Talin

Welcome to the Google Economy

Good post, full of suggestions, but very dangerous idea. If America Googles-up, as suggested it should, things will deteriorate sharply. "Atoms are a drag" "Stuff stinks" and things like that are old currency in current strategic thinking in America. Faced to increased competition in world markets, the only plausible strategy that American business strategists have developed -and that nobody contradicts- is to follow the "mental", "intellectual property" road. We do the "thinking", sell the thinking, and with that we buy the "stuff" the not so clever people in the rest of the world needs to supply. That´s the general idea. Now, improving on that, the "networks" will also do the "thinking".

To sell profitably intellectual property not attached to specific goods is not a very good business proposition. You do not get much money out of it, perhaps in a few of the successful projects, but taking the losses in the unsuccessful ones. Biotechnological companies that do not develop final products are discovering that.

At the national level is, obviously, worse. You cannot survive selling 20 billions of car "technology" and importing 200 billions of cars. And nobody pays for Google (final consumption); as at now the income of Google in intermediate consumption (companies’ money). This difference is vital, but nobody see it.

We have to network, invest in "technology" and make good use of it, which means creating something that (mainly) final consumers will really pay, which means they really value. And to keep the value added in America.