US industry as a whole has been in a secular decline for decades. There is no industry that will be safe from this continued erosion. First it was manufacturing related industries that were targeted for outsourcing/off-shoring due to the high labor and environmental compliance costs, but now it's creeping into service industries as well. Look at Health Care, it's a disaster, and expensive. Fast food? Yuk. We all know about airlines, ATC and lack of runways. Lots of nice terminals and control towers, though. At least we have our priorities straight.
You have to wonder what they've been teaching in the big business schools the past few decades, and why the institutional investors and boardrooms are so committed to war with the working folks. Airlines and their employees, for example, used to be a point of pride in the US, with companies like Pan Am and TWA serving as ambassadors to the world. Well the pride is all but gone now, and with that the beginnings of a social erosion we're just now beginning to see.
This latest economic downturn, brought to you by those same wonder boys who have been decimating infrastructure and real industry, will foster some very interresting social/economic consequences by the time it's run its course.