1 Whereas other societies look to the past for guidance, we cast our nets forward.
2 It is the belief in a brighter future that gives us optimism
3 Even these days, when not all progress seems positive (nuclear weapons, air pollution, unemployment, etc) , the belief remains that for every problem there is a rational solution.
4 The job of the parents is to give the children every opportunity while they are growing up and then get out of their way.
5 What deference people in authority do command is based on their actual powers rather than on their age, wisdom, or dignity.
6 In a society that changes as fast as ours, experience simply does not have the value that it does in traditional societies
7 It has taken a long time to convince the public that free enterprise does not mean that a company should be free to pollute the air, foul the rivers, and destroy the forest.
8 The assembly line reduced workers to cogs of machinery and made their jobs unutterably boring, but it produced goods fast.
9 Food is prepackaged and shopping is impersonal, but the efficiency of the operation produces lower prices and less shopping time.
10 As an American is always striving to change his lot, he never fully identifies with any group
11 In America, there are no such expressions such as in China where ‘the fat pig gets slaughtered,’ or in Japan, where ‘the nail that sticks out gets hammered down’.
12 This freedom from the group has enabled the American to become ‘Economic Man’-one directed almost purely by profit motive, mobile and unencumbered by family or community obligations.
13 Equipped with the money, one can acquire the taste, style, and ideas that mark each class and launch a quick ascent of the social ladder.
14 Actually, persons in status societies who are secure in their niches are allowed more eccentricity than Americans, who rely heavily on signals that other people like them.
15 When half the population goes to college, one cannot expect the colleges to maintain the same standards as in countries where only the elite attend.
16 Just as not every Japanese is hardworking and deferential to superiors, not every Chinese is devoted to family, not every American is ambitious or patriotic-or even unsophisticated.
17 No one could seriously think that anyone who grows up poor, lives in a bad neighborhood, and attends an inferior school has an opportunity equal to that of someone more favored
18 Americans may not have achieved equality, but at least they aspire to it ,which is more than many other nations can claim.
19 In many countries, when jobs become available for young people in distant cities, when television begins to dominate home life, when ready-made foods appear in the markets, the culture appears more ‘American’—although the resemblance could be entirely superficial.
20 Someone who looks around or down appears shifty to Americans, although in fact one doesn’t stare continuously at the other person, but glances elsewhere every few seconds.
21 When the demand for something is greater than its supply, producers and suppliers will sense the possibility of making a profit—the excess of revenues over expenses is the profit
22 As the case illustrates, competition takes four general forms: pure competition, monopoly, monopolistic competition, and oligopoly.
23 The classic example of pure competition occurs with a commodity, like wheat or corn, that has so many producers that no one of them can control its selling price
24 A monopoly occurs when one company alone offers a particular food or service and therefore controls the market and price for it.
25 Private restaurants serve gourmet food for $70 per person; incentives boosted agricultural production 25 percent and industrial output 80 percent in just three years; farmers are encouraged to raise as much as the can on their own plots, and some become almost rich in process
26 All these changes in China’s economic life have brought changes in China’s social and cultural life as well, many of which unwanted.
27 If productivity measures the efficiency of an economy, a measure of what an economic system produces is its gross national product (GNP), which is the current market value of all final goods and services that a nation produces within a particular period.
28 Current wisdom says that if you want a successful product, you need first to perform detailed market analysis, making sure that there are plenty of people who need the new product and that your entry into the market will be able to gain a significant share of that market.
29 Started at the turn of the century, 3M (a giant American company) has been growing at a healthy rate of about 10 percent a year and it boasts of having 45000 products on the market.
30 An entrepreneur is someone like Tom Monaghan, the man who after brushes with bankruptcy turned Domino’s Pizza into the nation’s fastest-growing franchise chain
31 The extent to which the broadcast media should be censored for offensive language and behavior involves a conflict between our right as individuals to freely express ourselves and the duty of government to protect its citizenry from potential harm
32 Although we may not have conclusive scientific evidence of a cause-effect relationship, ample anecdotal evidence establishes a significant correlation.
33 Moreover, both common sense and our experiences with children inform us that people tend to mimic the language and behavior they are exposed to
34 Those who advocate unbridled individual expression might point out that the right of free speech is intrinsic to a democracy and necessary to its survival
35 In sum, it is in our best interest as a society for the government to censor broadcast media for obscene and offensive language and behavior.
36 While individuals have primary responsibility for learning new skills and finding work, both industry and government have some obligation to provide them with the means of doing so
37 The suggested reason for buying the car is obvious: it is the intelligent choice.
