Just an observation: One thing that differentiates the USA from countries like Italy and Greece is that Americans by-and-large pay their taxes. Our tax compliance rate is very high, while they have a huge cash economy, one where cash changes hands, there are no receipts, and income goes unreported to the tax man. I predict we'll see more and more of that here.
Americans are rapidly losing faith in their government. As more and more people become self-employed, the opportunity will increase to stiff the Infernal Revenooers. When people feel their government isn't listening to them....to their concerns....then people will begin to tune them out and start looking out for themselves only, screw the "collective good". I think we're on/near that threshold right now. It's called "self-preservation". That's the corner we're being backed into.
It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.
Oh yeah....Happy New Year!
S
