It used to be that America’s economic performance garnered us credibility with the rest of the world. But now the world is increasingly looking to China and other countries as a model for prosperity. The reason? America’s creative business leaders are fighting a global war in shackles. There’s a fascinating piece in today’s Telegraph (UK) that needs to be read by everyone before Tuesday’s mid-term elections. It’s aptly titled “Barack Obama’s Poor Economic Policies are Playing into China’s Hands.” An excerpt:
“Exasperated business leaders here in the US simply believe Washington is handing a competitive advantage to rival Far East exporters whose goods are deemed fit to be consumed in the American economy but not produced by the American economy. And because it risks being condemned as xenophobic, companies are unwilling to make a fuss about the fact that an increasing amount of the West’s intellectual property is being stolen with impunity. Again, Americans feel their government is not doing anything to redress this unfairness.
But whether it’s planning restrictions, land use restrictions, tax burdens or rules and regulations, there is a governance gap in the US, as in other Western economies, which is holding back growth. The poor leadership and economic policies of the Obama administration are forcing the domestic economy to compete with one hand tied behind its back. Not a great way of encouraging those mountains of cash to be invested in job creation.
That governance gap is being arbitraged by the likes of China, and its emerging market counterparts, which simply get on with growth under orchestrated and highly directed economic and industrial policies.
Instead of the West’s democratic advantage being allowed to show its creative strengths, it is throwing up obstacles to re-establishing the economic credentials of countries such as America. That mismanagement is what the increasingly vocal protests here, including the Tea Party movement, are getting so cross about.”
