NATURAL RESOURCES

Let’s start with a question. The United States is best known as the world leader in ______________? Don’t worry there is no answer and that’s the problem.
Whether it be: bananas, minerals or automobiles, almost every country has figured out what their most unique and valuable resources are and they leverage them by exporting them to the rest of the world. Those exports define them as nation. Not us.

Yet we have the most valuable natural resources on the globe. And we’re not talking about things we have to dig out of the earth. We’re talking about our people, technology, ingenuity and small business.

Ingenuity is to America as watches are to Switzerland. But we don’t embrace it and we don’t export it.

The 2020plan embraces our unique natural resources and packages them into exportable commodities that will provide imperative solutions to global issues. And we don’t have to drill or mine anything – all we have to do is open our eyes and think. Yes, we do build a pipeline but it’s not carrying fossil fuels – it’s a virtual pipeline carrying our natural resources around the world. And how lucky we are that our natural resources can be moved around the world with a click of a mouse which is exponentially more efficient than sending it in a tanker or container ships.

Let’s take a moment to review them. Our people. Our population is the most diverse in the world and we can leverage this unique resource by expanding our economy on a global scale. Businesses spend billions of dollars doing research to understand their customers. We already have built-in experts that know the languages, customs, issues and complexities of every country on the globe. We are the only nation to have this diversity and we should embrace it and put it to use.

Ingenuity defines us a people and a nation. It’s built into our DNA. It starts with the American Revolution, how did a bunch of outcasts accomplish this incredible feat? We were: outnumbered, out gunned and out supplied and yet drive and ingenuity is what created our country. And it continues today. From garage tinkerers to Silicon Valley startups we have a unique gene that compels us to create and find solutions. And this is at the core of the 2020plan.

Small and mid-size business uniquely understands that problems are really opportunities. And they know how to use ingenuity to convert them into marketable products. Then, when combined with the incentives and efficiency of our capital system the results are substantially magnified. When properly focused, our capital system combined with the nimble structure of small business is a formidable machine and one of our greatest natural resources.

And then there’s the newest member – technology – which is fully intertwined with all our other natural resources. Technology is a shapeless phenomenon that has no boundaries except our own vision. Imagine its potential when we open our bubble and let it wander the globe in search of providing solutions to the world’s biggest issues.

By ignoring our greatest assets, our leaders are doing an injustice to our economy and our nation. We have the most enviable natural resources on the globe. The 2020plan looks inward to identify our natural resources and then outward to create a plan to export them to the rest of the world.