We Americans had better wakeup because we are fast going broke. The current way the government is trying to solve our economic crisis by throwing hundreds of billions of our dollars at companies or anybody else crying for help is not going to help very much in the long run. The USA needs to start making money The reason why we aren't is that we are not really producing much anymore, especially in manufacturing. Add to this oil. We are buying goods that are being made in other countries and all we are doing is waiting on each other in our service type businesses. Money is leaving this country for the imported goods and oil. The money that Americans have is steadily being reduced in purchasing power. There are two very visible reasons for this: The trade agreements must be re-worked to create an even playing field. We need trade but not under the conditions that these free trade agreements have allowed; ie: other countries are able to flood our country with cheap goods made by workers receiving wages and benefits just a fraction of what our workers are receiving. The second reason is that some of the labor unions in this country have been very unreasonable, in many cases in demanding wages and benefits that force businesses to either go out of business or move over-seas. Current example is the UAW and the auto companies. Workers in UAW plants like GM make $75/hr and workers in non-union plants in the US like Toyota make $45/hr, this is the total, wages plus all benefits. So while we are re-negotiating the agreements, let's also make a condition that any company which receives taxpayer aid will also be limited on what they can pay their CEO. As for the oil imports, "do all of the above" as we heard during the past election and that will reduce the flow of dollars out and also create many new jobs. A lot of the world depends on the United States as a market for their exports so we should be able to work out new agreements without giving away the shop.

I believe the president should put together a board of people from all sectors who will have the best interest of the American people( might exclude a lot of politicians). President Obama appears to be doing something like this for his financial crises team, but that is not near large enough in scope and will not deal much with the problems I listed above. Tell this board to come up with what needs to be done on these trade agreements, union contracts and CEO pay. Have it so the American Workers can compete again and people can start buying products again that are made in the USA. One of the biggest problems will be trying to get the labor unions to compromise on their contracts so as the companies can compete because the unions expect the Democrats who they voted for to give them what ever they need to stay open. I have abstracted most of the problems and solutions but it will take much work and sacrifice by many of us in order to remain in the world as the country to look up to and follow. If steps like this are not done now, a comment made by a person in China in a blog will come true, which was" America as a world power will be history".