I always thought the economic boom in the late 90's was due to massive corporate infrastructure spending.

I thought the ozone layer was better due to reduction in CFCs and we don't hear so much about acid rain in the USA. Having spent time in china, their polution is atrocious.

If we wanted to "solve" the US's energy and carbon issues, we could make signifigant progress if the political will was there, but it will require massive infrastructure spending and at least in the short term, embracing "scary" technologies. I don't think the demand is there at this point.

Trade secrets?

Of course scientists will still publish their work, but I would imagine that the publication system might change a bit.

Sounds like the author doesn't understand the difference between a design patent and a utility patent.

Exactly. Having to pre-fund the next 75 years of retirement benefits, including for those retiree's not yet born makes little sense. Its 11 billion dollar "paper" loss.

I know quite a few people who have jumped multiple classes, including some of whom I went to school with or socialize with. None the less, here are two from my own family. One thing you will notice is that successful people have a long term time orientation, while those with short term time orientations do not do as well.

Father's family lost the farm, joined the military, went to a service academy, became an AVP at a fortune 500. Arguably moved from lower prole to upper middle or lower upper.

Maternal grandfather, worked in steel mills, got an MD, became head of dept at an ivy league medical school. Arguably, moved from lower/mid prole to lower upper.

Both of them studied hard, did not engage in conspicuous consumer consumption, made the right choices, and had some luck too. The first 3 are a result of long term time orientation.

I know quite a few immigrants also who came over here penniless and have built up businesses, putting them in upper middle to lower upper based on net worth, but not necessarily social characteristics. Its the same story, avoid consumer consumption, reinvest into their business or personal investments. Even if you are a "wage slave" its perfectly possible to sock away a considerable amount of money if you don't eat out, don't smoke/drink, buy/lease a new car all the time, buy a smaller house, don't do trendy things, or rent out rooms, find a hobby that pays etc. You can then fund your investments or develop capital for a small business. It is interesting to see among professional peers has actual wealth, and who has a bunch of worthless goods.

Short term time orientation for lower classes, and long term orientation for managerial/professional classes makes sense (with the heriditary upper being a different stroy). If you don't know where your next meal comes from, then you aren't worried about tomorrow, but since few people starve in the USA, when compared to history, short term thinking results in self destructive behaviour. Not wearing condoms, leads to children which take away from the ability to study or run a business. Buying trendy consumer goods, takes away long term capital. Caring about short term social status, effects what trajectory your life gets set on.

With respect to the article, different ethnic groups may have different genetic differences, but its cultural differences which matter the most. Living in a culture of perpetual poverty may trap one into short term thinking. Living in a culture with high expectations, focuses on long term planning. Living in a culture known for being enterpenural, will result in more entrepenuers. You get the rare person, who may have a different set of goals/values than that of the dominant culture in which they grow up, but most people just do what everyone else does. That's why they don't do markedly better than anyone else.

Commericals are generically detected through:

switch from stereo to mono
black frames
cue tones

Thats why you should have bought a replay tv. IT had all the features you wanted on a Tivo back in the day, 480p, ethernet, internet show transfer, automatic commerical skipping etc.

I looked at an issue of Newsweek a few weeks back, the page count was much lower than I recall it being back in the 90's.

How does buddism figure into that

Depending on what your political viewpoint is, they may indeed look the same to you. For example, if you were a libertarian, or constitutionalist, they both would look the same. Probably true for a marxist or green too.

I listened in on the Arizona senate debate yesterday, and the libertarian cannidate kept on pointing out how both the D guy and the R guy were basically saying that they were for the status quo. For the presidential election, I don't see any of these guys proposing world changing ideas. Heck the 5 point plans from their stump speaches are the same on 4 out of the 5 points (http://www.npr.org/2012/10/03/162246644/romney-obama-have-parallel-points-on-the-economy) and advocate the same foreign policy.

One of the reasons the Post office is losing money is that they have to fund their employee's health benefits for 75 years in advance. That is to say, it has to fund employee benefits for employees that haven't even been hired yet. Its an artificial crisis created by congress.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/19/us/politics/postal-service-set-to-default-on-billions-in-health-payments.html?_r=0

I'm not defending how the post office is run, just saying there are other issues on its balance sheet.

Given that the number of military veterans in the USA outnumber our current military strength 10-1, it is certainly possible that the US military would have some difficulty. That being said, the number of people who have served or currently serve in combat arms is rather small.

and Diamond Star motors.

I thought they opened plants here to get around import limits due to Voluntary Export Restraints negotiated in the 1980s? Wasn't that one of the reasons that infiniti, acura, and lexus were created?