Harvard competitive strategy guru, Michael Porter, lays it on the line in BusinessWeek:
The stark truth is that the U.S. has no long-term economic strategy—no coherent set of policies to ensure competitiveness over the long haul. Strategy embodies clear priorities, based on understanding the strengths we need to preserve and the weaknesses that threaten our prosperity the most. Strategy addresses what to do, but also what not to do. In dealing with a crisis, experience teaches us that steps to address the immediate problem must support a long-term strategy. Yet it is far from clear that we are taking the steps most important to America’s long-term economic prosperity.
More here. The economy is the new adminstration’s job one. The crisis provides the opportunity to move beyond patchwork and develop the kind of broad economic strategy Porter advocates. Can Obama and company deliver here?