Qom gained additional prosperity when oil fields were discovered at Sarājeh near the city in 1956 and a large refinery was built between Qom and Tehrān.
His villas were built for a capitalist gentry who, during the period of Palladio's maturity, gained in prosperity and found new economic outlets in agricultural improvement and land reclamation.
But if he is sensible, the main achievement of his eight years in office will be not that he made Taiwan truly independent (which, in almost every respect, it has been for 55 years), but that he helped his country to gain unprecedented prosperity, shoulder to shoulder with China.
"We didn't get and gain this prosperity that we have in this nation -- this level of freedom -- by our own hands.
No state has gained more from prosperity and surpluses than Michigan, where the cities of Flint, Pontiac, Benton Harbor and Detroit formed the downtrodden core of a region that economists called the rust belt.
Other economies, having hit their stride slightly later, are in the process of delivering equally impressive gains in prosperity.
But the region has enjoyed impressive gains in prosperity and stability since the dark days of the 1997 Asian financial crisis.
The working-age population is expanding at barely 1percentt a year, so most of the nation's gain in prosperity must come from productivity.
Just a few years ago, the region experienced surprising gains in prosperity and security, driven in part by commerce around the massive air base and by NATO's desire to keep the region stable.
This is a welcome shift from decades in which the Fed has focused increasingly on financial markets as a proxy for the economy — mistaking asset bubbles for growth and debt-driven gains for prosperity.
