We love our cars. Driving is as American as apple pie. Collectively, we’ve been steadily driving more each year for the past 25 years. It’s a testament to the significance of the financial crisis of  08-09′ that for the first time in 25 years we drove less in 2008. Noticeably less. It appears that is turning around. A positive sign that perhaps we’ve bottomed out and are driving out of the hole we’ve dug. Four-wheel drive sounds good about now.

Does this happen to you lately?   I watch the news, I listen to the pundits, I read the papers and the magazines, and I still find myself sitting there with a big cartoon question mark hanging over my head wondering …”what the hell just happened to our economy!”

And then I ran into  Juan Enriquez.  Juan is one of those rare minds with the talent for bridging disciplines to build a coherent picture.  He’s the founding director of the Harvard Business School Life Sciences Project, has published widely on topics from the technical (global nucleotide data flow) to the sociological (gene research and national competitiveness), and was a member of Celera Genomics founder Craig Venter’s marine-based team to collect genetic data from the world’s oceans.

Formerly CEO of Mexico City’s Urban Development Corporation and chief of staff for Mexico’s secretary of state, Enriquez played a role in reforming Mexico’s domestic policy and helped negotiate a cease-fire with Zapatista rebels. He is chair and CEO of Biotechonomy, a research and investment firm helping to fund new genomics firms. The Untied States of America, his latest book, looks at the forces threatening America’s future as a unified country.

Fair warning.  If you’re having a good day, don’t watch this video of Juan’s presentation. It’s pure buzzkill.   But do yourself a favor and watch it anyway.  This isn’t a quick youtube ditty. Be prepared to sit still and listen for 30 minutes as Juan peels back the layers and reveals the insane world we’ve been living in this past decade.

Juan does have some practical advice for the new administration and for all of us. We can indeed crawl our way out of the economic hole we’ve dug for ourselves. Provided we throw away the shovel and change our ways. Good luck to all of us!

Kudos to Thomas Friedman and his “Why How Matters” op-ed piece in today’s New York Times. As the crushing volume of analyses, assignments of blame, and prescriptive cures regarding our current economic troubles bears down upon us, look no further than Friedman’s brief article and a book published 167 years ago for a root cause analysis. The cause is neither blue or red. It’s 100%  human animal and our all too fallible herd mentality.

Charle’s Mackay writes in 1841.“Money….has often been a cause of the delusion of multitudes. Sober nations have all once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper. To trace the history of the most prominent of these delusions is the object of the present pages. Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one.”

I’m reminded of the line …”the more things change, the more they stay the same”. As we go through one financial bubble after the other, each one harder on the herd than the last when it finally breaks, Mackay’s assessment of our inherent nature rings all too true. And if we are indeed herd animals (oh, come on….get over it, we are), then our collective need for wise competent leadership is more profoundly real and acute than ever.

There was a time not too long ago when “elite” was not a four letter word. It meant exceptional, gifted, balanced, highly educated, moral, competent, smart as hell, the best of the best. I don’t know how you measure all that, but I do know we need as much of it as we can get, and we especially need it in government. So as one herd member who voted for W the last two elections, I’m thinking it’s time for a big upgrade. The herd can hardly stand any more popular delusions and madness.