Can We Recapture HP's Garage Magic To Innovate Our Way Out Of This Economic Slump?  + Lee’s take on HPQ, AAPL, MSFT, ORCL, IBM, INTC, MOT, DELL, CSCO, BBY, TAP, STZ, DEO, FO, KO, GE, BA, and MMM.

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) is certainly less cool than its silicon valley neighbor Apple (AAPL), but with annual revenues of around $115 billion compared to Apple’s $43 billion, it has roughly three times the sales -- not to mention a much more diversified product line.  But these two companies have some common DNA. They were both started in a garage.

In fact, many of the biggest companies like Microsoft (MSFT), Oracle (ORCL), International Business Machines (IBM), Intel (INTC), Motorola (MOT), Dell (DELL), and Cisco (CSCO) started some place like a garage, basement, or a kindly, yet strict mother-in-law’s kitchen table.

With our economy in a strange unsure drifting pattern, maybe we need more people hiding out in garages inventing useful stuff everyone needs. What’s stopping them?  I might have a few ideas on this, as you probably expected…

Read on for Lee’s insights on how your garage could fix this economy…

Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard in front of the garage that launched their $115 billion company

The inside view of Hewlett-Packard's first office/lab

Back in the late 1960’s and 1970’s, the United States was being battered by foreign manufacturers taking away US jobs and budget-busting bills from a certain Southeast Asian war that was going longer than expected.  Other countries around the globe were just starting to figure out how to design and manufacture things like color televisions, radios, and cars better and cheaper than people from places like Ohio, Michigan, Illinois and Massachusetts. The trend was not going in the right direction.

People here were scared that the USA might be relegated to a second-class world power.  I’m not sure what that would have meant back then, besides the slight inconvenience that our President might not get the best seat in some Paris restaurant or might have to wait in line at some Swiss ski hill. But, suffice it to say, people were in a frazzle. Long gas station lines during the 1973 Arab Oil Embargo were probably another wake-up call.  Hyperinflation at the end of the 1970s unsettled a few people, especially the ones who wanted to buy houses when mortgage rates were nearing 20% a year.

That’s right; there is only one enduring way we can really fix this economy and trigger the kind of economic growth to pay for things like national healthcare, baby boomer social security bills, and our grandchildren’s education. We will need to rebuild our manufacturing base with relentless innovation.

Unfortunately, we can’t outsource innovation. If we could, we would not be in this pickle known around the world as an economic meltdown. We need to do it ourselves. Now, by “ourselves,” I don’t mean me personally; I mean you.

Dave Packard (left) and Bill Hewlett in their garage. Is that an early video game system?

Could innovation be as simple as following Bill’s and Dave's rules?

Some people might take that garage and go on a Best Buy (BBY) shopping spree. They would outfit it with the latest 3D big screen television, surround sound audio, and Xbox gaming equipment. And don’t forget the fully-stocked bar, full of products from companies like Molson Coors (TAP), Constellation Brands (STZ), Diageo (DEO), Fortune Brands (FO), and Coca-Cola (KO). Why innovate when you can just have fun?

Believe me, I am the first one in line when it comes to fun and the last one in line when it comes to hard work. But this is our country, and potentially – if the Chinese start cashing in their tonnage of U.S. savings bonds – our way of life at stake. Whatever that means exactly is up to you, but it is not good unless you have a taste for old-boot soup over an open fire out by the train yard.