Bob Chan,
The US unemployment figures can only go one way - up.
Since 2003, more than 20,000 manufacturing plants have shut down.
There are now only 8 million manufacturing workers in a population of 300 million, leaving a country with a legion of unskilled workers stuck on long-term unemployment benefits.
Worse, about a hundred overdrawn American cities could face financial collapse in 2011, defaulting on hundreds of billions of dollars of borrowings and derailing any chance of a US economic recovery.
Expect to see fifty to a hundred sizeable defaults – more.
This will amount to hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of defaults.
For years they’ve been spending money they haven’t got like a drunken Irishman and the chickens are finally coming home to roost. (forgive the metaphors)
A perfect example of the crazy sort of benefits bestowed on the average public service worker in the US, comes from totally bankrupt California.
Does a fireman in Beijing get this sort of pay and perks?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmC26RuO26g