What is the future of America, the US to be precise? Take it ten years out...

[Skip Intro]

Are we on the verge of economic collapse?

What does the nation look like after, if so?

Where is America ten years from now?

What is life like in America ten years from now, for the masses?

[dkf]

1. Debt and taxes.

Sucking the life out of us.

[frazzled]

2. Whatever one might envision, it won't be true

I'd advise thinking about today and tomorrow. We spend way too much time prognosticating about the future. Most pundits don't even get tomorrow right. Why should we be thinking about ten years?

By taking care of business each day, and that includes things such as energy and economy and education, the future will be better than sitting around wringing our hands about what "might" be.

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5. Shouldn't we ponder the road we're on, where it will lead?

[frazzled]

7. The road has many curves and forks we can't anticipate

Better, imho, to try to pave the road today that will get us to our next destination.

[Skip Intro]

12. The road to where?

When I go on a road trip, I have a destination in mind, then I find a way to get there.

Without a goal, a destination, what good is a paved road?

[frazzled]

13. To clean energy, a more egalitarian economy, better education ...

Why predict what will happen with these things ten years from now? Why not get to work setting goals and trying to achieve them, step by step, right now? Predictions are the opium of the chattering classes. And that is what the OP requested: predictions about where the country will be. IMO, that's useless. Better to ask, how do we get there and what can we do today?

Could I be more clear?

[Hugabear]

3. Feudal state.

No more middle class. The rich continue to get richer and consolidate their power. Those of us who are lucky to have jobs will be working for much lower wages, no benefits whatsoever.

As inflation continues to skyrocket out of control, you can probably expect to see more and more people living in communal systems, with their own very localized economies.

[movonne]

4. Nothing to worry about after Dec. 12, 2012....

[RevStPatrick]

6. I thought is was gonna be May 21, 2011?

They keep pushing back the date of Doomsday!

[Yavin4]

8. We've Had Three Major Stock Market Corrections and Subsequent Recessions/Depressions ('87, '00,'08)

This is a common pattern of deregulated financial markets. Each time we've crashed, we don't fully recover and larger and larger percentages of our population gets left behind.

We will probably have yet another crash some time between 2014 and 2016.

[originalpckelly]

9. Phoenix.

[Javaman]

10. About the same, only difference is..

the rich will be a hell of a lot richer and the poor and middle class will be a hell of a lot poorer.

[Safetykitten]

11. A barely functioning eonomy. A wreckage of HC. Republicans in charge. China overtakes us.