pg wrote on 09/17/13 at 15:34:19:Many of you have much more experience than I regarding how things are trending. Economically speaking, how do you foresee things in a 5, 10, 15 year timeframe? This should be interesting.
This could have been a good topic on its own.. good question. Actually, I have very limited experience.. but I will take a shot. ( note USA only)
Five years: One of the current bubbles is Higher Education. Inflation in that is way ahead of all other rising costs. But this bubble, like the housing bubble is a bit more insidious. Kids are getting educations, but the debt they are accumulating is greater or extends that period that it takes to pay it back. On top of low paying jobs as their reward.. the fact is... there just are not enough jobs at any pay, to support them all. When this bubble breaks, schools that have spent millions to support the flood of students will be hard pressed to fill the seats to pay back their loans. Government will be asked to step in and cover the losses. Meaning time students will default on loans, and or rates and payback will need to be extended or forgiven.
10 years: The US will be neck deep in over educated and super in debt workers, all competing for service jobs. Most will be part of the "working poor". The Obamacare plan has/will force employers to make everyone "part-time". Employment will increase... but most will not get enough hours/pay to actually make comfortable living. Savings, retirement plans, homes, even personally OWNED cars will be a thing of past. Rent your apt, lease the car, and hope you die in your sleep at a young age. The corps that control money (already) will continue to chain people into debt, which they will do just survive the next day. With the "middle class" extinct, government will re-define economic classes. The working poor will be the new middle class.
15 years; Finally as the "boomers" start dying off, the generations that had to support them will get a bit of break. Many of the boomers will be dealt with by the death squads, and the masses will cheer it. The result will be that more and more "relaxed" rules will be put in place so that younger and healthier groups can be added to the list of those for whom return on cost is not viable (allowed to die). Other groups will be added as well (mentally ill, disabled, veterans). The states will have become redundant government entities, and give up their identity ( ie the federal will take over failed state economies) starting with California, Mississippi, ect. People living there will be under only federal law. This will cause mass movement of people. As welfare populations move in and business and working poor move out.
Most of what I have stated.. really already exists in some form. Its just not obvious/official. Most American will be excited by the downward spiral. That or they will sigh when some other group is chosen to be decimated and they will scamper to exist in other group. I don't think the American people will rise up.. there will not be a stand.. There will be a whimper, and the world will turn away to their own problems and wonder how it all came to be.