The rise in availability of consumer credit has kept many people blind to the fact that their income is falling. I think that, in the aftermath of the recession, a lot of people are going to wake up to this.

I'm nagged by this too... I'm keenly aware that companies bringing jobs to impoverished nations is critical to raising the standard of living there... yet I also rail savagely against companies that offshore jobs from America and leave workers here high and dry.

I think that the rivets are rusting out of the ship of our civilization. I think we've hit the wall where large-scale private capitalism is now longer sustainable. There's only so many jobs you can offshore to keep prices down before no one will be able to afford your goods back home, at any price. Also, let's face it, the job pool is shrinking. Manufacturing is heavily automated, and low-level service industries are headed in that direction. I don't think population reduction will fix this, because reducing the number of people will also reduce demands for goods and services, shrinking the job pool more. We need to manifest the social will to demand changes to capitalism.

I firmly believe that we could manage our resources in a way that could detach standard of living from employment and move towards equalization. It just calls for a mindshift change.