Fear not, Mr Collits.

By choosing to focus on the United States for evidence of diminishing capacity for innovation, you have fallen into the now-familiar trap of ascribing Western experiences to the world at large.

While it may well be true - and I happen to believe it could well be - that the US and Europe (and by extension, ourselves) have run out of steam, there are are a couple of billion folk that have been left out of the equation.

The magnitude of the problems faced tends to be a powerful force behind innovation. We (I mean the US/Europe/us) are relatively insulated from the genuine challenges of poverty, malnutrition (India, Africa) or ground-level pollution (err.... China?), so the chances of our coming up with a solution are minimal.

However...

http://news.discovery.com/earth/weather-extreme-events/7-of-10-most-air-polluted-cities-china-130116.htm

...China is producing record numbers of highly-educated people who will be tackling these problems in the coming years. They will do so, critically, in a business environment that is substantially different to that which we now "enjoy" in the West.

So, nil desperandum, old chum. We - US/Europe/us - may be too jaded, self-satisfied and affluent to worry about innovation. But there are a whole lot more people who are not, and who also benefit from having the biggest problems right there on their own doorstep.

economic theory alone ensures we..will..NEVER run out of resources
the scarcer ones..just become more..expensive..and the common/plenty full ones cheaper..

[but wait..the enron genius..and artificial shortages step-in]..
make the mug punters pay scarcity prices[while their public resources get bought up..*with..endless govt gift giving to..the bailed out capitalists..over pricing the bubbles..

knowing no one of them..doing high treasonn
colluding our destruction..debasinng the queens coin..then stealing our common wealth..the fed the bank telstra..evenour sewrage systems have been sold off and no rented back..from the bankers doinng this ongoing high treason

KNOWING..not one..will ever face jail
not one of thhe banking elite nor their spin lawyers or off book accounting..en-debiting..impoverishing..exploiting deceiving the peons../plus stealing their super into bubbles..[by froth and trouble]

so your told us your faviourite blogs and authors all right wingers I note. Itold us a few thing you don't like but I can't find in this piece is any possible solutions.

Solutions?
Well the economy is 70+% domestic! And that is dependent on discretionary spending.
The discretionary spend is being gobbled up by accommodation and energy prices; and, the ever widening gap between the haves and the have nots!
The have nots are an exponentially expanding group, being added to by a gradually disappearing middle class!
The remaining middle class are still warm and comfortable, as a frog being very slowly brought to the boil, in a fools paradise!
Rising house prices, have convinced some of this group, that they are somehow more prosperous, with more money to spend.
The reality is, replacement prices are also going up, along with quadrupled rates, insurance, stamp duties, maintenance and general repairs.
And do nothing, fix nothing govts, seem to think that it's someone else's problem, and or, only fixed by even more foreign investment and or, foreign control, replete with the ubiquitous tax avoidance and off-shored profits, that always seem to accompany this economic model?
And which is then remedied, thanks to obdurate obtuse govts, by even more of the same!
The gas shortages, can be overcome by a federal govt, getting back into the energy business.
Foreign capital, can be harvested from the sale of thirty year self terminating bonds.
Any other capital shortages can be overcome by quantitative easing, and a virtually doubled money supply, which would invariably accompanied by quite massive downward pressure on the quite grossly overvalued AUD.
Internal revenue shortfalls can be completely eliminated by the repeal of the current tax act in its entirety, and replaced by a single stand alone unavoidable expenditure tax!
I won't tell you how blindingly obvious these solutions are. Or just how blindly obvious, is the absolute determination, not to adopt any one of them, by govts who serve their political masters?
And, we all of us, could be forgiven, for believing it is almost anyone else but us?
Rhrosty.

This is a very strange argument: "the global economy has been growing strongly for a long time, but some people say it might not continue, so it might not."

We can see why when we add another premise: "People have ALWAYS been saying it might not continue, ever since the growth started, and they have never been right."

Unless you can explain why you think the current crop of pessimists have any more credibility than their predecessors, it's reasonable to assume they're just as wrong, and that the trend will do what trends normally do, and continue, while the pessimists continue to do what they normally do, and prophecy doom.

MSN Money's Jubak: Fed Has 'No End Game' for Unwinding its Balance
http://www.moneynews.com/Economy/Jubak-Fed-QE-assets/2013/11/06/id/535077?ns_mail_uid=2393496&ns_mail_job=1544899_11062013&promo_code=157CC-1

Investors are focused on when the Federal Reserve will start to taper its massive asset purchases, but it appears to have "no end game" for the bigger problem of unwinding the immense $4 trillion balance sheet it has accumulated, according to MSN Money columnist Jim Jubak.

There never was an end game. By design the practice of having a privately-owned central bank issue all currency as loans-at-interest creates more debt than money with which to pay that debt. It is a Ponzi-scheme kept afloat only so long as borrowing increases to stay ahead of the accumulating debt.

When the people stop borrowing that is when the Keynesian economists demand the government borrow on behalf of the people (and without their permission) until you reach the point where America is now, with the people unwilling to borrow more and the government unable to borrow more ...
https://represent.us/action/something-insane-just-happened-house-representatives/

which is when the bankers start a World War to force everyone into borrowing more than they want to to fight the war and rebuild from that war. They have played this same game twice now. Crash of 1907 -> WW1. Crash of 1929 -> WW2.
http://www.deviantinvestor.com/5177/gold-sp-or-the-dollar-mr-bernanke/
http://investmentwatchblog.com/realist-news-congress-passes-bill-to-remove-derivatives-regulations-that-were-just-put-in-place/

Crash of 2008, and look how many nations
the United States has already invaded!

http://investmentwatchblog.com/the-housing-market-and-the-world-economy-is-being-held-together-with-tape-the-central-bankers-are-manipulating-everything-so-the-people-dont-realize-what-is-going-on/

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/chase-isnt-the-only-bank-in-trouble-20131105

http://12160.info/profiles/blogs/the-left-right-paradigm-is

http://investmentwatchblog.com/immense-pressure-on-municipal-bonds-waiting-for-bailout/

http://intellihub.com/2013/11/07/u-s-jobs-loss-signals-economic-armageddon/
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/america-immoral-aggressive-and-driven-by-lobbyists/