Over the past three decades, there’s been endless discussion about the need to for things to be “Made in America”. It usually refers to the need to bring back jobs that have disappeared overseas or have gone south to areas where labor costs are lower and, consequently, profits can be higher.
Identifying the Problem
Most of this discussion has been incredibly uninformed. The left says that those jobs will never come back. They say we need to move on as nation to high tech, and other similarly demanding jobs. But those jobs require significant amounts of additional education and, accordingly, lots of time and money.
On the other hand, the right claims that a solutions involves providing incentives to manufacturers to come back. For example, offering government subsidies and tax forgiveness. Or perhaps more extreme, by imposing tariffs on foreign-made goods.
However, the real solution lies neither with the proposals urged by the left nor those urged by the right. Education is costly and, for the most part, not targeted toward providing the real opportunities that exist in our current society. Government incentives are mere give aways of precious governmental resources that should be used instead to provide the safety net that so many of our current citizens desperately need.
What’s the Solution Then
The real solution is in unleashing the tremendous capacity for innovation that exists among Americans themselves. We are the most prolific and creative group of people that have ever graced the Earth. Americans of all sizes, all colors, all nationalities, have contributed to this amazing capacity for innovation that this country possesses.
Our solution is not in chasing increasingly poorly-compensated manufacturing jobs which can be more eagerly assumed (and appreciated) by those populations around the world seeking a better life for themselves and their children. It is not in wasting time or money over-educating a population that, for the most part, will never, in a million years, be able, as a group, to qualify as nuclear physicists, tech engineers or other professionals with higher level skill sets.
The solution is to focus on innovation. Innovation when it comes to gadgets, innovation when it comes to technological and medical advancements, and innovation when it comes to truly mind-blowing achievements. For example, rockets by companies like SpaceX that can both launch and land, Buck Rogers style.
How AOS and Made in America Go Hand in Hand
At Archimedes’ Offspring we’re dedicated to this vision of America’s future. We want to help unleash the innovative potential of the entire U.S. population. We aren’t looking for just the youthful overachievers determined to become the next billionaire. Those select few with the capability and guile to convince monied interests to invest in their next Uber or AirBnB.
Our target is people of all ages, who might be sitting on couches throughout the land, pondering an idea that they have obsessed over for a long time. But who haven’t, for whatever reason, been able to move forward to make their vision a reality.
We are dedicated to encouraging and supporting this inventor, both in word and deed. And by putting our money where our mouth is. Our hope is that by so doing, we will be helping in a major way to rewrite America’s future. Not as the bastion of the old bricks and mortar economy that first drove U.S. prosperity, but to the new economy, the economy of both small and great ideas that can become reality.
Take this journey with us. It’s a journey that will provide untold treasures and benefits (and not a small measure of joy). And in the process, it will unleash the potential for reinventing itself that this country and its economy has always possessed.
