U.S. Productivity Growth

April 27, 2026

Good morning! Say!  It’s my birthday. I very rarely promote it, but I’m told it’s a good exercise in humility… and I need lots of exercise. Coming to you this morning from one of my favourite places on Earth:  Fargo, North Dakotah — where the slogan is, Why not expand… to Minot? among us will be first to report the first delicious rhubarb dessert of spring?

• It appears as if a major consideration for being in charge of Apple is the sartorial replication of its founder and various successors; take a look.
  • Take a look… this can’t be coincidental or accidental.
• Psssst!  Wanna buy a Chrysler?
  • Better act fast… only the ubiquitous soccer mom van remains; 126,000 of them manufactured last year.
    • Long gone and forgotten:  Lee Iacocca.
• The trouble with most of the stories about getting rich and richer is they look backwards.
• Riddlee o’ the Week:  A pope, a mayor, and a president are seated in a dentist’s office waiting room.
  • What do they each discover as they sort through the old magazines?  (Answer down below)
• $10,000 for a ticket to a soccer game later this summer?  And, $150 to take the subway to/ from the game?  (It’s usually $13)
  • We are living in different worlds, my friend.
• “Toxic teams talk about each other…
  • … transactional teams talk over E-Mail…
  • … transformational teams talk face-to-face about what’s really going on under the surface.”  (McKeown)

• There has been considerable ballyhoo recently regarding July 4, 1776 and the 250 years having elapsed since the signing of the Declaration of Independence — the U.S. version.
  • Here we will briefly explore a few tiny tidbits related to the economic impact of that decision.
  • The United States has 4% of the world’s population and 26% of the world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
  • Fifty-nine percent of the world’s largest businesses (by market capitalization) are tied to United States ownership.
  • About half of all artificial intelligence entrepreneurial models are tied to United States innovation and ownership, but…
  • … those same United States businesses are investing only 27% of the world’s research and development (R&D) dollars.  (World Bank, Etc., et al., 2026)
  • “This country’s history of reinvention holds compelling lessons as the nation confronts a future of immense if uncertain opportunity.”  (Anderson, White, Etc., et al., 2026)
• U.S. productivity growth and foreign direct investment inflows have sharpened its edge over other advanced economies;
  • … geopolitical contention is growing and fertility rates are falling… immigration, once a source of highly-motivated, inexpensive labour, is curtailed…
  • Is the U.S.’s investment in research and development sufficient to sustain dominance and growth?
  • Some historical competitive advantages are becoming liabilities:
    • Current generations owe it to future ones to address deteriorating fiscal health, eroding infrastructure, declining educational achievement, fading manufacturing know-how, and sustained disparities in income and wealth;
  • The country has shifted and sustained across four historical chapters:  agricultural, industrial, scientific, digital… a NEW age, a fifth age, is coming;
  • A culture of innovation and natural abundance are abiding strengths upon which to draw…
  • … the U.S. created or supported 76 of the 100 most important inventions since 1776, from steamboats to telephones…
  • … from the electrical grid to artificiation intelligence…
  • … it has profited from twice as much agricultural land per capita as any other large economy;
  • We the People will write the coming chapter, Chapter #5:  What will the future bring?  (Ibid.)
• “Be hard on the problem, and soft on the people.”  (Walker, Etc., et al.)
  • “We have trouble tolerating complexity and messiness in our leaders.”
  • “We’ve lost our ability as a society to embrace the complexity and the layered nuance of the problems we are facing…
  • … because we demand of leaders they exist in a binary — you’re either for or against, and there’s no inbetween — we make it harder.”
• “We don’t want to solve problems, we just want to condemn…
  • … we have lost the ability to discuss really hard problems in a civil way…
  • … be hard on the problem.  Be REALLY  hard on the problem, be soft on the people.”  (Landrieu)