What we lack is the vision and commitment to invest and re-invest locally in our own future. The capital needs of Hawai'i's emerging growth companies are small relative to the local financial resources potentially available. In addition to financial capital, Hawai'i is rich in potential intellectual and human capital. For decades, hundreds of Hawai'i's children have excelled at top Mainland universities. The challenge facing Hawai'i's leaders is to develop and implement compelling vehicles and strategies to attract existing resources back home.
Structural transformation is never easy.
However, Hawai'i's successful transformation from agriculture to tourism proves that it is possible. Moreover, the successes of Hawai'i's prior generations can serve as an inspiration to us today. We have an obligation to perpetuate the often elusive but precious gifts of economic opportunity, social mobility and racial harmony that our parents and grandparents struggled so hard to pass on to us. What is at stake is much more than provincial pride or sentimentality. What is at stake is proving to the world's skeptics that socioeconomic ideals have been, and can be achieved.