The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence |
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December 22, 2009
Call him Hummer Man -- our man of the decade.
Call him Hummer Man -- our man of the decade.
It was 2005, and the young Chinese man had parked his beast of a vehicle, a cherry-red Hummer with big fog lamps and tires the size of Nebraska, at a busy intersection in downtown Shanghai. As he sat in the driver's seat, his fellow Chinese passed and marveled.
"What a beautiful machine," a reporter yelled up to the driver.
The man looked down, pointed to the hood and responded simply:
"Turbocharged."
There were many events that grabbed world headlines in this first decade of the 21st century: the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack on the U.S.; the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that followed; natural disaster in Asia; financial intoxication, and the subsequent global purge and crash.
But a good argument can be made that Hummer Man, poster child for new affluence, embodies the more fundamental story of our times -- and the far more dominant and lasting force affecting world affairs.
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