U.S. economy from a perspective that made me think a bit differently about the subject.  So, while the U.S. is struggling through the failings of a financial system that used borrowing to leverage the returns from schemes that had no underlying assets, the first light at the at the end of the tunnel may come from our broad base of innovative entrepreneurs and curious consumers. 

Amar argues against the idea that the greater the technology lead one country has over another, the greater the lead country’s prosperity.  Instead his analysis is that “advances abroad will help improve living standards in the U.S.”  Some of the key points of Amar’s argument are that (1) the U.S. is very good at taking new technologies and “weaving them into our commercial fabric”, (2) the U.S. has a “more commercial culture than any in history”, (3) most entrepreneurs are “skilled at taking inventions…and putting them into use, because they can’t waste money doing R&D”, (4) “as a country and a culture, we just like to take chances when we consume”, and (5) the U.S.’s large number of venturesome consumers “are willing to invest in learning how to use technology and make it work for us.” 

To paraphrase Armar, the strength of the U.S. is the combination of effectively applying inventions to the marketplace as well as our ability to consume those innovations.  If I read Amar’s related book titled “The Venturesome Economy: How Innovation Sustains Prosperity in a More Connected World”, I’ll write a short review to let you know if it effectively expands on these concepts.  Tom Peter’s analysis of Amar’s new book states: “If I were asked to recommend to the next president just one book on the trajectory of the U.S. economy in the next several years, it would unhesitatingly be Amar Bhide's The Venturesome Economy. The book is an utterly original interpretation of the nature of the complex process of innovation.”