UNHOLY TRINITY

If, as I argue in my book “NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, A First Generation Immigrant in Search of American Exceptionalism”, the public sector in America is grossly and dangerously under-performing to its capabilities, we need to look in the first place at the federal government as the culprit. The separation of powers has divided that part of our government in three branches: Legislative, Executive and Judicial.

While the performance of the Judicial branch, culminating at the Supreme Court, is certainly worthy of a critical review, I put it aside for a separate commentary at a different time. It is not, in my opinion, where the main problem is. I bestow the title of “unholy trinity” on these three segments of the federal government: The White House, the Congress and the Bureaucracy. Each of these fail miserably in their mission and together they are responsible for the dysfunction inside the Beltway and for America’s incompetence to get its most significant problems solved.

This is not a specific indictment of the Obama White House, the 2014 Congress or the present bureaucracy (although they deserve plenty of blame) but rather an assertion that the existing system of governance is fatally flawed. Peter Drucker concluded that government “has outgrown the structure, the policies and the rules designed for it” with the result that it is “bankrupt, morally as well as financially” and I agree with him. So do some more erudite commentators on American governance, notably Philip K. Howard, Chairman of Common Good, in his recent book “The Rule of Nobody, Saving America from dead laws and broken government” and two senior editors of The Economist, John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge in their 2014 book “The Fourth Revolution, The Global Race to Reinvent the State.”

The White House is one pillar of the unholy trinity that dooms America, because it is hopelessly politicized. The office of the President of the United States should be above the fray, the eyes set firmly on the national interest. Its job is to set the agenda and lead the nation towards completion of its goals and objectives. Instead the White House is engaged in an endless tug of war with the legislative branch about turf wars.

The Congress is the second pillar of the unholy trinity, as it is polarized by a two party system in which the more extreme wings have nearly silenced the moderate center, and because its members are beholden to their campaign contributors rather than their constituents.

The Bureaucracy is the third pillar of the unholy trinity, because it has entrenched behind and keeps adding to an accumulation of rule-making and regulation that is substituting for governance. On one hand, the rule-making continues at full speed, necessitating the addition of ever more federal employees to enforce the rules, and on the other hand the authority of public servants to act with common sense for the common good gets dwindled down to the point of disappearance. Philip Howard in his book reminds us that while the rule-making continues from administration to administration (between 1969 and 1979 the Federal Register nearly quadrupled in length) nothing ever gets rescinded, to the effect that the labyrinth of rules and regulations gets larger and denser all the time and in the end nobody knows anymore what is in there.      “The twenty-seven hundred page Affordable Care Act is now getting implemented with regulations that, so far, are 7 feet high, with more to come” writes Philip Howard in his book. And he continues: “American government is run by millions (he should have said trillions) of words of legal dictates, not by the leaders we elect or the officials who work for them.”

This picture is not very pretty. It is outright disturbing. Who is doing the People’s work? Well, I am afraid that right now the answer is “nobody”. And it shows. None of the important work gets done:

·         The national debt keeps growing without any effort to put a stop to it

·         Social Security and Medicare are largely unfunded for future generations

·         We allow our infrastructure to crumble

·         We let immigration happen rather than managing it in the best interest of the country

·         We are not winning the war on poverty

·         We are not winning the war on drugs

·         We are not winning the war on terror

·         We are powerless in the face of public waste, fraud and abuse

·         We have no national strategic agenda

·         Higher education is not uniformly affordably available

·         Healthcare is not uniformly affordably available

·         We cannot agree on a sensible gun control policy

·         We cannot agree on a sensible defense strategy against the effects of climate change

·         We cannot agree on a common sense tax simplification and reform

·         We allow our mentally ill to roam the streets, homelessly, or hide them from sight in our jails

·         We have allowed inequality to rise to levels from where social mobility has become nearly unattainable.

How does an unholy trinity get broken up? Only by a higher power and in America the only higher power resides in The People. That’s why Micklethwait & Wooldridge foresee (the need for) a Fourth Revolution without giving up on the principle of democracy. They write “The danger to democracy’s health today comes in three subtle forms. The first is that the state will keep expanding, gradually reducing liberty. The second is that the state will surrender ever more power to special interests. And the third danger is that the state will keep making promises it cannot fulfill.” 

Philip Howard advocates a thorough house cleaning and the installation of a Counsel of Citizens to oversee government. He states that “Washington is a house of cards. Any popular movement that stands up to it with an accurate indictment and a credible plan can push it over…” 

Accurate indictments come from all sides, including the books mentioned herein. Who is going to come up with the credible plan?

A SHOCK TO THE SYSTEM

December 7, 2014 (73 years after the Day that will live in Infamy)

We are all incredulous spectators to the dismal theatrics playing year after year in Washington D.C. sowing more and more mistrust and disgust in the minds of the American people. But where is the backlash? The public sector of this nation has become an abject failure (in sharp contrast with the private sector, which, time and again, bails out the global economy when the rest of the world sputters or regresses). Do we need any proof?

·         The National Debt just passed the $18 Trillion threshold and is now larger than the size of our economy

·         A comprehensive immigration reform remains illusory

·         Our infrastructure is fragile and at best outdated, at worst crumbling

·         We have not won a war since World War II

o    Not in Korea

o    Not in Vietnam

o    Not in Iraq

o    Not in Afghanistan

o    Not the war on poverty

o    Not the war on drugs

o    Not the war on terror
(We should not start a war that we have no intent of winning or simply cannot win.)

·         We have not funded Social Security and Medicare for future generations

·         We have done nothing about tax reform

·         We have done nothing to turn back the increase in inequality within our society.

This failure of government is not a partisan phenomenon. Control of the White House and the Congress has not determined success or failure in governance. Failure can therefore not be laid at the doorstep of either the Democrats or the Republicans. It defies logic to assume that the failure of the federal government to address the challenges America is facing, is more than marginally the result of incompetence or malign intent of our elected officials and it makes sense, therefore, to look for the cause of the malaise in the system, i.e. the complex of rules and conditions that define American politics of today.

I evaluate the flaws in the American political system in my recently published book “NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, A First Generation Immigrant in Search of American Exceptionalism.” Alexis de Tocqueville coined the phrase “American Exceptionalism” because he was in awe of the capacity of the American people to govern their affairs during and following the Revolutionary War, which he termed exceptional. He would be sorely disappointed if he were around today to see how things have developed!

The systematic flaws that I see in our governance model and that I address in detail in my book fall into four categories:

1.       The money influence in politics

2.       The two party system

3.       The election system (frequency, term length and limits, financing, districting and primaries)

4.       The lack of a national strategic agenda

To effect change in any of these four areas will require a herculean effort. After all, change generally only gets embraced when the pain of living with the status quo exceeds the pain inflicted by change. This explains that, while virtually nobody is happy with the status quo, we appear paralyzed to do something about it. The pain caused by the gross under performance of our public sector simply has not crossed the threshold level, but we may be closing in on a tipping point. The 2014 mid-term elections brought about an earthquake size shift in power from the Democrats to the Republicans, but it does not appear to have triggered a Congressional resolve to start fixing problems. The people seem to have no confidence in the political system, given that only a third of eligible voters went to the polling stations.

It would be a mistake, though, to give up on hope for a turn for the better. The American people have an uncanny capacity to step back from the brink before they allow things to get out of hand. And, as Nelson Mandela said: “It always seems impossible until it is done.” We can only hope that it will not take a national disaster to galvanize our politicians into action, but the likelihood is that it will require some shock to the system to get things off dead center. The most benign, democratic and American shock to the system could come from the emergence of a centrist third party. A January 2014 Gallup poll found that 42% of the voting eligible population considers itself “Independent” versus 31% Democrat and 25% Republican. For sure these Independents represent a wide spectrum of political beliefs, some at the extreme ends of the political spectrum, and maybe only half of them would feel at home in a centrist third party, but a centrist third party could easily draw in moderate Democrats and Republicans. In fact, the surest way to establish a viable third party would be for these moderates in the existing two parties to take the initiative to abandon their ideologically entrenched parties, find each other in the middle and create a new party that is dedicated to govern from the center and on the basis of a clear national strategic agenda. Such party would then become an attractive draw for many Independents. It would probably push the Democrats more to the left (where they want to go anyway) and the Republicans more to the right (where the Tea Party is guiding them).

The jolt received from such shock to the arrogance, inertia and complacency of Democratic and Republican Parties might just be enough to break the logjam and get Washington working again for the people of America. It might just be enough to get our politicians to address the other flaws in the system as well. It might just be what the American political system needs to deliver on its promises.

THANKSGIVING 2014

November 26, 2014

It looks today as if the only people with a reason to feel good this Thanksgiving are the approximately five million undocumented immigrants who will not be deported by the Obama administration. I can't remember a year that we have had more reasons to be dissatisfied with the way America is governed or, —more precisely—not governed. And where is our rebellion? It seems that we have already tacitly accepted that our grandchildren may represent the first generation to be worse off than their parents and grandparents. Where is our fighting spirit that says "Don't tread on me"? I find it more than a little depressing that the people show no sign of holding their elected representatives to account. Only one in every three of them turned out for the midterm election earlier this month. Former Senator Olympia Snow is right when she said "We are a great country and we should be governed as a great country." But good governance starts with the people being willing and able to govern themselves. How far have we strayed away from being the people who were so apt in governing and regulating themselves that Alexis de Tocqueville termed the American governance system "exceptional"?

What, I guess, we can be thankful for is that we have a strong and resilient economy with great human and natural resources, a favorable geography and an energetic and imaginative private sector so that our public sector failures have not put us—as of yet—at a global disadvantage. But let's heed Will Rodgers' warning that: "Even if you are on the right track, you still get run over if you just sit there."

I crave for a small but effective government that is not handcuffed by money interests nor held back by extreme polarization and purely partisan considerations. I crave for a government that sees its role more as an enabler than the perpetrator and the ultimate authority. And I crave for courageous leadership in the White House and Congress, guided by what needs to be done rather than by what assures re-election. 

I give thanks regardless this Thursday. Because life and America have been good to me and I'm grateful for the blessings bestowed upon my children and grandchildren. It would feel better though if the blessings of America were more evenly bestowed upon all of its deserving people so that, as a nation, regardless of creed, color, social status or political conviction we could treat Thanksgiving not just as another day off, but as a moment to pause and reflect on how exceptionally privileged it is to live in America.

AN IMMIGRANT'S LAMENT

November 22, 2014

At the risk of sounding self-serving (because I am a first generation immigrant) I have to add my voice to the immigration debate that surfaces every now and then and jumped to the top of the headlines this week with the executive action taken by President Obama. Clearly, regardless of the constitutionality and political savvy of the President’s action, Congress is remiss by not addressing the immigration challenges in a comprehensive and statutory way. Not having a growth-oriented, comprehensive, immigration policy hurts the American economy, its social cohesion, and its image and reputation abroad. So, why is Congress not acting? Only because this was an election year? I hope not, because in this democracy every other year is a (national) election year.

The way I see it, immigration is good for America—even indispensable for its long term prosperity—and not overly complicated to channel properly:

·        Immigration has served this nation well and there is nothing to suggest that, going forward, that will be no longer the case;

·        Population growth is essential to economic prosperity and current birth rates are not sufficient to sustain the population of the USA in the long term;

·        American citizens are no longer prepared to do many menial jobs that still need to be done;

·        In a global economy we need to attract the best talent available to stay competitive as a nation;

·        Modern information technology makes it possible to control immigration and keep undesirables out.

A problem with the current immigration policy in the USA is that we have made illegal immigration too easy and legal immigration too hard!

The United States is often and rightly referred to as a “Nation of Immigrants”. There is not another country in the world where immigration has as much contributed to population growth and economic success as it has in the USA. According to the U.S. Census Bureau about sixty million Americans—or one in every five people—are immigrants or the children of immigrants. These are the people that have propelled the USA to its superpower status. What is there to suggest that continuing immigration would suddenly become a negative rather than the positive it has been ever since the arrival on our shores of the Halve Maen and the Mayflower?

A fertility rate of 2.1 (2.1 births/woman) is required to sustain a population. The fertility rate in the USA is well below that number, which means that without immigration the country would regress in population, and the fertility rate would be substantially lower if it was not for a relatively high fertility rate of recent immigrants. In his book, “The Next Hundred Million”, subtitled “America in 2050”, Joel Kotkin gives us a glimpse of the competitive advantage America is expected to have over other developed countries—including China and Japan—as a result of a much higher population growth. The next 100 Million Americans Joel Kotkin is writing about will not be there in 2050 without stepped up organized legal immigration.

Immigration by children and working age people will have to offset a graying indigenous population and provide a much needed improvement of the current growing imbalance between the working population and the army of retirees. Migrant labor has become (whether we like it or not) the backbone of the farm economy, which is in turn one of the most globally competitive sectors of business in the USA.

Unfortunately, America has no monopoly on the best and the brightest students in the world, but we are still blessed with a highly competitive elite university education system that is the envy of the world and attracts exceptional talent from other countries. We educate and stimulate these foreign students—in many instances at public expense—and then we practically force them to go back to where they came from because of our antiquated immigration laws and regulations. How smart is that? We train the best and the brightest in the world to compete with us!

It is a sign of hopeless dysfunction in Washington if, with all the good reasons to deal with the immigration issue in a constructive, forward looking way, we cannot get a comprehensive immigration bill through Congress. David Brooks wrote in a January 2013 column in the New York Times, titled “The Easy Problem” that, “If we can’t pass an (immigration) law this year (2013), given the overwhelming strength of evidence, then we really are a pathetic basket case of a nation.” As a result of the President’s unilateral action and the outcome of the mid-term elections, the realistic outlook for an immigration bill coming out of Congress looks now further away than ever. Unless the Republicans come to the realization that they will lose another Presidential Election and probably with it their domination of Congress if they don’t use their newly won majority in Congress to enact a constructive and comprehensive immigration reform.

A BETTER WAY

November 5, 2014: the day after.

Thank goodness, these elections are behind us and we will get a little reprieve from the relentless onslaught of political commercials on our TV screens. (By the way who produces all this garbage and how much do they get paid for their deplorable screen productions?)  Reprieve will not be for long though, because —since this election did not solve anything—it won’t be long before the candidates for the 2016 Presidential elections will come out of the woodwork and with them a new unending litany of propaganda. After all, money is no object, the money-men will only be too glad to oblige.

The results of the 2014 Mid Term elections are, this morning after, announced in all the media as a major shift in the political landscape and for partisan voters and office holders they are indeed very consequential. But will it do anything to move Washington DC off dead center and galvanize it into action for the benefit of the people? Jeffrey D. Sachs does not think so. And he puts his finger on the reason why: he commented this morning on the social media “Not a single serious issue was discussed in the US election campaign. US politics have been reduced to image, TV ads and money raising.”

Nationwide little more than half of the eligible voters turned out in this election (only 40% in my home State of Ohio) and you have to believe that the low voter turnout enhanced the Republican shift. The non-voters may have done more to change the political landscape than the voters did. And I can’t blame them. Those who kept the ballot in their pocket voted in their own way: they made a statement that in our current political constellation the voting box does not provide clarity, does not offer solutions to the problems that nag us such as inequality and lack of upward mobility; the size of our national debt; the de-funding of our entitlement programs and pensions; our education deficit; the cost of our healthcare; a failing immigration policy; a crumbling infrastructure; and a leaky safety net.

There must be a better way. What is missing, more than anything else, in the way our democracy has evolved over time (and with active steering by the U.S. Supreme Court) is transparency and accountability. How different would our confidence in a meaningful election outcome be if there would be a constitutional mandate to give us these missing ingredients? What would such mandate look like?

1.       A constitutional amendment calling for the President and the Congress to establish a binding National Strategy that becomes the blueprint for the legislative agenda.

2.       A constitutional amendment that compels elected officials to campaign on the basis of their positions on the top priorities among the challenges facing the nation.

With respect to the first mandate: How much sense would it make if there was a constitutional requirement on the president and the leadership in Congress to establish a national strategy, much like companies develop a strategic plan for their business that then becomes the compass by which investment decisions and other resource allocations are made? Such national plan should have a long time horizon, transcend the term limits imposed on politicians, and be formally reviewed from year to year to adjust for changes in the external environment.

With respect to the second mandate, I envision that in every election, candidates should be presented with a national list of the major issues the electorate is facing and candidates should be required to write and publish a position paper on each of these issues with specifics on how to address the issue, including how to pay for the proposed solutions.Who should put such issue list together? I would say a committee of wise men/women who have held high public office, but are no longer engaged in the battle and other publicly recognized thinking heads.

And TV debates, which should be mandatory in sufficient number to give the public a chance to educate themselves on the issues and on the candidates’ positions, should be limited to discussion of the issues and the respective proposed solutions only.In other words, no one should be permitted to run for a national office without providing the electorate with an unequivocal position on the major issues that the government they want to be part of will be facing.

If we do these two things right then the electorate can 1) make an informed decision and, by voting for the candidate with the best solutions, 2) provide a clear mandate for his/her term in office. It would almost certainly drive up voter participation as voters could then expect to have a real influence over the creation of a national strategy and how the nation’s problems get solved. It would drive voters away from the sideline and onto the playing field of true democracy.

MID TERM MALAISE

Do you feel energized and empowered by tomorrow's mid term elections?

Can't blame you if you don't. The deck is stacked against you. Even if control of the Senate changes, nothing of substance will change. Much as we may dislike or mistrust them, we can't even blame our representatives in Congress for the gridlock and dysfunction. The flaws are in the political system, notably:

• The money influence in politics
• The two party system
• The election system
• The lack of a national strategy

These flaws put the nation at risk. Without solutions for the problems that beset us: inequality and lack of upward mobility; the national debt; the de-funding of our entitlement programs and pensions; our education deficit; the cost of our healthcare; a failing immigration policy; and a crumbling infrastructure, America is at risk of losing its relevance as a global leader for progress. But it is a pipe-dream to think that in the current constellation, without addressing the four flaws in the system, the executive and legislative branches of government can come together to provide the solutions the nation needs.

That is the message I convey in my book NEITHER HERE NOR THERE.

Do you share my uneasiness and want to do something to contribute - if nothing else - to a national dialogue?

A good place to start is sharing (the message of) NEITHER HERE NOR THERE with your network of opinion makers and thought leaders. You can most effectively do so by your use of social media and sharing the linkhttp://www.amazon.com/dp/0692209778 

AMERICA'S RELAY RACE

Foreign Affairs Magazine wrote in an editorial for its September/October 2014 edition:

“For such a strong, rich, free, and favorably situated country, the United States is remarkably testy and out of sorts these days — and falling far short of its enormous potential.”

That is exactly the conclusion I arrived at in my book "NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, A First Generation Immigrant in Search of American Exceptionalism. The way I word it in my book is: "America is like the smart kid that is so convinced of its superior talent that it is no longer interested in applying himself to get straight A’s. Like this kid, America is grossly under-performing to its capabilities. It is performing like an A+ student that turns in F grades." It should not be that way. As Bill Gates reminded the 2007 graduating class of Harvard: “From Those To Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Expected.”

My critics are quick to point out that America is still the greatest nation in the world. They point out that everyone wants to come here and that no people are leaving to go elsewhere. They are mostly right, but beside the point. They should have higher expectations of a country that is blessed with the best of the most vital resources any nation could ever wish for: People, location, space, nature, water, minerals, and hydrocarbons. America has, unlike most of its rivals, enviable traditions in democracy, tolerance, freedom of thought and pursuit, entrepreneurial spirit, and self-reliance. 

With all of these assets, there is no question that America should be the top performer among nations. But it has allowed others to come a lot closer and it has proven incapable of addressing the big challenges of the 21st century.

There is a broad consensus that the generation now growing up in America may be the first since the Second World War to be worse off than their parents and grandparents. It happens at a time of relative peace and prosperity in the world. If that is not an indictment of America’s performance, I don’t know what is.

Surveying the field today, the question keeps coming up: are the best times behind us? Is America going the way of the Roman and the British Empires? We all see tell-tale signs of trouble around us: from persistently high unemployment, increasing income inequality, lost or unfinished wars, a skyrocketing national debt, a sub-par infrastructure, an ideologically divided voting public and—resulting from it—a dysfunctional political system. We see the unraveling of family structures and values, the proliferation of guns and drugs, the (relatively) poor academic performance of our youngsters, and the prevalence of obesity.

It does not have to be that way. It is in no way an inevitability that America will be the next great power to lose its dominance. The American spirit has a natural capacity to step back from the brink and find another, safer, way ahead. It is quintessentially American to believe that, when it comes down to brass tacks, America will do what it has to do to avoid hitting the slippery slope.

America is not facing a challenge it cannot meet. But it will have to be galvanized into action. It is engaged in a world championship relay race that, by all accounts, it should win convincingly. But look what’s happening: the first two legs are easily won, establishing what looked like an insurmountable lead; the third leg consolidates the lead, but does not add to it and the baton is nearly dropped in the hand-off; now in the fourth and final leg it is struggling to regain the pace and the competitors are nipping at its heels. It needs to pick up the pace and finish with a flurry. It will have to dig deep and find in itself the championship talent it has been bestowed with.

We can be grateful to be living in the greatest nation on earth, but as the French say: noblesse oblige (with the privilege comes responsibility). That is what Bill Gates reminded us in his 2007 Harvard commencement speech (at the brink if the great recession). We can’t rest on our laurels. As Will Rogers so famously said: “Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

The resources are there. America has it all. But having it all does not mean anything unless these resources are all brought to bear. What is needed is leadership and engagement. Leadership on the part of our top public officials and engagement on the part of the American people. We need to rally behind a cause and the cause should be the enhancement of our leadership position in the world in terms of wellness, productivity, social justice, moral superiority and creativity. We need to have high expectations of ourselves and our nation if we want to win the relay race.

A NATIONAL STRATEGY

Today, September 17, 2014, No Labels - a national movement of Democrats, Republicans and Independents dedicated to a new politics of problem solving - is holding a one day meeting of politicians, business- and civic leaders and interested citizens about the need for a National Strategic Agenda, which is one thing I advocated for in my book NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, A First Generation Immigrant in Search of American Exceptionalism, published by Create Space in August. The book is available as e-book and paperback on http://amazon.com/dp/0692209778 

As we are heading towards another national election, the grumblings about the dysfunction in Washington D.C. intensify and – believe it or not - there are even some initiatives of bipartisan nature that try to do something about it: 

• ·         The Bipartisan Policy Center published, on June 24, 2014 the report by its Commission on Political Reform titled “Governing in a polarized America: A Bipartisan Blueprint to Strengthen our Democracy.”
• ·         No Labels offered earlier in the year a “Shared Vision for a Stronger America” with contributions from politicians from both sides of the aisle, led by former governor Jon Huntsman and Senator Joe Manchin.

We should all applaud and encourage initiatives like these. They represent real efforts to move the dial. Particularly the No Labels pamphlet, because it zooms in on what I think is a structural flaw in the American governance model: America is lacking a national strategy policy.

American governance has no tradition or statute for the creation of a binding strategic plan that is built on broad consensus and transcends the shifting balance of power between the Republican and Democratic parties. How much sense would it make if there was a constitutional requirement on the president and the leadership in Congress to establish a national strategy, much like companies develop a strategic plan for their business that then becomes the compass by which investment decisions and other resource allocations are made? Such national plan should have a long time horizon, transcend the term limits imposed on politicians, and be formally reviewed from year to year to adjust for changes in the external environment.

What’s required is a clear articulation of some overarching bi-partisan national objectives and a popular buy-in of these objectives. America has not had a clearly articulated national objective since John F. Kennedy decided that America was to be the first nation to put a man on the moon and bring him back safely to earth. We can borrow a chapter out of the book of the Netherlands, my country of origin, which—after the flood of 1953—made it a national objective to protect its low laying areas from a 500 year flood.

Public policy in the USA is too much influenced by the perpetual election cycle. Big strategies take a long time to be developed and implemented and don’t fit in with the election-driven decision making practices of our politicians. In this respect a major difference comes to light between the public and the private sector in America. In business nothing survives without a solid strategic plan and careful, methodical implementation. In public life, politicians get slaughtered if they don’t cater to the immediate needs and fancies of their constituents.

But, without a long term plan there is no expected outcome and it is, therefore, not surprising that we are beginning to hear voices calling for an overarching national strategy. The articulation of such strategy is the role and responsibility of the federal government. Note that recent administrations have declared “war” on a number of national challenges—like the war on poverty, the war on drugs and the war on terror—but they have not bothered to rally the nation behind any particular national objective. Can we think of any highly worthwhile broad national objectives? I would suggest that the following would make a good place to start:

1.       Wellness and productivity: Creating the conditions and environment whereby most, if not all, of our residents can lead healthy lives for at least 95 percent of a lengthening lifespan and productive lives for at least 75 percent of the same lifespan.

2.       Response to climate change: Determine the positives of climate change and take steps to capitalize on them like with a comprehensive Arctic strategy; and defense against the negatives of climate change by protecting people and property from its adverse consequences.

Having a clearly defined national strategy would not be a panacea for all that ails our governance model, but it would break through the logjam of partisan stalemate by forcing bipartisan support for and popular unity behind an ambitious and meaningful path forward for the nation that is now drifting without a clear sense of direction.

HIGH EXPECTATIONS

My book, NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, A First Generation Immigrant in Search of American Exceptionalism, was only out and on the market for a few days when Foreign Affairs Magazine wrote in an editorial for its September/October 2014 edition:

“For such a strong, rich, free, and favorably situated country, the United States is remarkably testy and out of sorts these days — and falling far short of its enormous potential.”

That is exactly the conclusion I arrived at and voiced in my book. The way I worded it is: America is like the smart kid that is so convinced of its superior talent that it is no longer interested in applying himself to get straight A’s. Like this kid, America is grossly underperforming to its capabilities. It is performing like an A+ student that turns in F grades. It should not be that way. As Bill Gates reminded the 2007 graduating class of Harvard: “From Those To Whom Much Is Given, Much Is Expected.”

My critics are quick to point out that America is still the greatest nation in the world. They point out that everyone wants to come here and that no people are leaving to go elsewhere. They are mostly right, but beside the point. They should have higher expectations of a country that is blessed with the best of the most vital resources any nation could ever wish for: People, location, space, nature, water, minerals, and hydrocarbons. America has, unlike most of its rivals, enviable traditions in democracy, tolerance, freedom of thought and pursuit, entrepreneurial spirit, and self-reliance. With all of these assets, there is no question that America should be the top performer among nations. But it has allowed others to come a lot closer and it has proven incapable of addressing the big challenges of the 21^st century.

There is a broad consensus that the generation now growing up in America may be the first since the Second World War to be worse off than their parents and grandparents. It happens at a time of relative peace and prosperity in the world. If that is not an indictment of America’s performance, I don’t know what is.

Surveying the field today, the question keeps coming up: are the best times behind us? Is America going the way of the Roman and the British Empires? We all see tell-tale signs of trouble around us: from persistently high unemployment, increasing income inequality, lost or unfinished wars, a skyrocketing national debt, a sub-par infrastructure, an ideologically divided voting public and—resulting from it—a dysfunctional political system. We see the unraveling of family structures and values, the proliferation of guns and drugs, the (relatively) poor academic performance of our youngsters, and the prevalence of obesity.

It does not have to be that way. It is in no way an inevitability that America will be the next great power to lose its dominance. The American spirit has a natural capacity to step back from the brink and find another, safer, way ahead. It is quintessentially American to believe that, when it comes down to brass tacks, America will do what it has to do to avoid hitting the slippery slope.

America is not facing a challenge it cannot meet. But it will have to be galvanized into action. It is engaged in a world championship relay race that, by all accounts, it should win convincingly. But look what’s happening: the first two legs are easily won, establishing what looked like an insurmountable lead; the third leg consolidates the lead, but does not add to it and the baton is nearly dropped in the hand-off; now in the fourth and final leg it is struggling to regain the pace and the competitors are nipping at its heels. It needs to pick up the pace and finish with a flurry. It will have to dig deep and find in itself the championship talent it has been bestowed with.

We can be grateful to be living in the greatest nation on earth, but as the French say: noblesse oblige (with the privilege comes responsibility). That is what Bill Gates reminded us in his 2007 Harvard commencement speech (at the brink if the great recession). We can’t rest on our laurels. As Will Rogers so famously said: “Even if you are on the right track, you’ll get run over if you just sit there.”

The resources are there. America has it all. But having it all does not mean anything unless these resources are all brought to bear. What is needed is leadership and engagement. Leadership on the part of our top public officials and engagement on the part of the American people. We need to rally behind a cause and the cause should be the enhancement of our leadership position in the world in terms of wellness, productivity, social justice, moral superiority and creativity. We need to have high expectations of ourselves and our nation if we want to win the relay race.

NOW OUT IN PAPERBACK

For the last two years I have been working on writing a book about my experience as a first generation (Dutch) immigrant to the United States. After multiple edits, with the help of some of the best minds I have encountered during my journey through life, I have published my book through CreateSpace, a division of amazon.com.

It can be ordered online in the USA and Europe, using the appropriate link shown below:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/0692209778
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0692209778
http://www.amazon.de/dp/0692209778
http://www.amazon.es/dp/0692209778
http://www.amazon.fr/dp/0692209778
http://www.amazon.it/dp/0692209778

The book is titled NEITHER HERE NOR THERE and sub-titled A First Generation Immigrant in Search of American Exceptionalism.

I wrote the book, because I like to write and I had freed up my time by retiring from the corporate world where I had spent all of my professional career. But there is more to this story. For the more than 30 years that I have been working and living in the United States, I have kept wondering if I had made the right decision when, in 1983, I turned from being a Dutch ex-patriate living in the U.S. to an immigrant. I never quit looking for a validation of that decision. And, because of that mind-set, I became a keen observer of American lifestyles and politics.

I knew that America had been exceptional at the time of the creation of the Republic, in the struggle to hold the Republic together through the War Between the States, and in the conquering of fascism first and then communism. I was looking for evidence that America had the capacity and vitality to remain exceptional at times that it was not seriously challenged by contenders.

In my book, I lean upon not only my own observations, but substantially also on the writings of other analysts of the great American experiment. The book is different from other social and political commentary in that it deals not just with specific individual shortcomings but, comprehensively, with all the major flaws in the American system as it operates today and in that it actually offers solutions for the many predicaments the nation is facing. It is also different in that it is written from the perspective of someone, not born in this country, but who made a conscious choice to make America his country and now wants to validate that decision.

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE delivers five key messages:

1. I made a deliberate decision, in the early eighties, to transplant my family from the Netherlands to the USA, based on my evaluation—at the time—of the future of America versus the future of Western Europe. It seemed an easy choice. But the world has changed dramatically in the intervening 30 years and it seems appropriate to revalidate that choice.

2. There is a broad consensus that the generation now growing up in America may be the first since the Second World War to be worse off than their parents and grandparents. If that is indeed the case, then we need to get at the cause of that decline. And come up with ways to turn it around.

3. A huge gap exists in America between the performances of the public sector versus the private sector. The private sector embraces change and accelerates the pace of change by constant innovation, driven by competition and a passion for continuous improvement and breakthrough technology. None of this exists in the public domain.

4. America has too many people standing at the sidelines rather than playing the field. Nations are successful when they engage the whole population—with hardly anybody left out—behind a clearly articulated vision for the future place of the nation in the global environment.

5. A vision is merely that—a fata morgana—if it is not accompanied by a solid strategy outlining how to reach the desired outcome. America is lacking a national strategy. American governance has no tradition or statute for the creation of a binding strategic plan that is built on broad consensus and transcends the succession of White House occupants and the shifting balance of power between the Republican and Democratic parties. That may have to change.

My intent with the book is to create a badly needed discourse about what’s ailing America and what cures should be considered to bring it back to optimum health.

Follow me on Twitter @FransJager1 for updates on the publication of NEITHER HERE NOR THERE.

FROM THIRTY-THOUSAND FEET

Thirty-thousand feet is the cruising altitude for most long distance commercial flights and, until a band of Russian/Ukrainian thugs decided to shoot flight MH17 out of the air, it was considered a safe environment for civil aviation, which contributes so much to global commerce and inter-cultural contact and understanding between people of different origin.

Thirty-thousand feet is also a good distance to observe when looking at a problem that needs to be resolved or an action that needs to be taken. A solid strategic planning process for a business starts at thirty-thousand feet, looking at the world in which the enterprise is, or will be, operating.

Business operators are constantly reminded to “keep their noses to the grindstone” and that is certainly good advice when it comes to executing the business plan and running the business on a day to day basis. But too often business operators do not come up for air at all, ever. They feel they cannot take their eyes off the ball and they will not lift their noses from the grindstone. That is when many businesses run into the proverbial brick wall!

Businesses need to plan for success. Success does not come automatically with working hard and long hours. If it did, we would not see that many small privately owned businesses fail every year. And planning for success starts at thirty-thousand feet. At the start of any new enterprise, and with some regularity thereafter, the leadership team of a business needs to take a good distance from the day-today and look at the direction of and the prospects for the business with an eagle eye that covers all the ground beneath, the big picture.

Owning and operating a business is an awesome responsibility. Particularly when the business employs people. It represents a calling of the highest order. And—because of that—business needs to be conducted with all due regard for the social impact the business actions have on its stakeholders and the community in which it operates. Owning and operating a business is not an egocentric activity, or it should not be. Small, privately owned, business is a formidable engine of innovation and economic growth. It is also a powerful path to personal wealth creation. America’s economy would not be what it is if it were not for the multitude of privately owned businesses that scatter the landscape. America is the champion of free enterprise and it finds economic strength in the scope and dynamism of entrepreneurial activity. It finds comfort in numbers. There are so many small enterprises that it can afford to lose a good percentage of them every year, clearing the field for new upstarts. In the realm of small business there is constant churning, replacing the ill-conceived or poorly resourced endeavors with better upstarts. This process lends strength to the economy and creates the right conditions for innovation and growth.

From thirty-thousand feet it is easy to see what the key critical success factors are for a small privately owned business to succeed. To make it in the competitive rat race an enterprise just has to follow a few simple, basic, rules. Given enough distance of observation, like thirty-thousand feet, the ingredients for success in business are clearly identifiable (in no particular order):

• A strong balance sheet
• A lean, knowledgeable, and motivated organization, top to bottom
•  A fanatic desire to be in business, combined with a clear sense of direction
• A fanatic dedication to the success and satisfaction of the customer
• A capacity to keep business simple and predictable
• Alignment with the best supply chain partners in the business
• Forward thinking ownership and executive leadership
• The ability to trust yourself, your organization, and your key people

None of this comes without proper planning. So, I’m asking the business leaders among my readership: Does your business meet all of these critical success factors? What is missing?

These are the type of questions that need to be asked from time to time. And that is why, with some regularity, business leaders need to lift their noses from the grindstone and put distance between themselves and the business they are responsible for. The right answers for any individual business can only be found when looking at the business from thirty-thousand feet. Trust me, it is safe out there in the rarified air. What is not safe for the business is for the leadership not, with some regularity, to spend time at high altitude, review the landscape with an eagle eye, and ponder the strategic decisions that need to be taken for the continuity and growth of the business.

ISLANDS

Paul Theroux, the celebrated travel writer and author, wrote this about islands: “My love for traveling to ISLANDS amounts to a pathological condition…This craze seems reasonable to me, because islands are small self-contained worlds that can help us understand larger ones.”

I have that same fascination with islands and have been wondering if that is a universally human condition.

In my case it has definitely been stimulated by Robert Louis Stevenson’s book Treasure Island, but it predates the time of that reading. Growing up in the utmost Northern part of the Netherlands, I was frequently visiting on foot and by bike the Waddenzee, the body of water that separates the Dutch Northern coast from a series of buffer islands, protecting the coast from the fierce onslaught by the North Sea. These buffer islands, called Wadden Islands or Frisian Islands, extend across the German border. On the Dutch side of the border there are five inhabited and two uninhabited islands and all of them are wondrous worlds of tranquility, dunes, surf and mud-flats. They are sanctuaries for all kinds of seals and sea birds. One of these islands, Ameland, is situated no more than 6-7 miles off shore and can (for aficionado of mud-flats) be reached, on low tide, by foot. Islands like these are a boy’s dream of unexplored shores and inland mysteries. Beach combing in these places is fun and full of surprises.

Islands that can be reached by a bridge or a causeway don’t have the same intrigue that attracts me to islands that can only be reached by boat or by plane and small islands are much more appealing than large islands. There is something to finding the high spot of an island, a hill, a dune or a light tower, from where you can see the whole expanse of the island.

Islands attract tourism. In our own backyard we see that in the popularity of the Lake Erie islands with boaters and weekend revelers. Top global tourist attractions include the Caribbean Islands, the Seychelles, the Maldives, Hawaii, Tahiti and the Greek Isles. Not to forget about the isle of Manhattan.

Islands, because of their isolation, have the capacity to develop their unique biosphere. This is why Darwin went all the way to the Galapagos Islands to find confirmation of his theories about evolution. It is no coincidence that the first thing I did upon my retirement was flying to New Zealand to get the island experience there. The country is far removed from other land masses and has numerous species of plant and animal life that are unique to New Zealand. There is something to Island countries, because they are so naturally contained and you can see the whole contour of them by following the coastline. No doubt this makes New Zealand, Ireland and the Hawaiian Island such popular travel destinations.

On our Atlantic coast, we have jewels of island getaways like Isle au Haut, ME; Nantucket, MA; Assateague Island, MD; Tangier Island, VA; Bald Head Island, NC; Daufuskie Island, SC; and Cumberland Island, GA. I am particularly fond of Daufuskie Island, SC where we have spent numerous family vacations in splendid isolation from the hustle and bustle of the daily working life. While living in the Tampa Bay area of Florida, we enjoyed weekend time on Anna Maria Island, Caladesi Island and Honeymoon Island.

There is something special about being on an island as opposed to being on the main land. It creates the feeling of “being away from it all”. It is like arriving on foreign shores even if the destination is safely state side. It has the connotation of adventure like in Gulliver’s Island or in Robinson Crusoe’s Island of Despair.

Thank God for islands. I wish I had spent more time in my life exploring more islands. The more remote the better. I don’t know how many I will still get too. But I can dream of the Aleutians, the Shetland Islands, the Faroe Islands, the Hebrides, the Svalbard Archipelago, Nova Zembla or the uninhabited parts of Iceland and Greenland. I’m never more at peace than when I’m in my own insular paradise, surrounded by nature, where I can oversee my world. I agree with Paul Theroux that to understand the world at large you may have to start looking at the small self-contained world of an island.