It has been over 100 years since GK Chesterton visited America. I wrote about his observations on the American “enthusiasm for work” for Liberty Fund.

Henry Oliver commented on much the same thing this week in The American art of being busy.

The whole place was as busy as a hive. It went on and on. Everyone was cheerful. No-one fussed and bothered.

And what of the Americans who are not allowed to work because of the government shutdown? Here is a guy who has rapidly found a way to work in DC again and seems “cheerful”: This furloughed IRS lawyer is living out his dream of being a hot dog vendor

This restlessness and energy likely has something to do with us being currently in the lead for the race to AI. Ho hum… building God while still having the equivalent of the GDP of a small country to drop on Halloween trinkets.