As I watch the retreating of prices on a selection of consumer goods I wonder where this is all going. Housing prices have dropped nationwide. Consumer electronics are sliding downward. The "big three", Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F), Daimler Chrysler (NYSE: DCX) and General Motors (NYSE: GM) are reducing sticker shock to the customer. Sure, these are nice things relative to the bottom line as consumers, but is this the signal of hard times to come? If I was seeing an overall increase of incomes at the same time as these price declines I'd be more excited about the "recession". Although the government says we're earning more, at ground level I just don't see it.

No, what I think is happening is the rising of a monster that I have feared for quite some time. We have lost such a significant share of the world's manufacturing output relative to our population that our economy is adjusting itself to compensate for the losses of those well-paying jobs. Don't let Washington fool you. Just because they say employment numbers are good doesn't mean you can sleep better tonight. When it takes three employees in the warehouse at a retail outlet like Best Buy (NYSE: BBY) to earn the same income as one dude used to earn building cars or vacuum cleaners, that's a sad state of affairs. Those three warehouse workers won't be buying flat screen TVs. The auto worker could have bought a couple of them.

Will our government wake up and send word to the World Trade Organization that we're starting to get a bit edgy over here? Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the WTO is a major obstacle to our success. They hold us to marketing price structures that are unrealistic by instituting tariffs and controls that strangle real free trade. At the same time, they refuse to have a hand in requiring the implementation of solid requirements regarding the compensation and treatment of the world's work force. Add in the inability of our own governments, both federal and state, to control spending and the continued upward spiral of out-of-control taxation and you have an economy that is being held hostage to the whims of a limited and scary percentage of power mongers. What can we as wage earners and consumers do about all this?

I'm open for suggestions.