Three Economic Trends to Watch in 2006
By: Lance Winslow
In 2005 the United States economy did well and appeared to be holding up the world economies too, as we bought goods from and gave aid to so many other nations. In 2005 the US watched as trade deficits with China increased to quite an alarming rate. Indeed closer to home as well we saw increased trade deficits with our bordering nations of Canada and Mexico. Additionally Mexican citizens, some working here legally other not, sent back billions each week to their families in Mexico propelling substantial growth in Mexico, thus helping Mexico with their industry losses due to cheaper labor in emerging nations like China.
In 2005 we also watched China spend heavily on weapons systems and the growth of the Chinese war machine was greater than the NAZI war machine build up before the second World War. They have done this thanks to money flows from products made their and sold to our middle class, but those war dollars were not spent with American Defense Companies bringing back these monies to round out a circular trade route of products. Many weapons were made in country with resource brought in from other nations. Other weapons such as fighter planes were bought from Russia.
On January first 2006 the first baby boomer turns sixty years old and many say that this the starting of the economic decline of America, as generally at age sixty those folks will become less productive and retire. In five years these first baby boomers will begin collecting unemployment. We have watched other societies and civilization already reach such plateaus and we have watched their nations deal with this. We America follow suit and move over for the next Super Economic Power? I would say this is not a concern in 2006, but something we need to be concerned with in the next 10-years. These are three of many of the Economic Trends we should be watching in 2006, so think on this.
Lance Winslow