If the candidates want to be thought of as Rocky Balboa, they need to act more like him. Rocky doesn't ask for a time-out in the middle of a round. Likewise, the United States cannot expect foreign countries to compete less vigorously because it is losing.

The emerging countries of the world are in an era of unprecedented expansion, creating innumerable attractive investment opportunities.

In stark contrast, the United States is over-indebted and unattractive as an investment location. Low savings rates, an out-of-control government deficit, and a costly regulatory environment are weakening the economy by reducing the availability of investment capital. If the candidates want to be smart about trade, they should be debating how they plan to turn the nation into a lean, mean machine capable of holding its own in the global contest for investment capital.

Increasing capital investment is the key to improving U.S. competitiveness and standards of living. Workers must be given the most efficient tools and factories in the world, which will raise their productivity and offset higher U.S. wages. As a striking example of the power of capital investment, Tata Motors, the largest auto manufacturer in India, just announced that it was investing more than $1.5 billion in a new plant and equipment at its factory in western India, creating 1,500 jobs and producing an additional 150,000 cars per year. This is the company that just bought Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor Co., which has had to reduce employment and output to survive.

Countries can generate their own capital through savings, and try to attract free-flowing capital from abroad. The United States is increasingly coming up short in both domestic and international sources of funds. According to the most recent U.S. Treasury report, private foreign investors reduced their net purchases of U.S. securities by $158 billion in 2007 compared with the preceding year. In the last 10 years, the amount of capital raised in U.S. markets has been growing at only 6 percent per year, compared with 9 percent abroad.

The ultimate source of capital is consumer savings. In the United States today, the savings rate is virtually zero. The simple reason we save so little is that we spend so much. In the short term, it keeps factories humming and workers employed. But this persistent excess spending has depleted savings. It is also the cause of U.S. trade deficits. This is simple math. When a country buys more than it produces, it has to make up the difference by importing more than it exports - in other words, running a trade deficit.

The federal government is the largest contributor to the nation's capital shortage. Washington overspends (another term for running a deficit) by nearly half a trillion dollars per year, which it finances by issuing debt. Since Americans are not generating adequate savings to buy this additional debt, the government depends on foreign investors. It is no surprise that the countries with the highest savings rates and trade surpluses are the biggest buyers of U.S. debt. China and Japan own about $1 trillion each. But they are becoming less willing to buy our debt.

At the next town-hall meeting or bowling-alley event, someone in a hard hat should ask the presidential candidates the hard questions of how they are going to attract capital from abroad and provide incentives for Americans to save more, while balancing the government's budget. While we are spending ourselves into a black hole of debt, other countries are pursuing policies conducive to long-term growth, increased productivity, and a higher standard of living through the accumulation and productive investment of capital. If the candidates don't address this problem now, the next group of presidential aspirants will have very few industrial workers left to court.