WE USED TO GET ELECTRICITY AND AIRPLANES. NOW WE GET FACEBOOK. Tech’s Slowdown Threatens The American Dream. “In a three-month period at the end of 1879, Thomas Edison tested the first practical electric lightbulb, Karl Benz invented a workable internal-combustion engine, and a British-American inventor named David Edward Hughes transmitted a wireless signal over a few hundred meters. These were just a few of the remarkable breakthroughs that Northwestern University economist Robert J. Gordon tells us led to a ‘special century’ between 1870 and 1970, a period of unprecedented economic growth and improvements in health and standard of living for many Americans.”

We seem to be in something more like the not-so-special century now. Bad luck, I guess.