Futurism

The U.S. faces high unemployment and I feel as if Bernanke's "Twist" is in fact a negative inflection point in the fortunes of the U.S. economy and the global economy as a whole (cf. here).  Ideally, investment money would flow to growing industrial sectors, exports would increase, and employment would pick up, but with the U.S. economy largely service-oriented now, this proposition is pretty lame.  Much industry has already been exported overseas.

Questions:

To what degree will the rich retract and protect the base, effectively walling or gating themselves off from underclass America a la South Africa?

What can be done about unemployment and underemployment?  Do communities of self-sufficiency make sense as a homegrown solution?  Is Mondragon an example or should the communities not focus on factory-like production and economies of scale to succeed (and thereby buck the "rules" of surviving in the global marketplace (e.g. favoring techne (the craftman, mechanic) over episteme (the capitalist rules of the game))?