All that's necessary, I think, is the political will to move forward in the right direction. I would argue that large infrastructure projects in telecommunication and energy, and shifting education goals towards an information economy and away from it's Taylorist origins are most important to be able to compete in the future.
These are matter of regulatory issues, not spending. For example, it is difficult to build nuclear power plants in this country. There is a serious lack of competition in the telcom market probably because of regulations favoring big corporations. On the other hand, it seem that we're seeing competition between wireless operators.
Our education system also suffer from poor incentives. Teachers have little incentives to teach better, and tests are inadequate. Political forces are disallowing us to make the proper changes to the institution so it will be quite difficult to shift toward the information economy.
These are matter of regulatory issues, not spending. For example, it is difficult to build nuclear power plants in this country. There is a serious lack of competition in the telcom market probably because of regulations favoring big corporations. On the other hand, it seem that we're seeing competition between wireless operators.
Our education system also suffer from poor incentives. Teachers have little incentives to teach better, and tests are inadequate. Political forces are disallowing us to make the proper changes to the institution so it will be quite difficult to shift toward the information economy.