Future as it's unfolding

It's the end of the year so I could dare myself to do a little prediction for the next year.
As Charles Dickens used to say about London at the dusk of the Industrial Revolution, "it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us ...". Even the most epic economists don't know where things are going to be between Jan 2009 and Dec 2009.

That being said, I am actually more optimistic now than 6 month ago (before Dow lost 40% of its value). Why? because people in US are waking up and started reflecting on what damage consumerism has done to the nation. This leads to my 1st prediction:

Consumer index will drop while personal savings rate will go above 5% for the first time since 1995. This is considered disaster for the companies, because they can no longer generate revenue by selling things people don't really need. Advertisers would have a hard time persuading people that their life quality is measured by how much they spend and how many material goods they own. This leads to my 2nd prediction:
 
As the people depends less on large corporations and more on their own community, two-party politics will evolve into a balance of multiple forces (liberal, green parties taking more food hold) Republicans moving towards more progressive side and their right-wing conservative force becomes marginalized. This leads to my 3rd prediction:

US troops will withdraw from Iraq. No sensible government will put military adventures ahead of its own solvency. US will instead strengthen its bases in South Korean and Japan to fend off threats from North Korean and China. This leads to my 4th prediction:
 
China will use its economic muscle to form geo-political allies with Russia and South-east Asian countries and Pakistan. It will advance its nature resource claim in the South China sea, which might result in direct conflict with Japan. This leads to my 5th prediction:

China will have a direct trade war with US. EU will benefit by grabbing more market share in China. This will result in re-structuring of the WTO terms. This will turn the tide of globalization backwards. USD will lose its dominating power in world trade. This leads to my 6th prediction:

Major US companies will pull out its China operation due to government regulations and expiration of federal tax credits. This will boost employment in US and hurt profits of the big US corporations. The lower unemployment, shrinking demand for USD overseas and tightened supply from China will compound each other into a storm of inflation in the US. It will further surpress the real consumption in US. That is when I dump my shares of DBA.

So you might wonder what does technology plays there? Shouldn't the great innovation engine create more high margin "service" jobs and "green" jobs?
I don't know. It's really a wild card. I agree US has been the most efficient country when it comes to implementing and capitalizing innovations. But its creative sectors has long been dominated by people specialized in creating "financial product" (like CDO and CDS backed by subprime morgage ) rather than real product. Major pharmaceutical companies haven't deliver any successful new drugs for the last decade. Major IT companies haven't find any new killer applications that create real values for the last decade. With its economic strength weaks, the immigrates that helped them finding the "next big thing" will leave for their own home countries.