Essay On 21st Century America

Here in the United States, we like to think of ourselves as a land of entrepreneurs. The nation’s history is rich with men of vision; men who took an idea and developed it into marketable device. Their ideas and vision helped build a growing nation’s economy into a dominant, worldwide force.

As America begins its journey through the 21st century, are we still the breeding ground for men and women with the innovative ideas and vision that Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, or Bill Gates had in the 20th century? Is America still viewed as the Best Country for Entrepreneurs?

Scholarly research
A recent study set out to learn how 60 countries worldwide fared when over 15,000 people around the world were asked to rate each of the 60 nations, based
With favorable small business capital available through lenders, as well as the federal government, capital would seem plentiful for the entrepreneur. America’s connection to the rest of the world is pretty self-explanatory. However, the downside of the world’s perception of America is what brings down our ranking.

The two categories that hurt America’s ranking the most were low ratings for “transparent and above-board business practices” and “strong, skilled labor force.” Transparency in American business dealing has always been spotty at best. Our nation has too many instances of Standard Oil, and more recently, Enron, to fuel anything but a negative worldwide perception about American business dealings. The real problem, both for the present and future, comes with lack of a skilled labor force.

The worldwide perception of America’s lack of skilled workers comes mainly from low science and math scores for American students (when compared with worldwide scores). Out of 64 countries, American students placed 35th in math and 27th in science. As troubling as the current perception of American workers, these low scores can do nothing but enhance low world opinion of the American worker, and education