Unions, agriculture, heavy manufacturing, steel, coal, and all the disenfranchised workers who lay rotting in the vast intellectual desert paved the way to this Rant.

First, in order to know where you are going, you have to know where you are. OK? "So, where are we, Bill?" you ask. Well, for now, trapped in my blog and inside my head.

Seriously, as a collective, this country doesn't quite know yet where it is. We sit smack in the limbo of hanging on to our past, with egos and subsidies, seeing our future shifting from building the car to being the gas in the tank.

"Huh? What do you mean, Bill?" Gas and fuel -- the stuff that makes the world's engine run. In the past 25 years, the United States has shifted massively in the direction of being an innovation economy that has become the envy of the world. The United States is the go-to place for ideation, intellectual, and venture capital, and the infrastructure to create revolutions in industry. The world is desperately trying to catch up -- which they won't unless we have economic collapse.

Yesterday, you could run models, pro formas, and build plant property and equipment. Investment would have a measure and the troops would remain stable as long as they could see the ROI. Well, that measure is as old as we are sick of it. Return on investment just doesn't cut it. Now Return on Innovation is the real ROI. The power of innovation is a truer measure of what the real deal is.

Let's look at the lineup: steam engine, cotton gin, planes, trains, automobiles, the Atomic Age, the Information Age, and we now sit at the dawn of the Molecular Era. All that, plus the silicon chip, PC, Internet, router, eBay, Google, and let me, Billy G, take a bow for what we did with chat and IM -- hey, and the light bulb, too. Revolutionary innovations created here and driven all over the world. With that and medical science, breakthrough after breakthrough, discovery after discovery, this country needs to get with it and cut loose the old ways of doing business and kick the piggies at the trough, or suckling at Washington's breast, out of the way. If we are going to lead as an innovation economy, well, then, a few heads and eggs have to crack and we need to stand up and let loose every tool in the shed.

However, we're in luck. Unlike older nations, we have been bred to be hypomaniacs from our forefathers. We are descendants of immigrants who flung themselves on boats to come to America, gold-rush types that flocked to California and the now Silicon Valley. These were the risk-takers of the world in their time. Ingrained in the U.S. DNA is risk and reward passed down by generations of in-breeding among risk takers.

Also in our society -- post-World War II, even after Eisenhower warned us -- we have created one of the most elaborate and deeply rooted wartime economies, and it just keeps going and going and going. As a result, the massive R&D investment made by the government with your money -- into everything you could ever imagine and even further beyond the planet of the apes -- powered this country to become an engine of innovation. Universities jumped into the R&D game and tech transfer has become as common as online dating. Corporations drove trillions that way and what popped up as a result was, well, good capitalists -- the venture kind.

Now, the whole world knows Boston and Silicon Valley and all about the industry rock star investors. The greatest companies to reside on this earth -- Apple, Cisco, Intel, Oracle, Sun, etc. -- were all early ideas fueled by venture money and venture brains that, because of the innovation exponent, grew astronomically ... or exponentially.

With the infrastructure built by the government and hugely augmented by private industry, with intellectual property spilling out everywhere, the venture industry and our DNA created a permanent, competitive advantage in America. America was born with an Innovation DNA. The country was brought up on innovative television, games, music -- it pervaded our lives and still does. Even as the world tries the catch-up game and is innovating well, there will always be an economy of innovation in America ... as long as we don't squander it. The products, goods, and service industries are, frankly, better left to some other, favorably-oriented economy to build and, of course, sell back to us. They eat our dog food and so do we.

So when I see all these subsidies and the whining about manufacturing, farms, steel mills, etc. ... Honestly, I want to retch. Those jobs aren't coming back -- ever! So don't vote for me. Better yet, grab a gun or a religion and hide in your cube, under the desk, or behind a tree. Let me tell you, it has come and gone and come back again -- but this time, as in all economic cycles, it has morphed.

The U.S. shift from an engine, the "Arsenal of Democracy," to the fuel (the money, ideas, execution, and network to innovate), has resulted in a tastier, more healthy blend of dog chow. And believe me, the world is happy to gobble it up.

So why then do we look at stale, old buildings and infrastructure while Dubai and Singapore, Saudi Arabia and China, build massive, modern glass cities? Why do we sit and take our tax dollars and subsidize these dead industries? Get them out of here. They weigh you down when you are either flying high or sinking-or-swimming. Hey, while you're at it, BPO the whole thing -- commercialize government and export our prison systems to Greenland. (All this for another Rant.)

If the U.S. and its people would only wake up to the fact that we are the world's largest, most sophisticated fuel supply for innovation ... and it isn't stopping or running dry. It's this identity crisis that holds us back, bound to rotting unions and auto plants, the working man, farmer, steel worker, plant worker, etc. We need an FDR-level plan to get people out of the industrial-age ghettos and into the light. We have to. I think we can all agree, we don't have a choice

The summary, in case you haven't hung up yet or turned the page, is that we are an innovation economy -- no longer an industrial economy, not even a blend. We have to use velocity in our businesses, industries, and government. Remember V = D/T? Well, that doesn't apply in innovation. It is as I have written: V = I + A + E (IQ plus Access and Execution). If you are smarter or have a collective IQ ( www.collectiveiq.com) at your disposal, you will connect dots, and fast come up with new ideas and innovative ways of doing business. Add to that access to decision makers, leaders, partners at all levels to make ideas come to life. And if you have a team to execute, well, you can think of something -- make one phone call and do more in five minutes than an army can do in five years. Velocity is the driver of innovation, innovation the driver of investment return, and we all know that money makes the world go round. And that is sure true for America and where this economy needs to be laser-focused.

If you liked the Rant, tune in -- I will have tips and deals and tasty cerebral morsels for you to chew on. This can be your innovation and technology armchair. So lean over here, pop an idea over the mail, and see if we can innovate in real time. (Billyg@collectiveiq.com).

Thanks for spending time with me.