Atlanta Forward / Another View: Giving thanks 
in difficult times

By Peter Morici

Giving thanks is hard this holiday season.

Although the economy is growing again, more than one in 10 Americans is unemployed. A tough jobs market compels lower expectations, stretching necessities and encouraging smaller gifts.

Still, Americans should remain both mindful of their abundance and optimistic about their future. At hand are the building blocks for a stronger prosperity and a proud legacy for our children.

For all of the hand-wrenching, America’s public schools do a remarkable job educating a diverse population. Competition to gain admission at great institutions like Georgia Tech is so tough because high schools graduate so many capable applicants.

At universities, students excelling in science, business and the arts don’t come only from upscale suburbs. Many of the best young scholars and professionals come from modest, even hardscrabble circumstances, and a good number, like me, are the children or grandchildren of immigrants.

Throughout the United States, programs like Georgia’s HOPE scholarships provide access and opportunity to virtually all with ambition and elbow grease.

Consequently, America has a skilled, diverse and resourceful work force that can compete with the best anywhere in the world.

U.S. universities attract students and faculty from around the globe because they are wellsprings for cutting-edge knowledge and they partner effectively with business. Together, they create drugs extending the length and quality of life, communications technologies that tie humanity closer together, new materials and renewal energy systems that make plenty from limited natural resources, along with so many other products that make everyday life more satisfying.

Leaders in business and government see America at the forefront of a new global economy that conserves what is best from traditional industries and creates jobs in sustainable activities. Ahead, look forward to affordable electric cars, vaccines and medicines that conquer cancer, vast applications of solar energy, and more.

Americans can move about the country to work as they please. Some choose to work in union shops, others without unions, and some work only for themselves in businesses they start. Nowhere else do young people have more choices and opportunities to pursue their dreams with so few constraints.

The U.S. economy was temporarily stalled by an asset bubble and a credit crisis, but it is pulling out.

Americans still need to save more, work down the trade deficit and borrow less from abroad. Health care is too expensive, and the petroleum age is reaching its limits.

Yet these challenges are no more daunting than those faced by past generations, and American entrepreneurs and innovators are on the task. America will always be both a land of opportunity and vexed by what seem, at the moment, to be daunting problems.

We will come through our present difficulties stronger, wiser and more prosperous than before.

For the challenge, the journey and the ultimate fruits of accomplishment, we should all give thanks.

Peter Morici is an economist and professor at the University of Maryland.