The Terrifying Future Facing America
Eric deCarbonnel
Lost Vegas: Vanguard.
During the boom years, no place in America boomed more than Las Vegas. But when the economy collapsed, Vegas fell hard. Laura Ling tours the wreckage of Sin City, from unemployed strippers and half-built, abandoned casino projects, to hospitals turning away cancer patients and ambulances, to one of the few remaining boom industries--evicting people.
"Lost Vegas" previews the terrifying future facing America. We are looking at a disaster unprecedented in recent history.
America's flawed "pro-growth" economy In the 1980s, the US adopted economic policies that favored cost cutting and global trade. And where the US used to be the manufacturing sector of the world, it stopped making goods, and instead started buying goods from Asia, where products were cheaper because people were paid less to make them.
The US was flooded with cheap goods, and Americans were encouraged to spend more money. And eventually consumer spending which used to account for 60% of the US economy had jumped to 70%. Factory workers in the midwest lost their jobs and many of them ended up leaving for growing places like Las Vegas. --Quote from "Lost Vegas"
In the last twenty five years, the US has outsourced virtually its entire manufacturing sector. We as a nation have allowed ourselves to become totally dependent on foreign oil (those 11mph SUVs), and we have outsourced the productions of our most basic necessities to places like China. This means that a devaluation of the dollar will instantly wipe out America's standard of living, leaving us as third world citizens. This dollar devaluation is now underway.
The 'bad' phase of this financial crisis is only beginning
Up until now, while things may have been bad on an individual level (job loss, foreclosures, etc...), the financial crisis hasn't impacted the way America works. People may have cut back on spending, but the basics of American life haven't been drastically altered. However, that is about to change as the dollar collapses over the coming months.
In the longer term, the manufacturing in the United States will recover. Companies will start outsourcing jobs here, as we will be the new China (weak currency with millions of people desperate for work). The US is also blessed with some of the best agricultural land on Earth. The people responsible for this economic/financial mess will go to jail, and the US economy will experience real grow based on the production real goods (and not over-consumption and foreign debt).
