'Is America's decline exaggerated or inevitable?' The role of monetary and fiscal policy (with reference to St. Peter, Calvin Coolidge, Walter Bagehot, Paul Volcker, Winston Churchill and T.R. Fehrenbach)

Remarks before the Society of American Business Editors and Writers 2011 Annual Conference, Dallas, Texas, April 8, 2011 ; In the fall of 2006, I was asked to draw upon some 30 years of experience in Germany and speak at the American Academy in Berlin, addressing the question: “Is Germany’s Decline Exaggerated or Inevitable?” This was against the backdrop of reforms that had been initiated by the former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, and carried on by his successor, Angela Merkel. I argued that Germany’s economic fate and position as primus inter pares in Europe was at a tipping point. The answer to the question of whether Germany was fated for decline or ascent depended upon how Germans would adapt their education system, labor laws, health care system, financial infrastructure, corporate governance, tax regime and myriad other changes needed to advance their economic competitiveness in a world being transformed by the forces of globalization and cyber-ization. I ended that speech by saying I was encouraged that changes had been initiated, but drew on St. Peter and Calvin Coolidge, neither of whom would have considered themselves economists, to underline the essential ingredient for success in these critical initiatives. For it was St. Peter who urged, “Be serious and discipline yourselves.” And it was Silent Cal who said, “Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence. …The slogan ‘press on’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.”>