Making Information in America

GOOGLE PASSES EXXON, becomes America's number two company. Wow. Information over oil. And we all knowwhat number one is, correct? All hail to Wal Mart, the Arkansas based king of the heap. We've been told for years, id not decades, that the American economy is now an information based economy, not an industrial based, or agrarian based, as in the remote past. We never really knew what all that meant, until now. If information outsells oil, what else do we need to know to know that information is America's hottest product? And how much longer until information overtakes consumer commodities and brick-a-brack istelf? Ten years ago, you weren't gonna tell anybody that a search engine would soon be soaring towards number one, vaulting past every business which grows, makes, or sells real physical things. The dirty little secret, or is it a white elephant standing there plainly and lonely - is that you simply cannot feed the children or clothe and house them with information. Endless internet searches for celebrity gossip, lawsuits, and sports scores just don't feed the bull dog. To do that, we may've forgotten by now, one must actually cultivate land, plant crops, build factories, and make things, here at home. In such manner are people employed, and fed, near and at home. A long time ago we decided to farm those minor food clothing and shelter-like functions out to third world countries with cheap labor, so we Americans could all take the time to go to college, and become lawyers and stockbrokers, entertainers and celebrities. When Dick, Jane, and Sally get off the bus today, they'll have their "smartphones" in hand, and will be staring hypnotically deep into them, made in China.