As Barack Obama takes office, he faces a deepening recession far different than previous recessions.

What makes this downturn different is that it comes at a time when U.S. businesses are facing unprecedented competition from a virtual tidal wave of companies from rapidly developing countries.

The competition reflects the new era of "globality" in which the world economies are interconnected as never before. Little happens in isolation. As the recession is showing, virtually everyone, everywhere is affected by everything.

Americans need to embrace globality and do what we do best: work hard, think smart, move fast, innovate and invest.

In this regard, the new administration should focus on four key areas: energy independence, advanced technical education, infrastructure modernization and productivity.

On energy, President Obama must avoid the ideological trap of "either/or" choices and take an "all of the above" approach.

The U.S. pumps hundreds of billions of petrodollars each year into foreign economies, many of them hostile to our way of life. For economic, national security and environmental reasons, we must stop this reckless behavior.

The president's strategy should include: raising federal gasoline taxes over time to reduce oil consumption and provide an incentive for Americans to commit to alternative fuel vehicles; increasing use of nuclear power and coal and expanding exploration and drilling for oil and natural gas.

To increase U.S. competitiveness, infrastructure improvements also are needed. Infrastructure should not be considered a synonym for "make-work" projects. It should be seen as a long-term economic investment that produces benefits for 30 to 100 years. Infrastructure is essential to our economy — and ours is decaying.

The United States should follow the example of China, which has committed to building 100 new airports, 186,000 miles of new roads and 75,000 miles of new railroad track, and expanding port capacity by 85 percent by the year 2020. The U.S. needs to make similar investments.

Our ability to compete also should drive the administra-tion's education agenda. Every American child deserves a proper education, but not every child should be encouraged to go to a traditional college. Instead, some young people should be encouraged to attend advanced trade schools. We would propose more: a new system of "vocational colleges" in which students would major in trades, but also take business and liberal arts courses.

The fourth component of long-term economic success is productivity. And the biggest hurdle we have to overcome is the adversarial relationship between unions and management.

Productivity isn't just about widgets-per-hour, but about ingenuity, innovation and fluid management that can put the right people in the right place at the right time. The "new" U.S. automobile industry — Honda, Toyota, Subaru, Hyundai and Volkswagen plants in the South — show it can be done.

Energy, infrastructure, education and productivity are all inter-related, just like the world of globality in which we now live. We have to work together as never before. If we fail to do so, our companies may be unable to compete effectively in the decades ahead.

Spending to jump-start the economy has a specific short-term objective. Spending to rebuild the economy will produce benefits for decades.


Harold L. Sirkin and James W. Hemerling are senior partners of the Boston Consulting Group.