Open for Business?

From The Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio: "In its heyday, Cleveland attracted immigrants like a magnet. If it wants another heyday, Cleveland needs to do so again."

From Shekhar Gupta, editor of the Indian Express newspaper (Mumbai and New Delhi): "All you need to do is grant visas to 2 million Indians, Chinese and Koreans." "We will buy up all the subprime homes. We will work 18 hours a day to pay for them. We will immediately improve your savings rate--no Indian bank today has more than 2 percent nonperforming loans, because not paying your mortgage is considered shameful here. And we will start new companies to create our own jobs and jobs for more Americans."

The above quote is from an article by New York Times columnist Thomas L Friedman. Mr. Friedman wisely makes the case that immigration can prove to be the best bailout.

There is a saying in business: You've got to build the brand. It means expand on the things that made your business successful. Expand on your good name and reputation.

Even non-profits are now doing this creatively. Examples:

• New York's Metropolitan Opera broadcasts live performances to movie theaters around the country.
• The Cleveland Clinic recently entered an agreement with philanthropist Larry Ruvo to run a new brain research institute in Las Vegas.

The U.S. has a "brand." It is a political and economic system that encourages innovation and free enterprise like nowhere else. Talk all you want about how other parts of the world have been growing, but the U.S. is still the premier venue for building wealth. And all eyes are on the U.S. for answers to the current economic malaise.

It's time, again, to build on the U.S. brand and sharply increase the number of visas we're willing to issue. It's time to announce that the U.S. is "Open for Business".

Are we ready?

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Worth repeating from the post dated January 29, 2009:

"Small businesses created some 60-80% of net new jobs during the past decade. Companies with 500 or fewer people employ over half the country's private sector employees."