Dear Gabor Steingart,

http://www.spiegel.de/international/0,1518,439766,00.html

An interesting article, however you say:

"First, nowhere in the world can you find such a high concentration of optimism and daring."

I find these repeated claims of American "Can-Do" superiority just plain sick. By any measure, Americans do not stand out in front of other peoples in terms of optimism, daring or simply the ability to get on with the job and to complete it.

Scotland is an example of a place that has consistently produced some of the greatest minds in the world. Australia has one of the highest per capita ratios of Patents granted to population. I worked for a Japanese company, and while perhaps individuals do not shine as much, when a team of Japanese are focussed on a goal, they are the most productive people I have worked with.

From my point of view, the myth of the American "Can-Do" attitude was blown apart when I worked in the telecommunications industry in the 1990s. While working in Zurich in Telecommunications R&D, I met Americans and met professionals who had worked in American, and they all had the characteristic of extremely narrow areas of specialisation (and with that, a strong reluctance to step outside those narrow areas) and they were basically lazy workers unprepared to put in the hard effort to do a top job.

No, America lost her will to work sometime after the Vietnamese War. They have been in decline since, and your article is really talking about the results of decades of lazy, indolent, yet arrogant attitudes from American workers.

Regards,

[Cockeyed Bob - Sent 26 Oct 06 via email to spon_feedback@spiegel.de]