Milton Friedman claims to be the only true liberal running around 40 years ago. In this video, he proposes the only true solution to Social Security:

Mexicans risk death, disease and desolation in order to work in our country. They do this because of the huge financial gains they acrue by migrating here. Slate says that, excluding almost all factors, the gains for illegal immigrants are over twice the losses incurred by American citizens.

Once you factor in the fact that a dollar is worth far more to a poor person gaining it compared with a better off person losing it, a person must consider the well-being of an illegal immigrant to be worth less than 20% of an American’s before he can justify kicking them out of the country.

The only long-term solution to our immigration problem is to improve the economic situation around the world, starting with Mexico. There is no longer a sea of Irish and Italian immigrants washing upon our shores; they are quite content to stay in their own burgeoning economies. The same will be true with Mexico and everywhere else as soon as their standard of living rises to ours.

After seeing this video, I am now a believer:

The United States once produced all the gas we needed and then some;  we were a net exporter of oil.  Those days are long gone.  Not only has our demand grown far faster than our supply, our capacity to produce is shrinking. It has progressed along a downward path for the past 20 years, longer if you exclude Alaska (Hubbert Peak).  We now must import a vast majority of our oil from countries with political, religious and social beliefs counter to our own interests. 

This danger is made worse by the fact that the rest of the world now wants their oil too.  China, India and the rest of the world is bursting at the seams with new members of the middle and upper class.  And, yes, they will want a car. And a big new home.  And new roads.  Shopping malls. Boats and everything that comes with the lifestyle.  Things that require a lot of energy.  It is without question that demand for oil at its current prices will increase tremendously in the coming years.  Hundreds of millions of new members of the upper and middle classes popping up around the developing world, their demand is going to increase too — far greater than our own.  Unless we are able to greatly increase our yearly output of oil, or develop alternative sources of energy, the price of oil will only go up.
 
The danger is exacerbated by the fact that our economy is far more leveraged than it has ever been before.  We are in more debt as individuals, corporations and a country as a whole, almost $48 trillion dollars worth (America’s Total Debt Report).  The reason oil caused little harm to our economy in the past few years is because we were riding the twin tides of an explosion of wealth created by our high tech industry and historically unprecedented demand for the US dollar caused by our victory over the USSR and status as sole super power.  Whenever we needed more money we just had to ask.  The rest of the world was more than happy to amass dollars, currency of the superstar super power, even if that meant at little to no interest.  We took it, as much as they would give, trillions and trillions of dollars worth. 
 
The world is growing tired of dollars .  The Canadian dollar was recently at its highest point since 1977. We will have far less comparative purchasing power going forward.  A grilled cheese sandwich in Amsterdam costs 6 euro, 3-4 dollars here.  Far more expensive.  And that does not even begin to take into account the fact that you will only get 70 Euro for $100 to begin with!
 
The weaking of the dollar is happening just when the world is demonstrating it has no problem gobbling up as much oil at current prices as the world can spit out.  As the rest of the world’s economies grow, their demand for oil will grow right along with it.  Rising demand will not be the only problem.

Decreasing production will be a problem too. Every year it is becoming more harder and more expensive for counties to maintain their current level of oil production (The Wolf At The Door). Like the US, countries will soon be unable to keep production at today’s levels regardless of the price. Much as we hate to admit it, countries like Iran may well be pursuing nuclear energy because it has no choice. Iran needs new sources of energy as much as we do (Sohbet Karbuz):

Iranian oil consumption has been soaring, causing a substantial drop in oil exports. According to official figures oil exports are declined to 2.3 mb/d in 2006. Third, Iran currently imports about 40% of petroleum products need.
[...]
These have been interpreted [as] Iran becoming a net oil importer in 10 to 15 years time.
[...]
Iran plans to increase oil production to 5 Mb/d by 2009 and 7 Mb/d by 2024 [are] nothing more than nonsense.

This means that if we want to compete for this oil our only solution is to bid the price up. This will do bad things for our country: periods of high oil prices cause high unemployment, high inflation and low growth. Both here and abroad. If we do not bid up the price, other countries will instead.

We can only afford to do so in one of two ways: cut down on the rest of our spending; start printing more money.  The first is deflation.  The second, inflation.  Neither is good news, but deflation would be a disaster.  An average American family of four is now over $600,000 debt to the rest of the world.  If deflation suddenly lowered our incomes, housing would plummet.  People can barely afford their $600,000 debt with the $30,000 they make presently.  It would be impossible with $20,000.
 
The only viable solution is inflation.  If our $30,000 income suddenly becomes $100,000, that $600,000 debt no longer seems like such a big deal, at least assuming that interest rate is fixed.  Unfortunately, as a side effect, this will still decrease our real spending power; it will make oil incredibly expensive.  The world has already had enough of dollars without inflation.  If the world starts to think their stash of dollars worth 100 billion euros will plummet down to 50 billion in a few years, they will be loathe to take a single extra one.  And all the newly wealthy emerging from China, India and the rest of the developing world will be happy to buy the gas instead. 
 
This will prevent us from continuing to raise interest rates.  A moderate amount of inflation will be beneficial to ease the burden citizens face paying their fixed rate loans.  But adjustable rates and imported goods will be continuously negotiated. People will quickly factor in our expected inflation into their demanded premiums.  If we respond to this with further inflation, they will start factoring antipcated inflation growth as well.  That disasterous feedback loop will create hyperinflation, a ruinous venture if ever there was one. The end of that road is one with you hauling wheelbarrows full of cash to the store to buy bread, or trading it for a stable currency like the Brazillian Real: Today “1 Real is equal to 2,750,000,000,000,000,000 Reis,” the Brazilian currency in 1700.

 
There is but one end result: trim down our appetite and pay ever more for everything we import, especially gas.  Devote as much resources as we possibly can to finding an immediate energy replacement for oil. This is a national emergency, but no one is paying attention.
 
For this reason, I am fully confident that inflation will come along, and once it does, that $4/gallon gas you think is expensive today will suddenly seem like a steal at $10.
 
The best way to protect yourself:

• Invest in foreign currency.
• Invest in oil.
• Invest in valuable commodities like gold.
• Invest in alternative energy.
• Demand all interest rates paid to you to be short term and/or variable.
• And most importantly, ONLY assume fixed interest rate debts!

The Philippines hold foreign currency at record levels. They use open source software more frequently. The stock market is at record highs and the local currency, the Peso, is also very strong. This will likely cause fewer people to go work abroad and send money home.

They are fighting off a rebellion, a regional problem in SE Asia. The rebellion stems from unrest caused by industrialization, urban migration and wealth concentration.

Indonesia believes its Rupiah will strengthen against the dollar in the coming months; they view this as favorable. This is in addition to a recent 25 point decrease in the prime lending rate allowed by easing inflation.

The government plans to use this increase in purchasing power to subsidize growing domestic industry, in part by issuing local government bonds.

The government claims future domestic growth: more cellphones, credit cards and exports.