U.S. Economy Risks and Strategies for 2007-2017

Executive Summary

On Jan 31st, 2007, the president of the United States gave his speech on “State of the Economy” citing strong economic growth, record Dow Jones performance and low unemployment rate. This report finds a different picture than the one announced. A deeper look into the economy reveals that the painted rosy picture is based on selective facts instead of a neutral assessment of all relevant numbers and economic trends. According to the author of the white paper, It is true that the U.S. Economy grew at 3.5 percent rate in 4th quarter of 2006, but the economic real growth is much less than advertised. Since 2001, economic growth have been largely fueled by rapid increases in asset prices (housing bubble) and expanding consumer debt rather than development projects, which results in non-sustainable and unhealthy (debt-driven) growth. In order to address the emerging socioeconomic risks, policy makers must acknowledge the economy's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. The the U.S. government must be candid in communicating with the American public and the approach must be direct.

This IIM white paper provides the following: 1). A neutral assessment of the U.S. economic health, 2). An analysis of the long-term consequences of current policy decisions 3). The emerging economic, social and geopolitical threats to the U.S. financial prosperity 4). Risk mitigation strategies 5). Management best practices

The paper addresses the key challenges facing the U.S. government policies and attempts to answer the following critical questions:

1. The United States economy has been resilient, but for how much longer? Can the U.S. economy sustain unlimited economic growth?

2. Will the United States face another economic crisis? When? How strong and how long will the negative cycle be?

3. How can the United States manage the financial costs of the aging baby-boom generation?

4. How can the United States compete with low-cost China, India, Mexico and other economies?

5. How can the United States fight and win the antiterrorism war and at the same time not lose international allies and economic partners?

6. How can the U.S. government mitigate social, economical and geopolitical risks and reverse the negative trend?

7. What will be the price of recovery from past and current policy mistakes?

The white paper summarizes the study in seven sections: 1). historical perspective, 2). economic risks, 3). social risks 4). geopolitical risks, 5). root cause analysis 6). government policy options and their price 7). recommended strategies 8). management best practices 9) notes and 10). resources.

1) U.S. Historical Perspective

No economy can sustain unlimited growth. The economy behaves in cycles; for every up cycle there is a down cycle, it is only a question of how long and how steep the curve is. The next decade is probably the most critical for U.S. socioeconomic prosperity. Let's start with a historical perspective:

• 1920 - 21 U.S. stock market crash

• 1929 U.S. stock market crash, followed by the Great Depression

• 1987 U.S. stock market crash

• 1997 – 98 U.S. financial crisis

• 2000 - U.S. Dot Com bubble burst

• 2001- 2006 September 11 + Iraq war + Globalization + Offshoring + Real estate bubble + Highest budget and trade deficits in U.S. history

• 2007 + What are the prospects for the U.S. economy?

2) U.S. Economic Risks

This section provides a quick assessment of the U.S. economic health status.

To simplify the logic, the basic commonsense formula to assess the health of an economy is as follows:

• If the revenues are more than expenditures, then the economic health is good, because the government can afford to invest in socioeconomic development projects such as research, education, transportation and infrastructure

• If revenues are less than the expenditures, then the economic health is not so good. If you add an increasing debt and interest rate, then the economic health is bad.

But how bad is bad? It depends on the trends and the relevant numbers. To properly assess the health of an economy, it is important to take note of the revenues, expenditure and debt numbers in relation to each other. Here is the big picture using bullet-points format:

• U.S. economy = $13 trillion . Commonly known as gross domestic product (GDP)

Economic Growth

• U.S. economic real growth is much less than advertised. Since 2001, economic growth have been largely fueled by rapid increases in asset prices (housing bubble) and expanding consumer debt rather than spending on business investments and infrastructure projects, which results in non-sustainable and unhealthy growth.

• But how come the stock market is doing well? This paper is about long-term economic health. The short-term impact of the slowdown in real estate prices is to make investors move their money to the stock market for better returns, but as the dollar value drops and the interest rates are increased, the investors will move their money from stocks to bonds or even to other international markets with stronger currency

National debt

• In 2000, the U.S. government had a surplus (profit) of about $237 billion (the largest in U.S. history). In 2006 the budget deficit was about $390 billion (loss). For information on Whitehouse budget details please visit http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2006/tables.html

• Although 2006 budget deficit (loss) is only about 3% of GDP, the problem is the accumulation of losses over multiple years (and therefore the debt to finance the deficit). By the end of 2006 (over a period of 6 years), the accumulated national debt was about $8.3 trillion! (the largest in U.S. history). Note: The U.S. government has borrowed that money to pay for tax breaks, new Medicare drug benefits, the war in Iraq and other policies.

• A large national debt is bad. Why? The government has to pay interest on the debt, as the debt and the interest payment grows, eventually all the government can do is pay the interest payment, and no money left over for other critical socioeconomic expenditures. If uncontrolled, this could leads to bankruptcy and major socioeconomic crises.

• In Fiscal Year 2006, the U. S. Government spent $406 Billion of its budget on interest payments to the holders of the national debt. Compare that to Education at $61 Billion, and Department of Transportation at $56 Billion. When interest payment becomes larger than other critical socioeconomic development budgets, this calls for a major concern.

Consumer Debt

• By end of 2006 the U.S. consumer debt = $11 trillion

• According to the Commerce Department the personal savings rate for 2006 was a negative 1 percent, the worst in 73 years. This is the lowest level since the Great Depression, and that could be a problem for the millions of retiring baby boomers and the job market.

• U.S. home mortgages debt = $8.2 trillion. Due to the housing bubble in recent years, U.S. home buyers took on more debt to buy overpriced homes, thus reducing share of disposable income. Many Americans refinanced their homes during the real-estate boom to pay for living expenses. With the expected housing bubble bust (declining housing values), Americans could lose a significant part of their savings.

• Consumers are the main engine of any economy, the less money the consumer have to spend or invest, the less is the growth of the economy.

• The slowing economy will lead many small businesses and individuals to go bankrupt. Foreseeing this, U.S. lenders have lobbied the government to make changes to the bankruptcy law, making it even more difficult to get rid of debt.

Interest Rates

• To prevent a major decline in dollar value U.S. must raise interest rates.

• The higher the debt and the interest rate, the more costly the financing and the less surplus the U.S. economy has for investing in socioeconomic development.

• Last year, the average return on equity (stocks) investment was 8% while the bonds interest rate was 5%. The higher the interest rate, the less is the investment activities, because investors tend to buy more secure bonds than risky stock or equities, thus hurting the stock market and impeding economic recovery.

Foreign Debt & Investment

• In early 2006, overseas investors held $13.6 trillion in U.S. stocks, bonds, real estate, businesses and other assets.

• About 45% of the U.S. public debt is owed to foreign holdings (up from 40% in 2005). China, Japan, the EU, Saudi Arabia and Oil Exporters are the largest creditors. They financed the U.S. economy expenditures by buying U.S. government and corporate bonds and mortgage-backed securities. They are the United States' biggest bankers, any of which could cause the United States serious financial problems, if they wished.

• According to the commerce department, the United States paid more to its foreign creditors than it took in from its overseas investments. The gap was about $2.5 billion for the last quarter - the first time that has happened in more than 90 years!

Balance of Trade & Global Competitiveness

• The U.S. 2005 balance of trade deficit was $723 billion. The number for end of 2006 is expected to be higher. In other words, foreign companies are better at competing than domestic U.S. companies. With improvement of IT & Telecom technologies, offshoring will increase and knowledge networks will expand. In other words, the U.S. will decline in international competitiveness. The United States is not the only economic superpower any more. In a global economy, the name of the game is global competition: Boeing vs. Airbus, Intel vs. AMD, GM vs. Toyota, and so on. U.S. cannot compete with China’s low-cost manufacturing or India’s low-cost services. Several of U.S.’s largest companies Intel, Boeing, GM and Ford are closing local factories and laying off workers due to slowing demand and increased global competition. In 2005, the U.S. lost more than 500,000 jobs, the same number expected for 2006.

Oil Prices

• The growth of China, India and other countries will create major demands for oil and depleting the supply, resulting in an inevitable increase in oil prices, thus negatively impacting transportation and energy costs, raising the cost of local products and services and reducing company profits, household disposable income and savings. Soaring energy and health care costs, combined with negative personal savings rates, create strong negative forces that impede U.S. economic growth.

Dollar Exchange Rate

• In the past few years, the U.S. dollar has slipped about about 40% against the Euro and major currencies. In other words, U.S. citizens' buying power is reduced significantly. Weaker dollar causes the price of imports to rise (Wal-Mart buys about $20 billion in goods from China alone). The low-income sector has not felt the price increase because of the intervention of the Chinese central bank to protect against the floating of its Yuan currency. If China allows the Yuan to float freely, then the prices can increase to 50% and maybe even more. Not only the price of imports will increase but local goods will increase too, due to the following (1) the increased cost of imported raw material and components (2) the increased price of foreign products, will provide coverage for local producers to increase their prices to make more profit without fearing competitive disadvantage.

Economic Confidence

• What is the U.S. economic outlook? If you compare the global economy to the stock market and the U.S. economy to a company listed on that market, then the real question is: Would you invest in a company that is losing money and increasing debt for several years in a row ? Or would you invest in its competitors with increasing market share and profit (surplus)? Granted that USA Inc. is the largest company in the global market, but global investors consider profitable growth and performance trends more than the size.

• The worst thing that could happen is the loss of confidence in U.S. economy. If U.S. government does not commit to reducing federal budget deficits, at some point in time, foreign banks could panic and rush to dump their dollars to be the first out of a sinking currency, thus making the economic crisis far worse and recovery more difficult. China has already signaled its intention to decouple the currencies, which will lead to the loss of trillions of dollars in U.S. Treasury value. In order to minimize that loss, the Chinese will have to sell off some of their U.S. holdings. The real danger is how much and how fast China will do so. If they decide to do it quickly, they will prompt huge panic by other lending countries. Investors will have to copy China’s moves resulting in a disaster to the dollar value, interest rate, businesses, stock market, home owners and U.S. economy as a whole.

3) U.S. Social Risks

• Social Security payments go in the Social Security Trust Fund. The purpose of any surplus payments to Social Security is to pay future benefits. But the U.S. Government has spent all of the money in the Social Security Fund. That's part of the National Debt.

• By 2025, nearly a quarter of Americans will be over 60, a shift with huge implications for the U.S. social services budget and economy. Those baby boomers will be a major voting force and will influence government decisions to raise taxes to support Social Security and Medicare, which will reduce individual salaries, companies' profits, investments and domestic competitiveness.

• With lower Social Security payout and higher health care and living costs, many seniors will have to go back to employment to support themselves, thus competing with the younger generation for the already declining numbers of jobs. The higher labor supply and lower demand for employees will create intense competition and increase work stress on the individual and the society. Think of the younger generations resenting the baby boomers, blaming them for a falling standard of living.

• I would not be surprised if many senior and richer U.S. citizens start emigrating to other more affordable countries, taking their savings and wealth with them so they can live there for the rest of their life, or simply to invest in stronger economies with stronger currencies. Because of the extremely high healthcare costs, some are already traveling overseas to get treated.

• Higher cost of education will lead to less access to equal opportunities and will increase economic gap.

• Think of the impact of thinning middle-class layer and the increase in an economic distribution gap. That can result in major socioeconomic and political crises, further complicating recovery. That can stress the social fabric of the nation. Extreme socioeconomic situations are more likely to produce racial, religious and political extremism. Blaming others is a classic response to times of hardship, especially when others practice a different religion or simply belong to another race or economic class.

4) U.S. Geopolitical Risks

• No one disputes the right of the United States to defend itself against terrorism, however the way it is conducting the war on terrorism is a highly controversial issue inside and outside the country. Regardless of one's positive or negative opinion of current U.S. foreign policy, the launch of the U.S. war on Iraq with "fabricated or mis-intelligence”, without the support of the international community, the 600 thousand Iraqi civilian casualties, the extensive infrastructure destruction in Iraq, the Abu Ghuraib torture scandal, the Haditha's civilian massacre scandal, the Guantanamo concentration camp, the disregard of Geneva convention agreement on torture and the treatment of prisoners of war and ignoring of the Middles East peace process have hurt the U.S. fight against terrorism and destroyed U.S.'s international good will and trust. The common international perception is that the Iraq war was driven primarily by the U.S. interest to control Iraq oil resources and that the U.S. government foreign policy is driven by an ideology of domination and exploitation rather than peace and collaboration. Both trust and goodwill are critical elements of productive diplomatic and business relationships. Without those elements it is much more difficult to promote U.S. global socioeconomic agenda.

• The Iraq war and the Israeli war on Lebanon in June 2006 have increased anti-American sentiments and fueled terrorism, providing more risk to the U.S.. economy and increasing expenditures on security and defense. War policies take away from government's time, effort and budget and are almost always at the expenses of socioeconomic development.

• The onslaught of post 9/11 negative media toward Arab and Islamic countries had a major impact on U.S. foreign policies and relations. An example is the rejection of the Dubai's winning bid to manage the U.S. ports. Its worth noting that Dubai (UAE) is a moderate Arab country and a U.S. ally . As a reaction to U.S. policies, many of the rich Arab and oil investors are considering investing elsewhere, rather than traditional U.S. markets. Arab countries are awarding lucrative national development projects to competing European and Chinese companies. Many of the rich Arab and Muslim students, tourists and businesses are going to competing schools and economies to spend their money and build stronger relations. U.S. media and foreign policies are erecting major psychological and political barriers to socioeconomic exchange between U.S. and about 1.5 billion Muslim in more than 30 countries, further fueling extremist's agenda for driving the situation into the clash of civilization, another future World War or "Armageddon" scenario.

• Except in few isolated cases, history shows that the fight against terrorism cannot be won by military force alone. Only political solutions can result in a lasting peace. Another 9/11- scale attack or several smaller attacks could result in major havoc on the U.S. economy and result in investors fleeing to more stable business environments.

• While the U.S. politics, army and media were busy with military and cultural hostilities in the Middle East, China, Russia and the EU were busy building stronger socioeconomic relations though joint economic development initiatives and open cultural dialogues. It is a known fact, people do business with people they like. Why else do you think Dubai lost the U.S. port deal after they won it! Why else do you think Sudan choose China instead of U.S. as its primary oil investor and partner? Who do you think has a better global competing strategy the U.S. or the EU?

• Tensions with North Korea, Iran, Venezuela and other Latin American countries may lead to an escalation that may unify a major world block against the U.S. causing further damages.

• The animosity with Iran has led Iran to plan Euro-Perto Bourse in an effort to weaken U.S. dollar domination on oil trade. The new Bourse will compete with New York's Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) and London’s International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) for international oil trades. It should be noted that both the IPE and NYMEX are owned by U.S. corporations. The IPE was bought in 2001 by a consortium that includes BP, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. In fact if there were peace in the Middle East, the Iranian nuclear energy project would actually help the U.S. economy, because it allows Iran to export more oil, thus reducing the price of oil.

• In 2005, U.S. dependency (in dollar amounts) on imported oil was half of imported manufactured goods. If the U.S. conducts another war or an attack on Iran, that would most definitely lead to a sharp increase in oil prices and further risk for the U.S. economic recovery.

• The continuation in the current direction of U.S. foreign policy may risk some creditors getting back at the United States through economic measures. That could cause major economic damage.

5) Root Cause Analysis

So what led to the current situation?

Possible causes:

• A series of short-term-gain policies by incompetent or corrupt politicians? Although no one can know the intentions of any world politician, the competency is easily judged by the results.

• Ideologically driven policies, rather than pragmatically driven policies? That can be judged by politicians' own statements, and again, by the results.

• Bought-and-paid-for analysts and lobbyists promoting foreign or private interests over national or public interests? Analysis of foreign and local media watchdog reports will always reveal the public and hidden agendas.

• Misinformation promoted by many media analysts and commentators have led the country in the wrong direction? Again the best way to judge the competency of the media and its commentators is by the review of media archives and the final results.

• Ivory-tower economists not in touch with real business challenges? To be fair, that may not be the case here, the U.S. Federal Reserve did a good job so far in controlling and pacing interest rates increase, but there is not much that they can do beyond that.

• Tax policies? Not increasing taxes was a wise measure that helped businesses and investors, but if no revenues do not increases, the government has no other choice but to raise taxes to balance the budget and pay for national debt.

• Uncontrollable external events? While 9/11 was a major negative event, it is the reaction to that event that counts. The U.S. Government cannot blame everything on 9/11, especially U.S. economic policies. The same logic is true for rising global competition and failed foreign-relations policies.

• Last but not least, could it be that the U.S. consumer culture resulted in a population that is consuming far more than saving, thus resulting in a huge consumer debt? That seems to be the general consensus.

6) Government Policy Options & Their Price

A scientific economic fact: any economy that is built on uncontrolled debt will eventually crash. An increasing debt is a vicious cycle that can only be broken through a strategy shift and operations restructure. In IIM's opinion, the conditions for a crash are far from being met, but attention must be paid early to avoid coming closer to the tipping point. The more the current administration waits to make the change, the stronger the moment of inertia to reverse the direction and the more the socioeconomic and political pains of the necessary reforms.

So what policy options are available to the U.S. government to help it overcome the above listed challenges?

To pay the bill for U.S. annual economic expenses, Social Security deficit (care for baby boomers), debt financing, and economic growth the U.S. government will have to resort to a combination of one or more of the following options:

• Allow the dollar value to fall so that it can pay debts more cheaply. That may increase inflation and will lower the real purchase power of U.S. citizens and businesses, but at the same time may improve price competitiveness with other countries. With the new exchange rate, salaries of the American worker become more competitive with the European counterpart and will reduce the salary gap with China and India thus slowing offshoring).

• Increase interest rates to attract enough money back to the United States. - That is a bad choice, making it tougher and more costly to raise capital. Also increasing interest rates will result in savers investing less in the stock market and thus slowing economic growth. Increased interest rates will result in lower demand on the housing market and thereby a loss in home values.

• Increase taxes. That is another bad option, which will reduce business profits and U.S. ability to attract foreign investment

• The U.S. has to sell more assets (telecom, utility infrastructure, and other assets) to overseas investors. Buyers look for a bargain and this will result in foreign control of major national assets -- A high price to pay.

• Reduce the U.S. government budget across all major sectors, including defense, education, health and other social programs. That option will cause major layoffs in public and private sectors and will face major challenges from the strongest lobbies and the public.

• Relax immigration policies, allowing more competitive labor (competing with China and India) and at the same time creating a larger consumer base (helping in economic growth). But most likely that option will be opposed by the white majority fearing cultural and political change, even though the U.S. itself is a nation of immigrants and its economic prosperity is credited to their hard work. The U.S. government can manage immigration policies in such a way as to attract productive immigrants and minimize major negative effects on the culture.

• Recharge the U.S. innovation engine and generate new unique products and services to make enough profits to pay off debt and attract foreign investments. That is the best possible solution and the U.S. most competitive advantage. The U.S. gave the world most valuable innovations including the atomic energy, computers and the Internet. The future bets are on nanotechnology, alternative energy, bioengineering and medical innovations.

The U.S. will resort to the use of more than one option. All options except the last one will have a heavy price tag.

7 ) Recommended Strategies and Solutions

The U.S. Government needs to formulate a new economic strategy to address the two most critical challenges: debt and competitiveness.

Problem 1: Debt

• Before formulating a new strategy and launching reform initiatives, U.S. policy makers and the American public must acknowledge and accept that the solution must be long-term and cannot be pain-free. Leaders must make tough decisions rather than push them to the next presidency. The government must be honest in communicating with the public and the approach must be direct. When a company spends more than it earns, it will go into debt and if the debt cannot be controlled it will go bankrupt and fail.

• The U.S. government must commit to reducing the federal deficit, i.e. the U.S. government must tighten its belt to reduce expenditures and operational costs.

• In my opinion, U.S. government should not increase interest rates and taxes. This a highly debatable issue. Yes, that may lead to inflation, but the policy priority should be economic growth over inflation or any other issue. Economic growth avoids many other social and economic crises.

• Institute new energy policies (performance standards and tax incentives) to reduce energy waste and promote the U.S. manufacturers to produce energy-efficient devices and machinery. Promote the development of alternative energy sources and technologies to help reduce oil demand and prices.

• Both government and business leaders need to exit and divest losing economic sectors (where U.S. cannot compete).

• Encourage major overhaul of pharmaceutical and health-care cost and insurance in the United States. Open the market for international competition to reduce prices and become more competitive.

• Encourage major overhaul of education quality and cost by reducing academic competition barriers and open the market to reduce prices and become more competitive.

• Reduce foreign and military aid to other countries and re-invest the money in local economy. When necessary, invest in foreign joint-development projects sharing the risks and the rewards rather than just giving the money away.

• Re-prioritize expenditure from space exploration or defense to other national budget items

Problem 2: Competitiveness

The U.S. government must formulate short-term and long-term policies and build institutions to strengthen the nation's competitive advantage through better education, innovation, technology and entrepreneurship development. U.S. can compete with other economies using one or more of the following strategies:

• Education and research budgets: Budgets should be redesigned to help investments in revenue-generating economic sectors to provide incentives for new globally competitive products and services. Reform the U.S. education system to increase competitiveness and provide education and retraining resources for displaced U.S. workers

• Competitive tax policies: Tax policies should be redesigned to encourage innovation and industry. One simple, but highly effective measure, would be to shorten the depreciation schedules on capital investment and research spending, and increase short-term capital gains taxes to discourage short-term thinking and reducing the incentive for entrepreneurs to cash out.

• Simplify: Simplify business process for entrepreneurs and business by tax code and government transactions. Simplifies, automate and eliminate bureaucracy.

• Reduce professional and business insurance and legal costs by reviewing the legal system to minimize frivolous lawsuits. Consider the model of the Japanese legal system

• Promote positive culture re-engineering: Promote transformation from consumerism to investment, from leisure society to education and entrepreneurship. This can be done through education and media programs.

• Manage Globalization: The U.S. can slow globalization and offshoring through protection. However, U.S. government cannot stop globalization and will lose to competitors in the long-run. The only way is to manage the process by enforcing fair trade and investment agreements.

• Price: If you can't beat them, buy them!. U.S. can partner with neighbor countries, such as Latin American countries as low-cost labor sources.

• Immigration Policy: Bring more competitive labor through more attractive immigration policies (investors, price and knowledge)

• Hostile takeover (War): That is an unethical option and has been proven to be high risk, high cost and unprofitable foreign policy.

• Friendly Merger: Acquire new labor, natural resources and market. Consider the European Union expansion model and expand resources and markets (mergers with other North American countries such as Canada and Mexico)

• Build stronger global socioeconomic networks: That will help favor American products and services. To build a strong international socioeconomic relationship, the U.S. must refrain from acting as the world police and stop attacking other countries' internal policies and cultures. Instead the U.S. can promote American values by encouraging cultural exchange, open dialogues and economic partnerships. Transformation through education and positive exchange takes more time, but is far more effective and lasting.

• Build stronger partnerships with other nations: That can be done through shared investments which will improve U.S. favoritism and trade relations over competitors (through shared interest in profit and loss).

• Build Peace: Change the focus of foreign policy from combating threats to peace building in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East. It does not help to take sides and create more enemies. Empower the United Nations and World Court to handle international conflicts, thus treating the root causes of the U.S. hate and terrorism. That will will eliminate most of the U.S. socioeconomic threats and losses. U.S. can gain much more through peace and partnership than hostilities.

• When solving problem, U.S. Leadership needs to adopt the attitude of being smart vs. being right! Religious, ideological or egotistical policies create more problems than they solve. A pragmatic approach is far more productive domestically and internationally. The challenge with this recommendation is the subjective element of leadership decision making.

8 ) Management Best Practices

Probably the best way the U.S. government can implement the change effectively and efficiently is to adopt the private-sector management best practices. The simplest way to understand IIM proposed solutions is to compare the country to a company:

• The president as its CEO

• The congress as its board of directors

• Multiparty subcommittees as the independent audit committee

• The citizens as the shareholders

• Industry experts and the media as the company performance/investment analysts

USA Inc. is competing with other countries in a global economy. The CEO's mandate is the socioeconomic prosperity of her/his country. If the management team cannot meet their stated-objectives in their 4 years-term, then they should be replaced. To help manage U.S. government policies better, it would not be a bad idea to consider the following:

• Academia, experts, media and political parties could establish a comprehensive set of socioeconomic metrics as the main election agenda and performance goals for elected or appointed officials. This makes better informed decisions buy the public when electing the executive team

• Provide executive financial/political performance incentives and penalties tied to the complete set of socioeconomic performance metrics. This will ensure tying of the elected officials interest to public interest versus private interest lobbies.

• Establish better technical qualification and standards for the separation of duties and eliminating conflict of interest

• Institute a new format of an annual status report to the American public with far more details and socioeconomic metrics showing performance

Although it maybe too much and too early for the implementation of those reforms, it’s worth stating them for future intellectuals and leaders. In my opinion such reforms will better inform and educate the public and will promote more responsibility and efficiency in addressing national challenges and opportunities.

9) Paper Notes and Corrections:

A) This paper is not intended to be an academic research paper. To make the paper accessible to a wider audience, the format and the language of the paper were simplified to read like an article. For example: statistical numbers are rounded for simplicity, citations were minimized and key concepts are mostly stated in bullet points and in a common language. However, readers can verify the stated facts from the Internet and listed data sources in section 10.
B) When writing this paper, some of the quoted numbers were actual reported number and some were forecasted numbers for FY 2006.
C) The goal of this white paper is not to provide a complete solution; the goal is to draw attention to the big picture of the economic health and to shed some light on the emerging risks and available mitigation strategies.
D) Some of the above mentioned recommendations are drastic, socially expensive and cannot be implemented at this time. However, the purpose of a neutral study is to explore as many options as possible. From my knowledge of the political behavior, some of the best and most effective strategies will be discarded for ideological rather than pragmatic reasons. It’s a human and political tendency to reason what we love rather than love what we reason.

For corrections, feedback and opinions, please send your email to ThinkTank(at)hotmail.com

10) Statistical and economic data sources

U.S. Department of Commerce (DoC), European Commission (EC), United Nations (UN), Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Trade Organization WTO, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) World Book, World Economic Forum (WEF), MSN Encarta, The Economist, Business Week, Financial Times, FederalBudget.Com , The White House, and International Institute of Management (IIM)

About the Author

Med Yones is the president of International Institute of Management (IIM). IIM is a management best practices research and education institute. IIM has 41 universities and research partners in 16 countries. Mr. Yones is an international expert specializing in the global economy, business strategy, and leadership development. For more information about IIM, please visit http://iim-edu.org . For more information on Mr. Yones please visit http://iim-edu.org/associates/medyones/

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