While America has several things to fret about at the time of her 234th birthday, "we still lead the world in pretty much everything," says Tom Peters. Tom didn't list everything. I'm not going to attempt, either. But, I do want to highlight one thing. And that is: The knowledge America (creates and) shares with the World ... through its universities, books, journals, blogs, TV (think Discovery, National Geographic), etc.
The instant competitive differentiation my former employer Cognizant Technology Solutions enjoyed when I set up India's first software usability lab in the late 90s was possible because ... I had earlier taken a usability course at University of California, Berkeley ... and received free and sincere mentoring from course instructor and ACM Lifetime Award winner Richard Anderson for several years since then.
Today, about 95,000 Indians alone are studying in the US. Like me, each one will have a success story regardless of where they choose to live. Wouldn't it be a nice gesture to turn around and say "Thank you!"