[WRhine]

We seem very eager to eliminate the middle class, wages are actually falling in many places for what was once middle class jobs.

Thanks FITZ for bringing up this very important point. The day that middle class America dies and their dreams of upward mobility with it, we are finished as a global super power. Who is going to do the bulk of the heavy lifting that makes America great? America will go from the best country on the planet to the best 3rd world country on the planet.

[WrenchChucker]

Who is going to do the bulk of the heavy lifting that makes America great?

Those who are in school now training as engineers, and many of those who are bound to become inventors. They'll continue to invent and make the machines capable of heavy, precision, repetative, lifting; hopefully at a fraction of the cost of human labor (A good, and well known, 19th century example is Eli Whitney's Cotton Gin). The tidal wave of Union Workers can be felt already but one often forgets that there are always other alternatives(different job; re-education; etc) for a displaced worker.

America either advances technologically or they remain stagnent. I'm hoping for the former, because the latter means we could eventually relapse into some sort of Mad Max world.