''Counting the cars on the New Jersey turnpike, we've all come to look for America."

I remember the first time I had the chance, many years ago, and I took a cab from Newark in New Jersey to Manhattan simply so I could look at what Simon and Garfunkel had near-immortalised in song.

Of course, like so much else mythologised in popular music-including Ventura Highway and Santa Monica Boulevard that the sun supposedly comes up on in Los Angeles-it didn't seem so very special. (When will Jatin-Lalit write about Outer Ring Road or Mahim Causeway so Yanks come to gape at it, I wonder.)

	Going By The Book
	The Absent Cause

I was thinking about our fascination with America in all we do-life, business and pleasure. While I do believe that there is a lot about the country worth seeing, I'm not so sure it's the right target for all our businesses.

It was an American who first put me up to a different point of view. Randy Komisar, Professor of Entrepreneurship at Stanford, ex-founder of Webtv and Lucas Arts had come to speak to us at tie in Mumbai. One of his more interesting premises was that the US is near-broke, barely out of recession, and hence an extremely difficult and possibly unrewarding market to break into.

In his words, "We're in no mood to buy too many luxuries. You'll really have to convince us of some insecurity or dire need we face to buy anything at all now." We went on to talk about how the primary sectors were in deep doo-doo and how the US was resorting to socialist-type measures like high tariffs to protect its vote banks and special interests, especially among the agricultural, defence and steel businesses (remind you of our PSUs?).

He brought up an interesting point. "Why do we see more opportunity in the first world when we, with our lower costs, can be preferred suppliers to 'the next five-billion people'?" The logic was interesting. American companies have their costs so high that they can't afford to sell to China or India-or indeed anybody outside the g-7. That is true-I don't see too many people who can buy movie tickets at $10 or books at $25 (or, jet fighters at $100 million) in a large part of the developing and developed worlds.

Could we be better off looking at the second and third worlds instead of our fascination with the first? Take two of our supposedly 'hot' sectors: software and pharmaceuticals. Should we try selling over-the-counter or prescription drugs in Kenya, where they'd welcome our anti-aids formulations at $10 a shot, instead of Kansas, where US pharmas charge a hundred times as much and fight political battles to keep us out of their markets?

When it comes to software, US companies have woken up to the fact that proprietary, expensive software is losing out to low-cost open software. Why else would Bill Gates commit $100 million to fight aids and $400 million to fight Linux in India alone? (On a separate note, why are Indian software services companies kowtowing with ji-huzoori to Microsoft's blatant imperialism? Have we learned nothing from our 200 years under the Brits?)

There are other markets that come to mind. Defence, for one-do you think, between Russia and us, we can make and sell planes at a price that the second world will gladly pay, instead of bankrupting themselves for US equipment? What about airlines: United has filed for bankruptcy because its mechanics refuse to work for less than US$ 65,000 a year, and their pilots for less than two or three times that.

Do I think Jet Airways can take the opportunity and be a great international carrier, offering far better service with far less hassle? Of course. Can we do this in coffee? Advertising creativity? Kids' software? Why not?

"Everywhere and around the world, they're coming to America". This was true when Neil Diamond sang of it decades ago. But go to Silicon Valley now, and you will see the universal depression of people packing up to come back to India, China, wherever they came from.

There is a lesson here for us. The times, they are a-changin'.

Mahesh Murthy, an angel investor, heads Passionfund. He earlier ran Channel V and, before that, helped launch Yahoo! and Amazon at a Valley-based interactive marketing firm. Reach him at Mahesh@passionfund.com.