snip
I suppose this thinking is a sign of modern times snip The same person who claims the
imminent economic collapse of the US today would of have an entirely
different picture a few years ago when a budget surplus was predicted,
but what happen since then? Did 90% of the US assets fall into the
ocean?
snip
No, but ownership is/has largely passed. [Anyone for a homeowner
equity loan?]

Examination of the economic situation is different from
examination of the environment in that there is a considerable
amount of history and data to draw on and you are not attempting
to extrapolate from a sample of one.

For example, the GINI index is widely used as a measure of the
equal distribution of income. It has a very close correlation
with many quality of life factors such as the
murder/suicide/crime rates. Even within the US, areas with high
GINI indicia, such as Washington DC, have exceptionally high
crime/suicide rates.

The last time there was this high a concentration of income
producing assets and wealth in the United States was in 1929.
Earlier depressions and panics appear to have had the same
warning sign, but a large fraction of the US population was
more-or-less outside the money economy at those times.

You are correct on your observations about the misleading nature
of the "prediction of the day," which is why I don't use these
but rather actual data which has tended to be very consistent
over the last 50 or so years.

I cannot tell you exactly when the implosion will occur, but
given the long-term trends of soaring public debt and the trade
deficit, it will occur, most likely with the speed of the
Internet, as occurred in Argentina.

The US is no more immune from the laws of economics than it is
from the laws of physics. Today, no sane person believes in the
possibility of a perpetual motion machine in the physical sense,
why then do so many believe in an perpetual motion machine in the
economic sense, whereby an endless stream of wealth is generated?