What can each of us do to shift the US Economy

Dan Pink, Thomas Friedman and others have described parts of the internal forces needed to reshape the US economy to respond to globalization.

Dan Pink gave us three key words
Automation Can we make it with robots
Asia Can other countries make it cheaper
Abundance -- In an abundant world, can we produce something SIMILAR to something useful that the consumer already has but NEW in an artistic way

Thomas Friedman described the history behind globalization and his book THE WORLD IS FLAT tells stories of people and places that most of us hadn't heard of or hadn't cared about. We care about the Eiffel tower and the Great Pyramid, but know little about the architecture of Cyrus the Great and Shanghai.

Dan Pink quotes a museum curator: "Design brings meaning into our lives." It's not about having a clean house, but rather about owning a toilet brush by Michael Graves. The first three chapters of Pink's book, A WHOLE NEW MIND, inspired me to begin looking around me for ways to re-design and find the artistic use for ordinary objects.

Let's look at three examples of art that brings meaning into our lives.

VENICE
I visited Venezia in 1969, 1975, 1976, 1994, 1999, 2003, 2005 and 2006 -- and in 1969 I had no idea that there could be a fish in a glass cat's belly. The design was not there in 1969, but by 1994 there were clever new deisgns involving colored glass.

How does Italy compete with Asia Better design. Is wheat cheaper in Asia Sure, but some people will pay more for made-in-Italy pasta. The glass will be cheaper in China, even made in China and exported for sale to tourists in Italy. But if the designs are more imaginative in Italy, then the Venetian glassblowers will still have work.

(The glass fish bowls made in China are different from the originals in Venice. If the Venetian fish bowl has three layers of bubbles, fish and more bubbles, the tank has depth. The Chinese knockoff, less than half the price, lacks the depth... but, hey, it's cheaper. -- Source: JK McCrea)

How did Italians offset cheap imports By selling Tuscan villas. That's right, sell some land to foreign investors and the market for local services will increase. They increased the value of their high-end designs (Ferrari, Lamburghini)

INDONESIA (Yogyakarta)
There's an area near this cultural center where it's hard to scratch a living in farming. The shallow soil covers 5 to 10 feet thick of limestone. Most locals cut a trench, fill the trench with dirt and haul water to irrigate the manmade farm. Then a guy from Australia figured, "Why not cut the limestone and make arrable land, but use those cut stones to create statues" He sells the stones to art galleries in the USA after he hires a local to carve Modigliani look-alikes.

IRAQ
In a column that appeared in May 2007, Thomas Friedman points out that we have an opportunity to reshape the Mideast if we LOWER the price of oil -- most advocates of alternative fuels want to RAISE the price of oil to keep alt fuels looking attractive.

If Iraq collapses, Friedman writes, "a serious US energy plan that permanntly brings down the price of oil by developing alternative energies, is the best Plan B. You will see reform in the Arab Muslim world only when regimes can't survive just by extracting oil, but have to extract the talents of their people by educaitng and empowering them."

So the Dan Pink - Thomas Friedman message appears to fuse into "Be creative and get to work. It's a global market."

Friedman points out that "You can't be serious about getting out of Iraq if you're not serious about getting off oil."

So what can we do Look at alternatives to gasoline. Why not visit www.ampmobiles.com and learn more about alt fuels at www.whywaitfordetroit.com Let's get creative and be Italian!