One of the nicer things about the New Year is a tendency for people to step back and look at the Big Picture.

Here is a fine example from Jonathan Capehart at the Washington Post. He takes three game-changing trends: US energy independence, 3D-printing, and the rise of global scepticism about public institutions.

Take 3D-printing:

With 3-D printing, “[W]e could foresee a world that the cost of producing a car would be more or less the same if it happens in Detroit, if it happens in Stuttgart, if it happens in Mexico,” Pardinas said. “What would that mean for the concept of industrial outsourcing?

“We have to find a big drawer in our mental desks and put all the cliches that explain the world of the past and try to find new ones to explain what’s going on,” he continued. “We foresaw or we were comfortable in a world where China was the hub of industrial manufacturing, but with 3-D printing, any part of the world could become a new hub of industrial manufacturing.”

Blimey. Just think about that. Distances collapse again.

Read the whole thing.