Let's Put Stimulus Where it Counts! Building Diverse Business Ownership and Economic Competitiveness

Stimulus conversation is in buzz and lawmakers are thinking through all of the different ways to enhance economic activities. The problem many of these lawmakers faces is that they are fighting over not only the amount but also where the money is going to be spent. Personally, I think we can enhance our long term infrastructure that leads to increased economic opportunity and the biggest bang for the buck if we do something a little different and really focus on fostering investment rich economic environments (i.e. clusters) that bring prosperity to our diverse young population.

We have old cities and we have a trade war with China. There are protesters on the streets and general distrust of government  is on the rise. There is extremism and hate brewing on both sides of the political perspective. Few things can get done if we are all fighting. I'm going to make some very basic and probably incorrect assumptions here. 

1. Our politicians want our country to succeed and would be willing to put aside their differences to pass a plan that has a large economic impact. 

2. As a nation we want to solve the systemic racism problem and move forward in our national development as a unified people with the same basic assumptions of our institutions (i.e. justice, government, etc...).

3. We want to be at the center of the global economic supply chain and create economic prosperity for our children. 

If these are three very basic assumptions (and probably not completely accurate) that we can sort of agree on then we must ask ourselves what policies in terms of stimulus are going to help us on multiple fronts. To me we have a need to prepare the Millennials and develop a creative export oriented economy. That requires us to align our current physical structure to the global market using the innovative capacity of the new digital economy. We are not just investing in one time programs that do nothing but investing in the communities ability to compete on the global market. 

That will require us to think about how to create some economic equity that is likely to create a net positive return on society. We know cities still maintain some of its industrial infrastructure (prior to outsourcing) and we know that Millennials (of different backgrounds) like enjoy a more diverse metro life. We also know they are likely to be poorer than previous generations. Perhaps we can equalize and fix some problems if we work to realign our cities to the global market while at the same time create investment rich export oriented cities that impact minorities heavily. Moving forward all of our youth must come along together as a sign of a more universal society ready to tackle the global markets for the future of our beliefs and way of life.

Here is a pretty cool article about stimulus plans by Jacob Mitchell "Democrats & Republicans: Two pathways, one destination for markets"