Bryan, I read a very interesting scenario of our country's present and future on a financial advisors website. It was a commentary so to speak on the condition that we are in now and the direction we are headed. We are a mirror image of Rome. We started strong with the majority of the citizenry working and producing and building wealth and national power. Then things start changing where people would rather have the lower class do the meanial and trivial work so as to allow the "middle class" more liesure time to enjoy the fruits of their labor and the wealth that they have amassed. Then it continues to the point that the upper management sees that they can have their products manufactured cheaper in foriegn lands and they can continue to grow their fortunes. As this is happening the middle class is enjoying more of what only the upper class could once afford. Then the middle class losses their place in society when the jobs that were bringing them wealth are eliminated because all of the "work" is now being outsourced. The chasm between the rich and the poor ever widens and the number of poor begins to increase. Then the government steps in and creates artificial wealth to ofset the money that is now leaving the country. Soon the wealth is only a piece of paper and a promise and the power shift goes to the now industrialized nations that were getting all the outsourced work. That is EXACTLY what is going on in our country. And the end result is a total collapse of the economy and the class system implodes on itself to the point that only a very few have any wealth and the very many have reached a level of poverty that was never imagined. Look out your window and you'll see America living this same scenario. It's a house of cards that can not stand. A paper tiger that consumes itself. The natural course of events leads to the destruction of the original system. America = Rome.

Keith