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Consumer goods aside, all those who pine for the "good old days" of the 1950s would be clamoring to come back to the 21st Century within a day or so if they were actually transported back to that era Marty McFly style. Yes, you'd be looking for some eccentric white-haired man to rig up some contraption for you to take you back.

Take the state of medicine back then just for example. Heart disease or cancer were death sentences in 1958. Your doctor just told you to go home and settle your affairs. Today, you get a triple-bypass and you're back to work on Monday with the arteries of a 20-year-old man. Most cancers are treatable and have a survival rate will over 50%.

I had to get to Chicago on short notice recently. On the way to the airport, I booked my flight, my hotel and had a rental car waiting for me when I got there - all with a few taps on my mobile device. Once on the plane, I ordered a vodka tonic and had a choice of over 1,000 books and movies on my tablet to keep me occupied during the flight. Try doing that in 1958.

I can go on and on.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. People tend to remember only the good things about the past and quickly forget what a mundane existence it was (compared to today).

Of course, our standard of living and way of life today will seem primitive to those looking back on us 60 years from now.

Nostalgia is a powerful thing. People tend to remember only the good things about the past and quickly forget what a mundane existence it was (compared to today).

I've heard that the reason why all the tools you inherited from your grandfather were so well made is because he broke and threw out all the crappy tools he bought.

Of course, our standard of living and way of life today will seem primitive to those looking back on us 60 years from now.

One may certainly hope so, and technologically speaking, it seems virtually a tautology - obviously, next year's TVs will be better than last year's. More importantly, however, our political and societal institutions are degrading, not advancing; prospects for families and communities continue to be squelched by an engorged state, which squeezes the life out of living humans to feed itself and its creatures.

Despite their can-do spirit, Americans cannot make socialism work any better than other nations have, despite the vanity of its devotees. There is no longer natural population growth - "failure to thrive", as a biologist might describe it. I cannot believe that the System can survive another 60 years, so I predict a socio-political discontinuity.