[quote="Divemistress of the Dark"]
I'm reading the new Krugman book now and there's a lot of interesting background on exactly this topic. Although actually he goes into Latin America, Asia, and the 1995 Mexico crisis/NAFTA.[/quote]
First of all, what a cutie!
That's a good read. I read his website. I'm reading Common Wealth: Economics for a Crowded Planet by Jeffrey D. Sachs, and it's also very insightful/scary at the same time.
I just think the world is in transition: nothing is the same, and the people who were profiting from the decaying system want things to remain the same, but you cannot stop change. There are new needs on the planet: there is a new economy based on sustainable sources of energy and lines of production, organic food/skincare products, recyclable clothing, to name a few fields.
It is difficult to weather the transition: people must acquire new skills while being able to pay their bills the health system rebuilt from scratch, the housing market (which affects construction, timber, landscaping, appliances industries) should bounce back and the credit laws reviewed.
I grew up with the tenets that healthcare, studying, working and housing were rights, not privileges. Even if most of Western Europe has eventually imitated, in a way, the US System (not completely, thank goodness), I still believe that people there have a voice.