We woke up from the American Dream. It’s sinking in, I think. I just had a little aha, at least. For a long time, we’ve been making money producing stuff we want. As opposed to stuff we need.

The rest of our money-making has revolved around conceptual investing — making money gambling. There’s been no shortage of new money-stunt ideas.

Interestingly, aside from the money circus, whose tent collapse is smothering us, the sexiest new-product ideas are popping up in the Computer-Internet marketplace. I think most of these ideas are well beyond stuff we need — how many new jobs will Steve Jobs produce with his hand-held plastic screen? How much are we producing Twitter-ing among ourselves?

We need new ideas. The ideas we’re not getting, or at least not hearing about, are ideas that would revolutionize the delivery of basic needs, and create new jobs. How shall we do this?