As a result: The dollar is becoming a joke.
While this is going to crush our country and cause untold pain, I am glad it is happening. We have strayed too far from what makes this country a great one. I do not believe this is all from greed, it is beyond greed; it is hedonism. We have become so immoral, so vulgar so self absorbed, that if this ship rights itself (which I doubt) prior to the complete return to our value system, we will only embolden the system in place now.
The tree of liberty has gone dry, it is thirsty. This country was founded on the Judeo-Christian value system. Our constitution cannot exist without that value system. Since we have decimated those values in this last generation or 2, we should fully expect a generation or 2 before we can correct it. It will take people committed to revaluing this society toward faith by bringing up godly children and refocusing on that which is truly important in this life. Unfortunately, a large majority of Americans need to be stripped of all they currently cling to in order to learn to cling to the cross of Christ once again. Only then will this begin to turn around.
I, for one, will put my faith in Christ to give me the grace to endure as He has promised that he would never give us more than we can handle. He never said anything about singing, skipping and dancing merrily along to the end, He said take up your cross and follow me. We as a nation have done way too much singing skipping and dancing. We are unaccustomed to taking up a cross. We are about to remember the other side of all the feel good theology spouted by the health and wealth preachers in this nation. The wrath of God is a discussion all to often ignored. God will always give us a long enough rope to hang ourselves, only so he can swoop in and save those who call out to him in their hour of desperation. There have been precious few hours of desperation in the last 40 years that we as a nation have had to endure (9/11 being the most serious and it only lasted for a few months and then all went back to normal).
We are a nation of hedonists, and these trying economic times will show peoples true colors. Mine are red white and blue, and they are firmly draped over the cross of salvation.