Article: How America can Rise Again
When I was growing up, I read an intriguing Amar Chitra Katha story on how Indra, king of heaven, tricked a virtuous asura king into giving up his throne. To cut a long story short, the asura king had achieved high level of virtue and displaced Indra from his heavenly throne. Indra disguised himself as a traveling pilgrim, visited the asura king, gained his confidence and was given a boon. Indra asked for a small thing from the asura king (I think it was authenticity or something like that). The asura king gave it, but he soon found out that his other earthly powers of might, reason and so on all depended on this small thing to exist, and these powers quickly departed him, and soon the asura king weakened and died. Indra returned triumphant to heaven.
What does this have to do with America’s rebound? There has been plenty of confidence in the reinvention of America, it’s taken for granted that America will once again awe the world with its transformation. But is there one small thing where everything hinges on, that becomes the slippery slope of decline?
The excellent Mr James Fallow of Atlantic Monthly tackles this here. Which I’ll quote at length below.
“The main concerns boil down to jobs, debt, military strength, and overall independence. Jobs: Will the rise of other economies mean the decline of opportunities within America, especially for the middle-class jobs that have been the country’s social glue? Debt: Will reliance on borrowed money from abroad further limit the country’s future prosperity, and its freedom of action too? The military: As wealth flows, so inevitably will armed strength. Would an ultimately weaker United States therefore risk a military showdown or intimidation from a rearmed China? And independence in the broadest sense: Would the world respect a threadbare America? Will repressive values rise with an ascendant China—and liberal values sink with a foundering United States? How much will American leaders have to kowtow?
The full details are beyond us here, but the crucial point is that in principle, the United States itself has the power to correct what is wrong in each case.”
So it’s jobs. Once that social glue that middle class jobs provide is gone, a lot of things go too in slow decline. Mr Fallows goes on to describe reforms that are needed in American government needed to adapt to the world.
Here I am reminded by a colleague who came back from many years in Tokyo and his take on Japanese polity’s current inability to adapt to a myriad of small changes (the boiling frog syndrome) unless there is a coherent, overwhelming external shock that pushes Japanese polity to slam the reset button. Commodore Perry’s ships did that, so did the two bombs. And Japanese polity adapted admirably, and then fossilized.
Mr Fallows goes on to state that addressing the menu of problems is within America’s current means. I echo Mr Fallows here when he says American society is fine, but not American polity. The current governing system is simply not able to deliver. 2001 was an admirable time to push the reset button, but it wasn’t used. A fine crisis wasted. Mr Fallows wraps up by saying America should try to reinstitute a multigenerational perspective in planning for the future, and honing its still unmatched strengths. It sounds sensible, it also sounds like muddling through, but perhaps that is the best and more realistic option available.
Pearl River Delta 2020
When I was in CN last month, we were showed the outline of a pilot reform program by the central govt to reform Pearl River Delta into ‘Asia Pacific’s most dynamic city cluster’ by 2020. That was quite an audacious statement, and you probably know that a ‘pilot reform’ by the China central govt means they set the large directions but leave it to the city governments to work out the details, and more importantly, best practices of what works will be replicated across China to guide the formation of their mega city clusters. What makes PRD 2020 interesting is they are gearing to go head on with Korea in terms of advanced manufacturing, creating a services hub that will be augmented with HK (if they get it right) and the number of global Chinese MNCs they want to create. I’ve combed through the outline and with some help from HK’s Civic Exchange group on slideshare 
here it is!
Singapore Competitiveness Report 2009
The LKY School of Public Policy just released its Singapore Competitiveness Report for 2009. You can download it here.
SocGen’s Worst Case Debt Scenario
I think the first para says it well. “But while we believe the greatest danger is past, we also recognise the price of our salvation has yet to be paid in full.” SocGen’s view on how public debt will swing recovery (or not) in the next five years.
Electric Cars – Where will be the breakthrough?
The conventional view on electric cars is that US and China will lead. Certainly, media reports on Tesla and BYD support this conventional view. But a recent post in Tim Jones’ blog poses the question whether these will be the locations for the early breakthroughs or if other regions may well have a higher chance of delivering the vision. For him, there are two issues which may mean that this US / China leadership should be questioned.
The first issue is the fact that other countries have already made the decisions and are acting on them. Electric car recharging networks are already being built in Denmark, Israel and, most significantly, France. It is in France that government, the car industry and the energy sector appear to be most aligned. Renault is launching (not just talking about) electric vehicles in 2012; Renault and EDF are building a nationwide electric car recharging network in France in 2011; and €400m of initial state backing was personally guaranteed by President Sarkozy in October 2008. So, it looks like the alignment of significant market potential, technology, regulation and finance required to establish the environment for a breakthrough change seems to be coming together pretty well in France with its EU neighbours as candidates for roll-out.
The second issue concerns the CO2 impacts being claimed vs. those being delivered. In many countries the switch from hydrocarbons to electrons for transport is a bit of a red herring as they will be largely relying on oil, gas and coal to generate the electricity in the first place. Yes the point of CO2 production shifts from the vehicle to the power station, but significant breakthroughs are still required before effective and economic carbon capture and storage (CCS) technologies are retro-fitted to the existing energy base. If electric mobility is going to have significant impact within the next decade, some see that it needs to be aligned to major sources of renewable, clean energy. So looking at the current leaders in this field, it is no surprise that Denmark (wind), Israel (solar) and France (nuclear) are seen as front-runners: These locations have high renewable supplies of electricity already installed or being installed. As such, they will gain most from the associated carbon credits from the introduction of electric mobility. The participation of China and the US in electric mobility will definitely have a major impact – not just because of the size of the domestic markets, but also because of the catalytic effect they have on the rest of the world. But, right now based on current actions, over a 10 rather than 20 year timescale, one can see other countries leading the way, proving the technologies, establishing leadership positions and gaining the most in terms of both economic impact and carbon reduction.
Food Map: Africa as the next breadbasket?
Much of the world’s arable land is being farmed already, so the lion’s share of the increase will need to come through higher yields. In many places, yields can increase—if prices rise high enough to make investment in more-intensive agriculture worthwhile. Still, much of the developed world is approaching the ceiling of what is cheaply possible. Sub-Saharan Africa, despite its long history of food insecurity, is one place where yields could increase dramatically; agricultural basics such as good seed and fertilizer would go far in a region that the green revolution bypassed. Full article on the Atlantic Monthly here.
Ideo’s David Kelley on “Design Thinking”
Everyone should read Ideo’s David Kelley on “Design Thinking”!! It’s not the newest article (and I don’t know how I missed it the first time, considering how religiously I read Fast Company). Nevertheless, a lot of it resonated with us here at the Futures Group. I have a million thoughts in my head. Thoughts around how “creativity can be summoned at will, with a process not unlike the scientific method”, how crisis disrupts the status quo and presents amazing opportunity, how “ideas can attract more powerful acolytes and be disseminated more more widely through business, how we can be confident about giving our stuff away because we know that we can come up with a better idea tomorrow, how being diverse can add a tremendous amount of value to being deep. You really should just go read the article.
To end off, here’s a plug for an SMU event in 2 weeks:
Creating a Market Place for User Innovation
Associate Professor Lars Bo Jeppeson
Director, Danish User-Centred Innovation Lab
Date: Thursday, 26 November 2009
Time: 10.30 am to 11.45 am
Venue: Executive Media Theatre, Level 5
(SMU Administration Building)
Address: 81 Victoria Street
Singapore 188065
Future Agenda
In one of those instances of serendipitous web surfing, I came across Vodafone’s “Future Agenda” programme. About the programme -
Supported by Vodafone Group, the Future Agenda is a unique cross-discipline programme which aims tounite the best minds from around the globe to address the greatest challenges of the next decade. In doing so, it is mapping out the major issues, identifying and debating potential solutions and suggesting the best ways forward. We hope, as a consequence, that it will provide a platform for collective innovation at a higher level than has been previously been achieved.
Their Intial Perspectives here:
I like how it is deliberately designed as a conversation starter. Maybe some of FG’s ongoing work can be crafted like this! Very interesting! Looking forward to more stuff out of the programme.
Singapore Youth
Youth are our literal future.
I just came back from TED India in Mysore, and I saw examples of how Indian youth, using the array of mobile communications, Internet, social networking tools etc available, have been able to build businesses and also fulfill their social responsibilities. In their own way, they are pushing forward their vision of a new India.
How much does the leading edge of youth tell us about the future? In Singapore’s case, what does the leading edge of youth tell us what to expect of Singapore’s future? Futures Group just completed a study that I’ve posted in greater detail which you can download here.
How can Singapore tap on the leading edge of youth of Asia to help them fulfil both their career and social aspirations? What are their commonalities? I may not have articulated so explicitly before, but I believe that the city/nation that is able to tap on the creative energies of Asia’s leading youth stands in good stead to create a vibrant future.
