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Published 10/29/09 Alexia Cameron
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E-mail - editor@economyincisis.org An economic downturn of today's magnitude has been brewing for decades, and in 2008 the economic despair finally became palpable to American citizens. The United States must undergo a serious overhaul to uproot itself from the current economic meltdown. Our problems have to be addressed at the root, they cannot merely be covered up with increased stimulus spending. To renew America's economy, the U.S. must stop rewarding overseas manufacturing and investment. Currently our tax code is set up to reward American corporations that invest abroad and penalize those corporations that invest at home. When American corporations move overseas they are only taxed on the money that is brought back into the U.S. So American companies simply do not bring money back into the U.S. Instead they keep their overseas profits overseas and that money which could have been funneled into the American economy is instead absorbed by foreign economies. U.S. companies then parlay their earnings into building more factories and infrastructures in the countries they are inhabiting like China and India. Due to our current tax codes it is more profitable for American companies to manufacture their goods elsewhere and ship them to the United States. The U.S. needs to adapt tax codes that provide tax breaks to those companies that keep American companies on U.S. soil and stop providing tax breaks to companies that move offshore. While American companies flee the U.S. for cheaper pastures, we are left with a barren manufacturing base and no means of producing anything of substance or wealth. Our foreign trade balance is given to us in the form of debt. Americans do not manufacture the items that line the shelves of American stores. Instead those shelves are lined with products made in China and Mexico, not Michigan and Pennsylvania. Our foreign competitors loan us their money, and we in turn spend that money on their products. We are perpetuating a vicious cycle that will never end unless America can reclaim its manufacturing base and generate wealth. The U.S. government needs to provide incentives for Americans to keep their companies in the U.S. Our “free trade” policies like the North American Free Trade Agreement and the World Trade Organization make it impossible for the United States to be competitive. NAFTA has led to the U.S. having an explosive trade deficit of $190 billion with Canada and Mexico. The trade deficit equals job loss. If we had a trade surplus it would mean we were producing instead of buying, there would be more people employed to do the production. America has become a service economy, leaving manufacturing to the rest of the world, which is truly the heart of America's distress. Until America restores its manufacturing base, we will have no means to recover. Source Suite101.com:
Click Here For Solutions To America's Economic Problems Front Page Photo – static - Flickr © Some rights reserved Click here to contact your Representative in Congress. 
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The financial crisis has mauled Las Vegas like no other city. What was once the land of luxury and excess is now the home of empty houses and broken dreams. While the city and its investors keep hoping for a turnaround, others see long, lean years ahead.
The bar on the 64th floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel offers what could arguably be the best view of Las Vegas at night. A mile-long strip of brightly colored neon lights and gigantic, floodlit casinos glitters through the bar's floor-to-ceiling windows. Still, as you survey the otherwise dazzling city of nocturnal light, you can see conspicuous patches of darkness dotting the landscape.
One of these black craters is the construction site for the Fontainebleau Hotel casino and the 4,000 rooms it is supposed to offer. When the investors ran out of money, 70 percent of the project had already been completed. If you look diagonally across the street, you can see the site of what is supposed to be the Echelon complex. Only eight of its planned 57 stories were completed before the construction cranes pulled out.
There is even a dark, gaping hole next to the Trump Tower. A twin had been planned for the site, but it will most likely never be built. Las Vegas, the global symbol of gambling and glitz, is hurting.