Since most of our GDP comes from consumerism, they (th government) have been pushing us to buy, buy, buy since the eighties. When is the last time anyone has heard anyone in the government encourage us to save money? As we produce less manufactured goods and now import more food than we export, labor has solidly moved towards service jobs which have clearly increased. So it is all about consumption and the debt/shopping has been what has kept the economy going....kind of the engine. And much of that has come from government money and cash out of equity in more recent years.

Now that there is no more money, the spending will stop and more layoffs will come...I personally see no other direction. And with global competition pressuring wages, it would seem wages will continuously be driven lower and jobs will continue to bleed. This trend has been going on for over two decades now and we will need to find other ways to reengineer the economy and add to GDP. Even China is beginnning to deal with loss of manufacturing jobs. Clearly we are at the beginning of a long worldwide retraction. Everyone will feel it. This is a world phenomena. After such huge growth around the world, it seems the natural occurrence. Rational buying and decisionmaking needs to regain a footold and until that occurs, it seems we will continue down this path.

I think alternative energies make the most sense in the near term but unfortunately require very high upfront capital intensive investments and I just do not know where the money will come from to do that.