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Inventing A New Economy
Posted Monday, Dec. 28, 2009, at 4:09 PM ET
As the economic cataclysm of the past two years has unfolded, there has been no shortage of data to help us understand what has already happened and what might happen next. GDP growth, unemployment rates, trade and federal deficit levels, inflation rates, foreclosure rates, capital and leverage ratios—all have been paramount in our conversation.
As we continue to parse the economy and try to understand what the future holds, I want to focus occasionally on some numbers that do not typically generate headlines the way that, say, the monthly unemployment numbers do. Yet over the long run, these statistics may be a more important part of the larger economic story line. I call them "other numbers that matter."
The first of these data sets relates to patent applications. America's overall economy, we are often told, is increasingly reliant on America's "innovation economy." Our national economic rebirth will be spurred by our historic ability to create new methods of production and new technologies, which will keep us one step ahead of the competition even as we lose the comparative advantage we used to have based on other factors, such as size of market or access to capital.
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*Posted by Shelby. "One of our key assets in Jefferson County is incredible intellectual wealth. Invention, improvement, innovation and prototype development are areas we must continue to support and cultivate with care...this is the emerging economy!"