>>Really? And exactly where do you get your information from. I can tell you from personal experience that this is not the case. I just got a contract 2 weeks ago from a large international firm that is on track for its best year ever. In the last quarter this company has hired around 200 people. That is local people. Not jobs off shore.

I'm glad you found employment to your liking, but the plural of anecdote is not data. The most recent figures I can find show that of the 91,000 new jobs in the US private sector from July to August, 58,000 were in small businesses with fewer than 50 employees. Compared to 3,000 new jobs in big firms with more than 500 employees. QED.

Not that this has anything to do with my original point, which was that the lack of a Knighthood or similar in the US leaves the "size of the pile" as the only recognized index of success. Consider Bill Gates: he was knighted by the Queen and regularly receives international awards for his current endeavors, but the US has no suitable award to grant him. He can't even call himself "sir" because he's not a Brit or a member of the Commonwealth. So why not create an equivalent US award for people who make a difference to more than just the size of their own pile? That's a story of community engagement and philanthropy as much as anything. As usual, where's the victim?