The world loves American culture. Castro's favorite liquor is Maker's Mark. One of Vladimir Putin's favorite songs is "Blueberry Hill." He has sung it with a piano solo. 

 

In the global stream of consciousness, there was a time when the U.S. was perceived as being well-meaning. Shock, Awe and technology changed all that. My Lai and Abu Ghraib carved a representation of the U.S. into the consciousness of the world. 

 

Shock, Awe and technology constitute the U.S. nation-building Investment strategy. The ROI is dismal; the deaths of the best of humanity, my brothers and sisters at arms, the physical and mental maiming of warriors, the unemployment and homelessness of the "recovering warrior," the vast waste of treasure, environmental degradation are its ROI. Worse of all is what at the corporate level is called "reputational risk," the reputational risk of the U.S.was framed in the human consciousness by the iconic photos of a girl burned by napalm and the self immolation of monks in Vietnam and by the iconic images of Abu Ghraib. The self-immolation of Mohamed Bouazzizi started the Arab Spring. The Spring of hope in Tunisia became a Winter of global discontent. These iconic images and that of the Twin Towers have become a part of the global stream of consciousness, part of the indelible global mental  imagery of the reputation of the U.S.

 

Vietnam was not an exercise in cultural dignity. We called the Vietnamese "gooks." We later called the Iraqis and Afghans "towelheads," "wogs" and worse. By denigrating the culture of others, in My Lai, Abu Ghraib, Kabul, we changed the global perception of the U.S. as being well-meaning. The reputational risk to our nation is ingrained in the human consciousness as evil to say nothing of our investment in nation-building.

 

From a nation-building and economic point of view, George Will summed it up; "We can't rebuild Detroit; how are we to build Iraq?"

 

The traditional view of community and economic development in the U.S. is a top-down affair. In this scenario funds are allocated by a federal government that grants development funds to states which then filter these funds down to municipalities and local developers who bid on select projects. The pipeline is well lubricated by a reverse flow of political contributions. The role of the private investor is thereby restricted to "public private initiatives." This "trickle down" process evaporates before it can become transformative.

 

 

The role of the investor in community development, economic development and national growth and job creation is about to change. Fintech will not alone change this.

 

The production of capital goods, innovative capital goods, economically disruptive and transformative capital goods, services and intellectual property, ideas, is no longer restricted to large corporations. The critical economic benefit provided by selling innovative capital goods and ideas in foreign markets is no longer restricted to large corporations. Cultural relevance has led Kedar Gupta of ARC Energy and Baldev Dugall of Lumi-Solair to sell very sophisticated products to India and other countries from places ranging from Brooklyn, NY to Nashua, New Hampshire. It was Archimedes who said, give me a place to stand and I will move the world. 

 

In the future, platforms will enable investors to profit share directly into companies and projects that improve the lives of those to whom they are culturally related. 

 

The process of investment into international trade transactions will be greatly simplified. There are precedents for this in Lending Club and Prosper. Investment is actually the simple part. The persistent problems will be to gain a comprehensive view of the credit worthiness of the buyer and to ensure performance on the part of the exporter. These risks can be mitigated by export credit insurance and with the credit default and payment guaranties of Export Credit Agencies to financial institutions. What cannot be mitigated is reputational risk.

 

The participation in large exports of capital goods is formerly the realm of giant commercial banks. In the U.S., community banks and credit unions play an increasingly larger role in these export loans. Credit Unions can syndicate and participate out loans. Apple Bank for Savings, a community bank, has made over $300 million in aircraft export loans. Apple is able to sell these loans to Pefco. Pefco, the Private Export Funding Corporation is a single corporation created by the U.S. Treasury and the Export-Import Bank of the U.S., that facilitates funding of exports that have not been subsidized. The PEFCO does this with the purchase of loans in the secondary market from commercial lenders. The loans are then used to finance U.S. exports.