We are already significantly ahead in creating technology tools and services, and we are on the threshold of a new era of data-driven progress where the jobs of the future will not look like the jobs of the past.

FORBES: Three Ways The President Can Create Digital Jobs Now

Just as the printing press, by improving the spread of ideas, helped bring on the Renaissance, mind to mind connections could herald a new era of progress.

FORBES: Better than the Borg: The Neurotech Era

The digital era is unlike the first century of wireless communication, when gadgets were analog and technological progress glacial.

FORBES: Magazine Article

But, in the era of big data and exponential technological progress, can there really still be a role for the 1472 model of banking?

BBC: Viewpoint: The end of High Street banking as we know it

The transformative progress in hydrocarbons has launched a new era of production that Romney seeks to accelerate.

FORBES: Romney Chooses A Tech-Centric Energy Plan To Jumpstart Jobs And Economic Growth

And yet, despite the drum roll of crises above, America over the years has found ways not only to cope but to lead the world into an era of extraordinary opportunity and progress.

FORBES: Counting America's Successes