A few months ago a slim, tall, pleasant looking, highly educated black man strode to the forefront of this nation's Presidential election cycle.  For a time there it certainly looked as if this nation was not only ready, but also willing to elect a man of color to the Presidency of the United States. When compared to the latter part of the twentieth century and the racial strife marring that period, the twenty first century looked like a dawn of a new era in this nation. To further magnify the achievements of the twenty first century, only 8 years of age, is the legitimate candidacy of a woman for the Presidency. This nation has come along way in acceptance of people “for who they are” and not “what they are”.It appeared that we had finally seen through a black man for his talents and message and actually did not see him as black, just as a Presidential candidate with a soaring message of hope for all.Barack Obama was on an express train to the White House.

Obama’s message of bi-partisan involvement, coming together as a unified nation, care for those less fortunate, and those have hit set backs of life presented him as a multi-cultural leader for all the people.Suddenly, he stopped his train to explain some unusual behaviors of his pastor and his involvement with his pastor. While stopped, a different Obama began to emerge. We have begun to see a man as highly educated, as highly articulate, and as smart as Bill Clinton start to parse his words, just as Bill Clinton has done for oh so many years. We have heard a number of variations explaining away his association with a very questionable church leader. This alone is troubling, but what is even more troubling is we now must begin to question his soaring message.

Bill Clinton was a well packaged candidate while on the campaign trail.  His explanations were smooth and believable.  His delivery depended on using just the right phrase or word.His moniker of “Slick Willy”, while a moniker of disdain, was also a moniker of grudging respect for his talents to mask the truth.So too are we seeing a Barack Obama begin to use equivocation to explain his questionable judgment.  If you listen carefully to each of his explanations, you will hear a message very different from the one that has captured so many hearts and minds. This man – not seen as a black man – supported by people from all walks – women, men, young, old, black, white and many of the other origins of people in this country was accepted as a legitimate Presidential candidate.  Listen carefully, and you will hear him now begin to educate us on how we have to treat race, how we get past our prejudices, and heal the racial divide.  This same man, who is preaching to us about dealing with race and who had already been accepted by millions who easily put race aside and only saw a man, not a black man, running for President.  This man is now lecturing the typical white person how they think and should think.

For all his education and for all his rhetoric are we to believe that he did not notice that in the twenty first century we had gotten past the black / white thing in the most important way that this nation can.We were earnestly considering him for the most important leadership position of the free world without regard to his color. We were simultaneously considering a woman for the same position.  How much has this nation grown?  Yet his explanations smack of a man who is not what he claims to be. They smack of a man who might actually believe the message of his pastor.  Now we move on and we still consider a woman and only now we consider a black man for President – not a man, but a black man because his explanations revealed him to be just that, a black man running for President - not simply as a man of the human race. Time will now tell, as the vetting continues on all candidates, who he really is.  Is this another well packaged candidate?  Do we need to call him “Slick Barack”?   No wonder Bill Clinton was out in front of this story about Barack Obama.  He was able to see himself in Barack Obama’s shoes well before anyone else could catch on.

In economics books it is called Comparative Advantage.It is the underlying key to successful trade among nations.In non-economist terms, it is what can I offer that the other guy can’t that will give me an advantage in trading so I come out on top.

When the United States was very young, we had unbelievable amounts of natural resources.As we approached the twentieth century we had a powerful work force achieved through the immigration of people looking for a better opportunity.These people were both adventurous and driven to succeed – they made a productive work force.Oh yes! we still had abundant natural resources.In the second half of the twentieth century, after the two world wars, Asia and Europe were devastated and without infrastructure, and they were in need of all things manufactured as they were rebuilding.The comparative advantage of the United States was its gargantuan manufacturing infrastructure resulting from the build up to produce for World War II, and the many technical achievements gleaned from the war arsenal.We had a customer – the world – ready to consume any and all that we could produce.In effect we not only had a comparative advantage, but also an absolute advantage – we could only prosper – we could literally phone it in.It was all about us!

By the close of the twentieth century both Asia and Europe, with the exception of the iron curtain countries and the Republic of China, had rebuilt their infrastructure, and in many cases with more up to date and productive manufacturing facilities than we had.The United States had fewer desirable / usable natural resources.Our coal reserves became unpopular and our desire to not spoil our planet kept us from fully developing our oil reserves.In the mean time, oil was becoming the key natural resource in the world for the later part of the twentieth century and the early part of the twenty first century.

In the second half of the twentieth century, we became oblivious to the world – remember it was all about us!We paid our people ever increasing wages in manufacturing, added many unproductive work rules, and taxed our companies to the point that all three events took away our comparative world trade advantage in manufacturing.We were now at a trade disadvantage – yet our appetite to consume was still feverish.During this period, it became more advantageous for our manufacturing companies to move manufacturing overseas. If they had not done so, they would not have been able to compete on the world stage and be profitable. During this period, one bright spot in our comparative advantage was our strength in technology and highly educated and well trained engineers.Our use of technology gave us a comparative advantage in productivity.We continued to utilize our comparative advantage in the trade of technology – we thought it up and it was manufactured overseas.Over the last quarter of the twentieth century and the beginning of the twenty first century, Asia caught up, only with a twist – same or better engineering with lower wages – the comparative advantage shifted in their favor.We also allowed our schools to lose their leadership in delivering a strong education from K through 12.

Today, what do we offer: restrained under utilized resources, a broken education system, uncompetitive costs on a world scale due to high wages on the remaining manufacturing jobs (auto industry), a declining infrastructure, comparatively high taxes on companies attempting world trade, and a voracious appetite to consume manufactured goods and oil from overseas?Yet our political leadership continues along as if we remained the pre-eminent holders of all things comparative trade.Our free trade agreements are good, yet we entered the trade arena with a handicap – we have no comparative advantage, so they are NOT good for us at this time.Protectionism will not work, because the nations of world can get along trading among themselves – they no longer need us.

What do we need to do?

• Business: stop taxing our domestic businesses engaged in manufacturing, give them a financial trade advantage as they will still be paying higher wages for manufacturing workers than their world competition; remove the health insurance financial burden from business and move it to a national health insurance system; move to a consumption tax and stop taxing the businesses that need to trade to grow so they can build and offer more good paying jobs – we need to put our domestic businesses on a level playing field with the rest of the world.
• Children:target our children by giving them all a top flight education and by challenging them with a tougher curriculum, and longer school years just as advantaged world trading nations do.
• Energy:drill for and refine our untouched domestic oil reserves in the short term; utilize nuclear, clean coal, and solar in the mid-term; develop wind, geo-thermal, advanced solar, tidal and hydrogen fuel in the long term. We need to lower the cost to produce and transport.

If we don’t rebuild our lost comparative advantage we will never hold a free trade advantage, we will continue to become a nation of past successes and a second tier nation at that. Remember it is a world economy now and the competition is fierce.