I appologize in advance for the tone of this post but, really, I wish you guys would ditch this fantasy of "smiling faces" south of the border.

I moved south of the border -- to Brazil -- and I have no regrets, but I don't plan on staying here for the rest of my life. The people don't smile more; there is not more opportunity; the women are not more beautiful, the alcoholic beverages are not more powerful...

Looking north, I see the biggest, most successful economy in the world, a standard of living that is the envy of most countries, and - importantly - an incomparable level of economic and personal freedom... and I see a lot of whiners who think a rough patch is a "secular decline" and that natural and inevitable phenomena such as "diminishing marginal returns" and "reversion to the mean" imply that the growth of other countries assumes the decline of ours. Rubbish. You should be ashamed of yourselves.

By ANY measure, Latin America is a worse place to live and thrive. This is so patently obvious that it's not worthy of further discussion --- just take the word of Lil.

So maybe we should all move to Scandinavia. Or maybe Iceland... I hear it's cheap, and they have a diet rich in fresh seafood. And it's sunny 24 hours a day for a month each year (and dark the rest of the time). Oh, and the women are blonde, beautiful and they hate their men. Yes... that's the ticket!

But seriously, I do think we in the USA went astray: Wealth has become too concentrated and allocated in a way that makes no sense, the people have lost power to corporate interests, the crisis weakened the foundations of the economy and hurt many, many people. But the game is not over. Our system works b/c it's flexible, b/c the pendulum swings both ways to correct excesses when they become apparent.

The Obama Admin is doing a great job. Will the spending be as efficient as it could or should be? No. Will the healthcare plan work? Who knows. But just think about the alternatives... Isn't it obvious that stimulus was required and may, to some degree, have worked? Isn't healthcare fcked-up and don't we need to address the issue before it sends us to the poorhouse (or the grave)?

8 years of laissez-faire republicanism allowed the system to get out of whack... The crisis hurt. But 3.5% GDP growth -- even if only for a quarter -- is good news. Maybe, just maybe, we've taken our fist steps on the road to recovery. Maybe we have not heard the last gasp from the USA.

- Musk