So now that hybrids have enjoyed their moment in the sun, the obligatory backlash seems to be forming. Ford Motor Co., struggling to return to profitability, recently backed away from its bold, less-than-year-old plan to build 250,000 hybrids a year by 2010.

N.R. Murthy tells a vaguely amusing joke. It's worth listening to, since Murthy is chairman of the Indian info-tech juggernaut Infosys and one of the world's leading technologists.

It goes like this: An American do-gooder goes to Africa and sees an African man loafing on the beach. He implores the man, "Hey, you should get a job! Make some money!"

"Why?" the man asks.

"Because you can buy a nice house, and get a nice car, and go on a nice vacation."

"Why do I want to go on a nice vacation?"

"So you can sit on the beach and relax!"

"But I'm already sitting on the beach and relaxing."

As if the digital domain weren't complicated enough, now Congress is getting involved.

Quick: Name a consumer offering, besides gasoline, that has been getting more expensive, not less. It's not food or clothing or electronics or anything sold at Wal-Mart. But take a look at your cable TV bill. Odds are high that the channels you subscribe to cost considerably more than five or 10 years ago. In fact, the price of cable has risen by nearly 70 percent over the past 10 years, nearly twice the rate of inflation.

I'm looking forward to the three-day Memorial Day weekend as much as anybody. It's a great respite from the five-day routine, plus it signals the start of the summer slack-off season. But I've come across some interesting new data that will probably make me a little bit anxious while I'm munching coleslaw in the backyard: Millions of high strivers in countries like India, China, and Singapore are much more willing to forgo these kinds of holidays—and other lifestyle privileges–in order to get ahead.

So let's look around and see whom we can blame for rising gas prices. There's China, selfishly buying up oil for its own mushrooming fleet of cars, with no consideration at all for American drivers. Iran is burnishing its axis-of-evil credentials by making vague threats about destroying its economy and cutting off its own flow of oil to world markets. Hugo Chávez…well, he's buddies with Castro. That's all anybody needs to know about him. Detroit has been forcing us to drive big gas guzzlers for years, and the nefarious oil companies just sit there and…make money!…as demand for their product outstrips supply.

Have you heard? China is poised to take over the world. Its scheming Communist government is scouring the planet for every last bit of oil, steel, and cement. Chinese banks have secret plans to sell off massive amounts of U.S. government securities and create a tidal wave of rising interest rates in America. When President Hu Jintao was in the States recently, his main goal was to persuade American companies to build more stuff in China so his minions can reverse-engineer the products, produce cheap knockoffs, and drive America out of business.

For a while, hybrids were getting all the headlines. Then there were occasional rumblings about diesel and hydrogen as alternatives to plain old gasoline. And suddenly we're hearing a lot about ethanol as a gasoline substitute. So which of these technologies is going to save America from its dependence on foreign oil?

Leonard Liu has a 40-year head start on globalization.

Liu, born in China, is a globe-trotter who has run companies in more countries than many Americans have even visited. He came to the United States as a student in the 1960s, earned a Ph.D. from Princeton, taught at the University of Michigan, and began working at IBM in 1969. In 20 years at Big Blue, he ran research teams that developed SQL, CICS, SNA, and other really important computer stuff that most of us don't understand but rely on every day. One huge project was building the reservation system for United Airlines in the 1980s.

The Durabrand 10-inch portable DVD player available at Wal-Mart retails for $199.94. A group of senators would like to raise the price to $254.67. The Creative Zen Nano Plus 512-megabyte MP3 player seems like a bargain at $89.72; less so at $114.39, the price the senators would prefer that you pay. The price hikes would be the result of a 27.5 percent tariff on goods imported from China, a proposal sponsored by Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York and Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina that is scheduled to come up for a vote in the Senate this week.

Uncooperative data are a drag. When I was researching various ways in which overseas workers and companies are pulling ahead of those in America, I came across some unwelcome evidence. I looked up how many U.S.-based companies belonged to the Fortune Global 100 in 1995 and how many in 2005. I expected to find American companies sliding down the list, replaced by the Samsungs of the world, aggressive upstarts fueled by ambition, hungry customers new to the middle class, and cheap labor. But that's not what has been happening. In 1995, there were 24 U.S. companies in the Global 100. In 2005, there were 33. Corporate America has apparently been getting a bigger share, not a smaller share, of the world's business.