7,000 with a growth rate not including the recent financial trouble of around 3%. that is an amazing accomplishment despite the considerable increase of population during the same period. . . it is hard to make predictions as mills boris said especially about the future. had you said that such an assembly that by somewhere around 2000 or so, 80% of the entire human population would be literate, or that you know they would be a country the size of the united states where the median household word exceeded $100,000, nobody would have believed that. but, here we are. we also have a thing called the united nations subjective well-being index which attempts to measure these things and it just includes the interesting fact that people get happier as they get wealthier and tell around $15,000 a year and after that it may solve problems. what to make of that i don t know. the number of liberal democracies worldwide is gone from something like three in 1800 or zero if you count univer