That Used To Be Us: How America Fell Behind In The World It Invented And How We Can Come Back" Minnesota Futurists By Roger Rydberg Mar 10, 2012

Issues “Friedman has his finger on the pulse.” "That Used to Be Us" is the thought-provoking and topical book about the steep economical challenges that America faces. The authors take a systematic approach on what ails America and what can be done to cure it. Part I. The Diagnosis, Part II. The Education Challenge, Part. III. The War on Math and Physics, Part IV. Political Failure and Part V. Rediscovering America.

Issues Part 1: The Diagnosis America is in trouble. We face four major challenges on which our future depends, and we are failing to meet them—and if we delay any longer, soon it will be too late for us to pass along the American dream to future generations.

Issues Part II: The Education Challenge Globalization and IT revolution has completely changed the global landscape. Information technology has really brought changes in the business and political world (Arab Spring) and talks about the ramifications of being completely connected. A "hyper-connected" world Employers look for critical reasoning, communication and collaboration skills

"The cloud is like this huge factory where anyone can come and produce anything." The job market has been "polarized" so that routine, middle skill jobs have been eliminated, leaving only high skill jobs requiring lots of education and lots lower wage jobs that so far cannot be automated or offshored.

The notion that manufacturing can be exported while design can happen in the US is inherently flawed because along with the manufacturing goes bottom-up innovation.

Part III: The War on Math and Physics Deficit/Debt problems and Climate Change. How we deal with energy is key. By using cutting edge green technologies that will reduce our oil dependence and make US the leader in those new emerging technologies

Part IV: Political Failure Political paralysis has lead to poor standards of education, shoddy infrastructure, Brain Drain, lack of investments in growth areas and research institutions, a lack of regulations (ex. credit-default swap) and how we ended up chasing the losers of globalization.

Part V: Rediscovering America Start-ups and business to find America attractive American spirit Sacrifices Americans make Bull Moose party

Discussion Future - Possible Probable Preferred