Looking to the future

"A few years ago the National Science Foundation put out a scary and much- discussed statistic. In 2004, the group said, 950,000 engineers graduated from China and India, while only 70,000 graduated from the United States. But those numbers are wildly off the mark. If you exclude the car mechanics and repairmen - who are all counted as engineers in Chinese and Indian statistics - the numbers look quite different. Per capita, it turns out, the United States trains more engineers than either of the Asian giants."

"We are living through the third great power shift in modern history. The first was the rise of the Western world, around the 15th century....The second shift which took place in the closing years of the 19th century, was the rise of the United States....During this Pax Americana, the global economy has accelerated dramatically. And that expansion is the driver behind the third great power shift of the modern age - the rise of the rest."

The foregoing are from the upcoming book "The Post-American World," by Fareed Zakaria, a regular contributor to Newsweek magazine. His book is excerpted in the May 12, 2008, issue and the article is well worth reading. I am looking forward to the book itself, due soon in bookstores everywhere free men and women think for themselves.