Still, it's not easy to figure out what the U.S. should do next. Nations playing catch-up -- such as the U.S. in the late 1700s, Germany in the 1800s, and Japan and China more recently -- have concrete examples they can follow. But the U.S. of 2016 is the biggest economy on the planet, and by most measures one of the strongest. In the latest World Economic Forum global competitiveness rankings, for example, it trailed only Switzerland and Singapore. There is surely much we can learn from those (and other) well-run little nations, but in the U.S. remains largely sui generis.
I'm almost certain that more infrastructure investment would be a smart part of any new U.S. economic strategy. But I'm not so sure what should be built and where, or what else the nation should be doing. It's unlikely that any one person would have all the answers anyway. Since Hamilton, U.S. economic strategies have been the product of politicking, intellectual debate and sometimes dumb luck. Got any suggestions?