Is America Falling off the Flat Earth? Competitiveness measures say, “Oops.”

The U.S. is like the man falling from the 25th floor, asked how he was doing as he passed the 15th, “Fine so far.”

Well, that’s not news to frogs in pots all over the world.

Norman Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, chairs the “Rising Above the Gathering Storm” committee for the National Academy of Sciences. He wrote the report the committee issued last year under the title I used for this post. His not very politically-correct conclusion: “It is unreasonable to expect that in a broadly prospering world any single nation can maintain indefinitely the broad dominance that America has enjoyed in recent decades. But America can, if it wishes, maintain a position of considerable strength, overall prosperity and constructive leadership.”

Um, “if it wishes?” To be fair, Augustine and his anonymous committee (members not named in the report itself, or on the National Academies site) apparently can take credit for legislation passed and signed into law fast fall, complete with funding. On the other hand, the report itself says, “during the past 3 years alone, at least 16 significant reports on America’s growing competitiveness disadvantage have been issued,” and those were preceded by many more.

But America doesn’t need to be number one, do we? Here’s some of the evidence:

<ul><li>The U.S. share of the world’s leading-edge semi-conductor manufacturing capacity dropped from 36% to 11 percent in the past 7 years. </li>

<li>There are now 12 energy companies in the world whose reserves exceed those of the largest U.S. energy firm, Exxon-Mobil.</li>

<li>Nearly 60% of U.S. patent filings in information technology originate in Asia.</li>

<li>The United States ranks 17th among nations in high school graduation rate and 14th in college graduation rate.</li></ul>

The NAS convened a followup meeting at the end of April to report on progress, but I haven’t found any coverage of the meeting. In an article in “Innovation” Augustine notes that the media also did not cover the hearings and the passage of the America COMPETES Act.