"Whither goest thou, America, in thy shiny car in the night?" Jack Kerouac asked in On the Road. That was the Fifties. That shiny car is pretty beat up these days. It's supposed to get 100 miles to the gallon, so long as the temperature never drops below 75 and the gasoline has additives like the joy of children and the smiles of unicorns. And you can't buy the car because you can't get approved for that loan. Instead you ride a bicycle, pedaling furiously, dodging trucks delivering goods from factories in Shanghai, on your way to a job that may not last.