Michael Crichton’s Jurassic Park; he has this little passage: “A hundred years ago, we didn’t have cars, airplanes, computers, or vaccines.”

A hundred years. He’s right. We didn’t have those things, and I mention this because here we are in a so-called recession or on the verge of a so-called recession.

We have the most prosperous country in the history of human civilization, and in particular, the last 100 years, the last 50 especially. Only because of people’s point of reference beginning life as Americans and having expectations, do people get mad, depressed when economic downturns (which are certainly cyclical) occur, because their expectations are much higher than any other people on earth.

The telephone. It took 71 years after the invention of the telephone for 50% of the American people in homes to be able to afford one, to get one; 71 years before half the country had a phone.

It took 52 years before the half the country had electricity.

Radios. Twenty-eight years before half the country had radios.

Personal computers. Nineteen years before half the country had a personal computer.

Can you see the progression? Seventy-one for telephones, 52 for electricity, 28 for radios.

You know what that is? That’s prosperity. That is rapid economic growth.

Color televisions: 18 years before half the country had a color tube in their house.

Cable television: 15 years before half the country was wired.

Cell phones: 14 years before half of American homes had cell phones.

VCRs: 12 years before half the country had VCRs.

CD players: 11 years before half the country had one.

Internet access: 10 years.

DVD players: five years.

iPods: Four years.

You can see, 71, 52, 28, 19, 18, 15, 14, 12, 11, 10, 5, 4.

That represents massive economic growth, massive prosperity, massive discretionary spending on the part of at least half of the country — and for this kind of growth to continue, energy prices have to be market related, and energy has to be plentiful and so forth.

Evidence of the absolute power and greatness of this country economically.

There’s a rule of thumb in marketing when a new product is introduced:

When an innovation reaches 10% of the population, that’s when the floodgates open, and the acceleration to mass demand kicks in. When 10% of the population accesses a new technology or a new product, that’s when the manufacturer says, “Okay, we got something here, we got a hit on our hands,” and that’s when the mass marketing begins, the prices start coming down.

Now, if that figure is still relevant, 10%, think of how long it took, if it took 71 years for the telephone to reach half the American homes, how long did it take for 10% of them to get a phone, or any of the other items on the list? It took a long time. Because the floodgates open after about 10%, that’s when the prices come down and a vast majority of people can afford whatever the new technology is.

I would venture to say that the fact that the world economy is now linked to us, that will limit any downturn that we have. The rest of the world cannot tolerate, it cannot survive if we go down. They’re not going to let it happen. Just in terms of the prosperity of the American people via their hard work — the amount of money and wealth the average American family has, as opposed to a hundred years — no other county on the planet, can compare.