Uncle Sam watches alarmed as Asian Skies brew Storm Clouds

Ocean liners of the early 20th century bridged the Atlantic Ocean in 5 days. Zepplins, for their eery, short lives until the Hindenburg lite up the skies of Lakehurst Naval Air Station, in 2 days. Planes in hours as few as 3 for the Mach 1 crowd cruising in claustrophic luxury on the Concord.

Each evolution in transportation technology seemed to shrunk the size of the planet.

Evolutions in communication technologies compress the shrinking planet furhter. TV, Satellite TV and the internet shrink the planet small. Like a cotton shirt that once wore cozy, the world now wears tight and rough.

Ignoring neighbors on this new tiny planet is no longer possible. The internet brings a technology that equals the playing field among countries and emerging countries have emerging energy needs.

The last superpower looks eastward and sees storm clouds gathering quickly as the future brings 300 million Chinese drivers by 2013. There isn't enough oil or production capacity to meet that future demand and prices for oil and all those things that need oil will rise in anticipation.

This Asiatic storm will rain inflation on the world for years before it strikes.

The DOW will drop and drop and plane - it feels like circa 1972, the day before the first U.S. energy crisis. Young adults who never saw anything, but a bull market will be held to their equity holdings like Ahab to Moby Dick and will go down hard financially. They will drown being pulled down by equity loses and their credit card debt, a debt that will grow heavier as inflation brings higher interest rates.

Homes with three generations are just not for immigrant families anymore as sons and daughters return home with spouses and grand kids.

Citizens will flock to churches as the hard times wash over the U.S. These new members will demand less myth and less dogma - big changes visit U.S. Christianity. Gay marriages become ho hum. The nativity scene is looked upon as a quaint tradition. Fundementalists feeling threatened become fearful and hostile, but the center moves leftward and churches that stand still lose membership and become irrelevant (see PCUSA decline in attendance over last 5 and 10 years compared to United Methodist).

But what does 2020 bring?