The World's Fair

The news from Shanghai seems daunting: Are the Americans relevant? Does the United States still matter? Why does no one line up to visit the US pavilion at the World's Fair? Of course this may be old news (on several fronts), namely the crowds at the World's Fair have grown significantly larger in the last weeks and now there are long lines every nation's pavilion. So the lesson may be: We matter because there are lot of people in Asia.

But what does the U.S. have to offer the world? Yesterday was the anniversary of one of our most potent offerings...Hiroshima. But these days we aren't dropping nukes on folks (although we still have plenty if the occasion arises). These days we seem to be the world's consumers. I believe it was the economist Peter Schiff who surmised that one can view the world economy as seven people in a room - six Asians and one American. Each of the Asians have a particular task or job. The American's job is just to eat. Schiff postulated that one day the Asians will figure out that they can eat more and the American will be obsolete. But Schiff's model doesn't relate the entire picture. We do more than just eat, we have the most powerful military in the world. We eat and we instill fear.

I'm not sure what the USA Pavilion at the world's fair offers. Perhaps we have exhibits on the new electric car technology or new oil well-capping technology or sculptures made out of plastic bags. If I could design the exhibit, I would divide the pavilion into two parts: one representing the future and one representing the present. For the "future" exhibit, there would be rows of recliners with thirteen-year-old boys playing Wii on big-screen TV's. Every boy would possess a super-size bag of potato chips to help sustain his wrist movements. The "present" exhibit would consist of an enormous Rube Goldberg machine with an initiating lever marked "freedom." Folks - folks like us- could line up to pull the lever. On the far end of the machine would be a "freedom hater" - an individual who is definitely not like us. Pulling the lever would initiate a series of machinations - links in a crazy causal chain - that would eventually result in the death of the "freedom hater." But wait there's more. Each lever puller would get a commemorative token, carefully placed in a fresh plastic bag.