The astonishing rate of change must be managed.

Every year the American History Business Centre a non-profit run by Gary Hoover, puts out a chart that updates the market capitalisation of Americas top 20 public companies.

The 2023 version has just arrived in my inbox.

I find the path of the evolution astonishing, even in the relatively short time since the turn of the century to now.

A few things that pop out, at least to me.

The acceleration in the rate of increase since 2000
The absolute dominance of the Tech giants Apple, Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon, that has driven the market cap, especially since 2010. The growth rate is so fast that the numbers are already out of date. Apple broke the 3 trillion dollar mark, the first to do so, in January. It has bounced around that benchmark a bit, but is today is 3.011T.
The emergence of Tesla from nowhere 5 years ago to 7th today, a market cap bigger than the other US carmakers combined, who outsell Tesla by a big margin. However, Tesla unit sales have taken off with the opening of Chinese manufacturing, delivering 710k units worldwide in 2022.
The absolute contrast to Australia’s top 20, dominated by financial institutions and commodities.

Have a look at the graphs in the link, and consider the implications for the competitive position and ‘re-industrialisation’ of this country.

The most recent Harvard economic complexity report puts Australia at 93 on the list, bracketed by Uganda at 92, and Pakistan at 94. Stellar company indeed.

The government appears to be taking the problem seriously, with the $15 Billion National Reconstruction Fund announced in the October 2022 budget, but is it enough, and is the support the right kind of support required to stimulate the domestic economy to build the complexity that will act as an insulator to the types of global disruptions that seem now both inevitable and more frequent?

While we are distracted by short term political wrangling, point scoring and pushing of social agendas that are truly relevant only to minorities, the big-ticket items, those that will determine the shape of the country over the coming decades, go begging.

Our so-called leaders lack the vision, commitment, and coconuts to take a hard look at what needs to be done, and then get on and do it, short term political polling be damned.