THE GOLDEN QUARTER: Some of our greatest cultural and technological achievements took place between 1945 and 1971. Why has progress stalled? The Greens and the Luddites got power, just as Nixon initiated the Regulatory Explosion that brought us OSHA, EPA, and various new regulatory regimes, even as money was being diverted to transfer payments to people who didn’t produce anything except votes — from funding the X-15 to funding Section 8. Not a formula for progress.