Sorry, I didn't mean to take it so far off the original subject. It just kinda of bites me in the rear to get bent over. Since this has turned into somewhat serious discussion, I thought I would add a few more thoughts.
As though AMT wasn't bad enough, the government is acting like they are doing us a favor by shafting us. What they sometimes fail to realize is the more they try and take, the more people will look for ways to take it back.
The middle class is disappearing and they seem happy just selling everyone out to their own benefit. Whether it is good ole McCain / Dems pitching amnesty or our RINO (republican in name only) Mr. Bush attempting to sell our ports, its all about them cashing out and us suffering.
They tell us that Americans don't want those jobs, but nobody is talking about the jobs we DO WANT being taken by L-1 visa people coming in and sitting at the desk right next to you. I've seen TONS of them! The company sets up a shell office in the US and then ships their folks over to other parts of the country to work at other companies. Hell, I've even gotten resumes from "shell" L-1 companies that will "contact" their people to do work. How is that in our best interest?
Our system is screwed; we've been sold a bill of goods called the global economy. It seems that it's only a matter of time before the entire system starts to collapse. Manufacturing jobs have moved offshore a long time ago and now the Service jobs are on their way as well. Those havent moved offshore are being supplemented with L-1 visa people on-shore. The only jobs that will be left are the ultra low end service (gas stations, restaurants, etc...) and the ultra high end (companies and management). Once the government feels the pain, the only option will be to raise the taxes on corporations, etc... When that occurs you will see the headquarters of companies start to move out of the country.
Our best bet of the moment is on the currency exchange. I would rather have a job where the currency exchange rate stinks and can only travel international once every couple of years vs. having a strong currency and no job. The previous policy of a strong currency accelerated offshore job loses and caused a false increase in the standard of living (cheaper products, oil, etc...).
Now that the job damage is serious and continues to get worse, we will feel the impact of no jobs and increased inflation. Since the dollar doesn't buy much at this point, everything will go up and has already started. The cause of this is being spun as "high oil prices", but it's actually a combination of oil and price inflation due to the decreasing value of our currency. One hope to offset this would be to buy local goods, but since we don't make anything here anymore that is almost impossible.
It took decades for a strong currency policy to do this damage and it will take more decades (assuming the currency stays low) for the damage to be repaired.
We could easily be looking at a decade long recession. Don't think it could happen? Take a look at Japan during the 1995-2005 periods. They had their interest rates at 0% for a LONG time and it did NOTHING to pull them out.
Until our standard of living gets ALOT lower and their standard of living get ALOT higher, we will feel some serious pain.
See you at the bottom