Top thinkers tell Yahoo: Here’s what America is doing right

What’s going … right?

A lot of people -- okay, we in the press most of all -- focus on bad news. So, while at the recent Milken Institute Global Conference in Los Angeles, we asked business and political leaders to tell us what makes them most optimistic about America. Most, you can see from our video, had ready answers.

The best thing about America, according to our informal poll, is its can-do spirit.

“The U.S. … is still the envy of the world in terms of our innovation, our education system, our transportation and infrastructure, our knowledge-based system, everything,” Mark Weinberger, CEO of consulting firm EY, told us. “We’re top of the charts.”

A lot of ordinary Americans might quibble with that, since the middle class is still struggling and median income is down over the last decade. Technological innovation clearly benefits the maker class in Silicon Valley and other tech hubs, but it hasn’t filtered down to every worker. One common worry among economists and policymakers is the extent to which automation is making many middle-skill jobs obsolete. That, in turn, contributes to worsening income inequality, another cause for concern.

These problems aren’t unique to the United States, however. Most nations in the developed world are struggling to cope with slowing growth (or worse, outright stagnation) and the disruptive consequences of a technology revolution. And America has advantages over many peer nations.

“The U.S. economy has been through a lot and been bashed around by some very dysfunctional politics, and yet it’s still doing pretty well,” says Jared Bernstein, a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and former White House economist. “We have a very resilient economy.” In other words, it might not be great here, but it’s worse elsewhere.

Rick Newman’s latest book is Liberty for All: A Manifesto for Reclaiming Financial and Political Freedom. Follow him on Twitter: @rickjnewman.