This opinion piece by Thomas Friedman is a few days old, but it hits right on a topic that I’ve thought about quite a bit lately. He quotes the Chief Executive of Intel.

Otellini noted that a 2009 study done by the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation and cited recently in Democracy Journal “ranked the U.S. sixth among the top 40 industrialized nations in innovative competitiveness — not great, but not bad. Yet that same study also measured what they call ‘the rate of change in innovation capacity’ over the last decade — in effect, how much countries were doing to make themselves more innovative for the future. The study relied on 16 different metrics of human capital — I.T. infrastructure, economic performance and so on. On this scale, the U.S. ranked dead last out of the same 40 nations. … When you take a hard look at the things that make any country competitive. … we are slipping.”

We live pretty comfortably here in the States. I would argue that much of that comfort is built on an investment in a number of commons networks like the interstate, postal service. Other social policies like education (which Friedman focuses on) and intellectual property also have played a part in our ability to innovate, which ultimately helps business and our standard of living.

While he doesn’t come right out and say it, I think Friedman’s argument could be extended to say that the relentless focus on short term profit (immediate gratification) is harming our long term ability to compete globally. This unfortunately is no easy mindset to change, as it appears to pervade politics and business.

I can’t think of any reasonable way to respond, but it’s good to know that I’m not the only one feeling this way.

Lawrence Lessig writes a great argument tying the grassroots drive of the Obama campaign to how we might start to fight corruption in Congress. He lists a number of reasons people find for this corruption, but forgets an important one: politicians need money to advertise on television during their campaigns.

It’s for this reason that I have a really difficult time supporting the solution he proposes–publicly financed elections. I don’t think its fair that taxpayers hard-earned dollars go straight into the pockets of media companies, even if it does alleviate some of the influence of big-money donors. Public financing isn’t necessarily a bad idea; there are just other things that would need to be fixed at the same time for it to be a truly effective and just solution.