Just read Tom Friedman's The Earth is Flat during a vacation to China. A great way to get a perspective on where the world is heading and where the US (and Portland) are lagging. Your concern and solution are right on. Wealth in the future will no accrue to "the owners of the means of production" as it did in the past because "producers" will constantly be competing among each other to be the low cost producer (and thus stay in business). The US (and Portland) can't compete in that arena and shouldn't want to. The key to future wealth will be thinking up new things that someone else will make. Hence wealth will accrue to patent holders, brand names, etc. That is an area where Portland CAN compete because we still offer an attractive physical environment and increasingly attractive cultural one. We need to better integrate our two research institutions (OHSU and OGI) into "plan" we also need to tie into other RD&D institutions in Portland including DOE's Pacific NW Lab, BPA, The Army Corps, etc to build on the region's expertise in energy. Capital can and should come from a "civic" VC firm that used lottery proceeds, and perhpad investments by city/county/ etc. employees in it via their 401 K program. This fund should support local based innovators and require they remain here for some period. Despite Portland's rep for being bad to business, small business formation is very high, so this kind of assistence should lead to a significant increase in new businesses and start up jobs. If we could facilitate global outreach through the Port and other institutions these small firms could be linked to overseas manufacturers as easlily in Portland as they are in NYC, LA, and other areas where Oregon start ups end up migrating so they can expand production. The promise is there, is the political leadership and will? Maybe.