Good commercial. As an engineer that has worked at GM, Microsoft, International Paper, Starbucks, Bertlesmann Group and many others - I've lived international business for 20 years and its a pain the ass to work with Europeans and the Chinese. 18 weeks for paternity leave you say? 4 straight weeks on holiday in the Med you mentioned? 1 whole month for Chinese New Year - seriously? And you bitch when I take a Friday off to go fishing and you can't get an immediate answer. F you. Hey Ireland - you'll get your TPS cover page when I give it to you and ONLY after some fishing has been had.

America is pretty much responsible for every truly major, modern invention in the history of mankind. The auto, nukes, space flight, man on the moon, the cotton gin, tv, radio, phone, mass scale agriculture, robotics, electronics, bio medical, SW / HW and a PC on every desk just to start. Capitalism at its finest (which yes, has its known drawbacks). The last thing the middle east gave the world was the Abacus. Russia, E.U., Latin and South America? HA! All of our tech was exported into Asia, so they are great at replication...but not true invention. On the whole, it's not always in the Asian cultural way to question "why" and make something better. The Japanese are proud, ego driven perfectionists and that keeps them from gitin' er' done (look at Fuki Nuke disaster). Minus the Germans (which are not living breathing, normal human beings i.e. robots), the Europeans are just drunk and on permanent holiday. For the most part, America shows up with our shirt sleeves rolled up. This American way of thinking also finds its way into the Military. Nobody else ever seems to show up. We're not perfect, but at least we show up.

In summation, from a business perspective - we pretty much rock and the rest of the world can suck it. While things aren't the best here on the homefront, we ain't going anywhere anytime soon and if we do...we ain't gonna go out without a serious, world altering fight. The American way...

EDIT: Russia was first into space, but we perfected it. So that's a draw...