While we were building Hummers

... Europe was serious about green jobs.

Let's see. We shipped our manufacturing jobs to China for low wages. When we couldn't provide enough high-tech guest workers, we shipped our software jobs to India and anywhere else that would take them. We put religious taboos in the way of biotech, so that's happening in Europe and Asia. Our auto industry could be down to the Big One soon.

What we did was use the borrowed proceeds of China's industriousness to inflate a real estate bubble that we used to finance consumption. We pushed investment paper at each other like so many Big Macs. Now we're truly and thoroughly screwed.

And we still can't build a passive house.

Update: Bob Herbert says it better: "Stop being stupid."