Progress.

The arrow of progress is twirling in the winds today. And I am not talking about hurricane Sandy. America  built its economy on progress, on being the first to take advantage of new technologies and new opportunities. Now look at us. We have fumbled the ball on nearly every playing field except how to conduct war by remote control.

Take energy, for instance. We know that the future for energy lies in tapping renewable sources. We won't run out of fossil fuels tomorrow, but we know they will slowly become harder to access and increasingly expensive. If we want to maintain a leadership position in this field, developing renewable sources is the way to go. But our hidebound energy suppliers are tying our hands and feet on this issue.

Transportation is another field in which we have led the world. We developed canals, railroads, automobiles,  ships and airplanes both as industries and as ways to access the wealth of the world. Now we are struggling to catch up in the automotive industry, our railways chug along at half the speed of other nations, and our airlines need to charge us for our bags in order to make a buck. Today the subways of New York City, once a marvel of our ingenuity, are literally under water. Our movies portray a future of vehicles flying around the city on electronic pathways but we are stuck in traffic jams and our airports still function at the mercy of the weather.

Look what we have done with electronics. We can now communicate with almost anyone anywhere on the planet. And what do we do with this capability? We tweet inanities to people who are sitting next to us. We divert our attention to our cell phones while supposedly driving a car. And there lies an opportunity for progress--building cars that you program for a destination and then go about your business. But our business community is busy trying to make a buck out of our cell phones by capturing our identities and selling them to advertisers. Meanwhile our enemies hack our computer systems and threaten our financial and power industries.

Do the Democrats or Republicans have a clue about how to get us back on the track of progress? Not much. The Democrats talk about developing renewable energy while other nations do it. The party seems vaguely aware that the private sector has lost its way and is not going to be able to continue to supply jobs and income to everyone. So they try to fill in the gaps that used to be filled by private charities. The Republicans object to this approach and insist that our industries can do the job, but the truth is that there is nothing stopping them from doing it now except lack of imagination and will. We have plenty of capital but no will to use it. So our capital, the remnant of our past progress, remains tied up in mansions and yachts and a falsely booming stock market instead of generating new progress. And the Republicans focus on returning us to the glory days before the Civil War.