State economist Tom Stinson, interviewed in MinnPost, had this to say about the challenges facing Minnesota's economy:
Minnesota's economic record over the last half-century is one most states envy. The reason that occurred was because far-sighted public and private sector leaders figured out they were going to invest in the education of the baby boom generation. Now it seems like an obvious decision to have made, but if it was, other states would have done it too and we wouldn't have done as well.
Now we are faced with another challenge — what do we do now that the baby boomers are retiring? And here, the answers aren't even as clear even as they were back in the 1950s. You've got the problem of a changing labor force and also global competition. You've got rapidly improving technology.
We have got to be focused on the productivity out of our workforce. Because that is really the only way we get growth in incomes and it is what makes Minnesota attractive to managers of firms looking to locate here. The question is, how do we best achieve that productivity? Do we get it by investing in fancy new, faster machines? Do we get it by investing in education and health care for our workforce? Do we get it by investing in infrastructure? Do we get it by investing in more research and development?
Whether we make those decisions by making explicit changes in what we are doing or implicitly by leaving things as they are, those decisions are going to have a major impact on our future economic output. Everybody has their own opinion as to what is important and what the balance should be. But there needs to be a public discussion, not on the question of taxes versus government spending, but rather on how we distribute the resources we have in a way that best enhances the future as well as the present.
I've been meaning to add the Economy as a category tag here for some time. Stinson's sober assessment tells me I'll be writing about this more.
