America's economic future

I just watched CNBC, and there are some bad news for the long-term future of America.

• Jobless claims are up - most states have lost close to 10% of their manufacturing jobs to Mexico and China
  • The effects NAFTA and WTO are beginning to surface
• CNBC cited "the cost of pension plans" as a big problem for companies,
  • In order to get profitability back to "normal" (which is in the double-digits), they're going to need to adress the "issue"
• Tech jobs are also being exported to India, China, Mexico, and Russia
• American exports are not doing too great despite the weakening dollar
  • An analyst on the show suggested that perhaps America should have a policy towards a weaker dollar
    • But isn't this the kind of policy the commentators pointed fingers at in Japan?
      • In addition to it causing further recession like it did in Japan, a weaker dollar will have more serious effect, because America has a huge trade deficit, and won't be able to afford its imports.

Other bad news aside from what CNBC said today:

• Credit card debt is still at an all-time high, which spells trouble if the recession sticks around
• Deficit spending is way up, which again takes money out of the pockets of people in the future
• A large chunk the money spent by the government currently is funnelled to corporations, whose main focus is overseas (such as the reconstruction of Iraq)
• My overall conclusion is that the future of the American economy is squarely in the hands of large corporations, but there is a conflict of interest
  • The comapanies would like for the domestic economy to improve so that the consumption increases
  • However, they would like even more to "cut their costs" by
    • exporting jobs overseas and
      • There's very little that's stopping them with NAFTA and WTO in place
    • undermining labor even further.
      • There's very little stopping them here as well, because
        • The labor unions are Weak / non-existent
        • The government is mainly on the side of big business has not been strict on enforcing international labor standards
  • America is still a rich country with rich people, so there is a long way down for the economy to go
  • The next target in the class war is the lower-middle class, which is going to be wiped out in the next 10 years.