There's the "imminent" threat to American economic pre-eminence from China and India. There was a similar, "on our last legs" threat 25 years ago from Japan. And economist and former MIT biz-school dean Lester Thurow claimed a decade or so ago that Europe would eclipse us in the years (or was it weeks?) to come.
There were the all-important management pronouncements of Peter Drucker—peaking in the 60s or early 70s. There was Michael Porter, and perhaps yours truly, in the 80s and 90s. There was the Carter-Reagan recession. The Bush I recession. The Bush II recession. The Internet-new economy moment—and subsequent implosion. The savings and loan crisis, the sub-prime crisis. The Latin, and Asian, debt crises.
In the meantime, and despite the startling rise of others (Japan and Southeast Asia and Europe, now China and India and Eastern Europe), the Good Ole American Economy just seems to mimic the Energizer Bunny. In "The Future of American Power" (Foreign Affairs, vol. 87, no. 3, May/June 2008), Fareed Zakaria delivers these fascinating statistics on the United States' share of global output:
1913: 32%
1960: 26%
1980: 22%
2000: 27%
2007: 26%
Recession. Bubble. Drucker. Porter-Peters. Doesn't seem to matter much—the train just keeps on rolling. As I said or implied, pretty damned amazing that, as huge parts of the world have gotten wealthy, our overall share has not declined ...
Reasons?
Save that for another day.
The goal here: The world as "we" (Americans) know it ain't exactly coming to an end in the next few weeks—so, with good conscience, fill up the tank (ha!) and head to the beach, or at least the couch, for some old-fashioned summer relaxation and, uh, Kindle reading.
The Train Keeps on Rolling ... - To learn more about this author, visit Tom Peters's Website.
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Tom Peters
(Visit Tom's Website)
Tom & Bob Waterman coauthored In Search of
Excellence in 1982; the book was named by
NPR (in 1999) as one of the "Top Three
Business Books of the Century," and ranked
as the "greatest business book of all
time" in a poll by Britain's Bloomsbury
Publishing (2002). Tom followed Search
with a string of international
bestsellers: A Passion for Excellence
(1985, with Nancy Austin), Thriving on
Chaos (1987), Liberation Management (1992:
acclaimed as the "Management Book of the
Decade" for the '90s), The Tom Peters
Seminar: Crazy Times Call for Crazy
Organizations (1993), The Pursuit of WOW!
(1994); The Circle of Innovation: You
Can't Shrink Your Way to Greatness (1997);
and in 1999 a series of books on
Reinventing Work: The Brand You50, The
Project50 and The Professional Service
Firm50. In 2003 Tom and publisher Dorling
Kindersley released Re-imagine! Business
Excellence in a Disruptive Age; the
revolutionary book, an immediate No.1
international best seller, aims to do no
less than reinvent the business book
through vibrant, energetic presentation of
critical ideas.
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