The real problem doesn’t fit on a placard. It doesn’t lead people to protest or “occupy” an industry. It won’t get full-throated cheers or point the way to ready made solutions. Because the economic system isn’t so much fundamentally rigged as the populists contend, as it is fundamentally, unalterably, never-to-be-the-same-again changed. And long before the financial crisis hit, Americans shrugged off this changing world.

Globalization means that businesses can hire, locate, and expand anywhere in the world. And if one business seizes global opportunities and another in the same sector does not, the slow business goes the way of Radio Shack. Technology means far more can be produced with far fewer workers. If one business seizes the technological opportunities and another in the same sector does not, the slow business goes the way of Borders Books. Together, the forces of globalization and technology detonating simultaneously as a financial crisis hit permanently altered the landscape of the American economy—stunting wages, reducing employment security, and providing the greatest benefits to those at the top. Even today, with plenty of jobs and wealth being created again, the altered economic terrain is preventing new wealth from being broadly shared. As governor of a state in crisis, these were the truths I had to confront if Delaware was to make progress, not headlines.

Fortunately, this had been a lifelong interest of mine. When I was 17, I visited India. Getting off the bus in New Delhi, I found myself immediately surrounded by impoverished children. That visit—and my shock at what I saw—started me on a lifelong journey. I was especially struck by the dichotomy in wealth that I saw in India. It was unlike anything that I had ever experienced in the U.S. The streets seemed to be full of either successful businesspeople scurrying to work or beggars. I didn’t see much in between. Overwhelmed by what I saw, I asked family friends in New Delhi to explain what I was seeing.

Their answer included some discussion of the caste system and the barriers it created for so many Indians. But they also boiled poverty down to one main cause: a profound lack of decent jobs.

I came back to the U.S. a few months later as a freshman at Brown University resolved to change that. I decided to double major in Development Studies and Economics so I could prepare for a career in economic development. As a senior, I thought seriously about entering the Peace Corps. But my biggest takeaway from my classes: If I wanted to change things, I needed to speak the language of business.

So I embarked on a career that took me from banking to consulting to telecommunications. I loved these jobs. Thanks to my time in business and harkening back to those few depressing days in India, I had developed an overriding conviction that a good job trumps all else. When I entered public service first by serving as Delaware’s State Treasurer for ten years, I focused mostly on economic empowerment for those most in need, leading a campaign to promote the earned-income tax credit and creating the Delaware Money School.