Workers and potential workers can acquire more skills and more education at all levels. They can take the risk of moving to new and better jobs or starting new businesses. They can put less emphasis on standard degrees and more on courses designed to help students acquire not just job skills, but the broader education that helps them to become more adaptable and to acquire the intellectual self confidence that helps them deal with change. Communities, large and small, can make efforts to diversity their economic bases, upgrade and modernize their school systems, and welcome new kinds of workers and companies. Governments can support the basic research from which applications and innovations flow, and offer incentives to education and training and financial aid for students.
Financial institutions can offer attractive convenient ways for individuals to save and invest.
All levels of government can manage their finances prudently, provide public services efficiently, build up surpluses and rainy day funds and pay down debt. This kind of behavior will result in government adding to the national saving rate and enhancing the chances of future growth, rather than subtracting from national saving by running public deficits. It is especially important to use the current and projected federal budget surplus to reduce the federal debt. The President's budget and social security proposal would have this effect. In short No one knows how long the good news will last.