FWIW, I do feel, though, that the Enrons and Tycos are simply the purest expression of a smash-and-grab mindset that pervaded the 90s

Yep. And at the risk of alienating the dot-commers and ex-dot-commers who
comprise 95% of this board, I have to say that in the case of many of those
companies, the smash-n-grab is not only obvious in retrospect, it was
blatantly obvious at the time to absolutely everyone with a clue.

Get the eToiletCleaners website up, go public, hype the stock up to a billion,
pump-n-dump before people realize there isn't really much of a market for
online toilet brush sales.

A good friend of mine actually worked for a company whose idea was to
keep the contents of your clothes closet online (sizes, styles, etc.)
in order to facilitate online clothes purchases.
All you had to do was log on and tell them all about it whenever you bought a
new shirt....

I'm sure many of you have even sillier stories than that.

But if worse comes to worst, try to get some Tabasco, cilantro, curry, and a wok. Then you can probably get through it....
I have been doing some preliminary taste tests with Huy Fong Tuong ot Sricacha "Rooster" Sauce!

Excellent. One should also not ignore the culinary delights of a fine
Grub Bolognese, a Pad Worm Thai, or nice Beetle Vindaloo.

E-mail me your delivery particulars and I'll get it on its way
Done.

A lot of the book was consumed with drawing parallels between recent boom/bubble cycles and previous Gilded Age cycles in Spain, Holland, and England. One of his contentions is that in all of these cases the economies transitioned from actual production into a gilded period of "Financialization" and that decline followed.

Interesting. I have often thought the same thing.
The social impetus here pushes people into being financiers, lawyers, or
(for the dreamers) rock/movie stars, or professional athletes.
These are all fine professions. But it is not really prestigious to be a scientist
or engineer (as I have been told it is in, for example, India).

As a result, many (or most) silicon valley companies are founded, run, and staffed
by many non-citizens from Europe, India, and to some extent China/Taiwan/HongKong/Korea/etc.

Now why are these people willing to pay income taxes in two countries at once?
Because, for the moment, this is where the action is.

Now, the Empeg guys don't want to leave England. And a lot of these other
people would like to return home at some point as well. It seems clear that
if/when the business infrastructure and economic climate become
comparable in many other places around the world, all these wealth-creation
activities will occur there, rather than here.
Certainly the alliance between Venture Capital, Universities, Advertising, and
smart young people with no life (SYPWNL) is rather unique to California. But it isn't impossible
to duplicate, and there are lots of near-misses in other locales in the US and
around the globe. And maybe some of those will be able to avoid
California's high real estate costs, high state tax rate, questionable power
situation, and painful legal morass.
At that point, it makes little sense to do things here.
Similar fates have befallen American manufacturing already.

I've kind of wondered if someplace like Brazil could be the hot new place to be
in a hundred years. They certainly have the natural resources, if they could
get it together in other ways.

In 50 years, America's role may be predominantly in Entertainment, Advertising,
and Finance. (I assume this is what you meant by "financialization," above.)
Technology, BioTech, Medicine, Electronics, Software, Manufacturing, Science,
and Basic Research may well be centered elsewhere. Naturally, this means
the US university system may fall to second-tier status as a consequence.
(I know, a lot of it already is. But the good ones are still among the best in
the world -- for the moment.)