300 Million Reasons to Celebrate!

Tomorrow morning at 7:46 a.m. ET, the 300 millionth American will join us.

We don't know yet if he or she will be an immigrant or a newborn, but we do know that an expanding country is great for all of us.

America is now the third-largest nation in the world in terms of population, and with all of these great minds being born into our country, or immigrating here from abroad, the Census Department tells us that things keep getting better:

• The price of milk has dropped from $7.22 / gallon in 1915 to $3.00 / gallon today. With more great minds thinking of more ways to produce milk efficiently, things get better.
• Deaths from tuberculosis ? a disease I've never even encountered ? have dropped from 140 per 1,000 people (holy heck! Imagine 1 out of 7 people at your company dropping dead from 'consumption') to about 0.2 deaths per 1,000 people.
• Life expectancy at birth has increased from 47 years in 1900 to 78 years today. That's 29 extra years to watch the Yankees make the play-offs!
• And the number of Grateful Dead shows, John Grisham thrillers, and Oprah TV specials have gone from zero to many.

Life keeps getting better, and since the 200 millionth American, Bobby Woo of Atlanta, Georgia, was born on November 29 th, 1967, we've been joined by a net increase of almost 100 million new citizens.

And what have your new fellow Americans been busy doing since we crossed the 200 million mark thirty-nine years ago?

Well, immigrants founded eBay, Yahoo!, and Google. Native-born Americans have sung "Hey Ya!", challenged us with Freakonomics, and distracted your teens with MySpace. And we have all benefited as a culture as sushi came to our ballparks, reggae and salsa to our airwaves, and our Californian wines have come to be recognized as some of the best in the world.

In short, with more brains to think with (and voices to sing with, fingers to type with, and eyes to see with) our lives get better and better and better.

All in all, an impressive, enthusiasm-inducing track record for our nation.

What will the 400 millionth American bring? How about the One Billionth? (Which, if we grow at our average historical growth rate of 1.31 percent per year, we will achieve by 2098!)

Heady stuff, Readers, and the promise of an even brighter future ahead! So let's get on to it and help your 299,999,999 fellow Americans this week by getting you into a more productive, more exciting, more fantastic job!

And, by the way, if the stork is delivering your new American tomorrow, Tuesday, October 17th, please write in, with pics, to let us know about your "300,000,000th American"! We'd love to celebrate with you!