"In a few decades"???? We are seeing the decline in living standards into third-world conditions RIGHT NOW. The WHO (I think, it might have been a different international agency) came to the US a few years ago to study our living conditions. To the surprise of no one who lives outside the wealthy coastal cities, they found the kind of poverty and lack of basic services usually found in developing countries. Our schools and physical infrastructure have been crumbling for decades. Wide swaths of the country have no access to the internet. In no state can a full -time worker making minimum wage afford housing. Most workers are one flat tire or sick kid away from utter financial ruin. The only difference now is that that rot has spread so far that no one can deny or ignore it any longer.