Reading this thread, I've found it quite silly that nobody pointed out we could just use
mass drivers to send stuff from the moon to Earth yet. For the record, the reason why we don't use them to send stuff into space now is because the ships accelerate to Mach 4 and it starts getting wonky from there, mostly due to air resistance.
What I'm going to write here may have been stated before, but let's just go ahead and write this down: To make a moon base work, you need either someone (a group, government, what will you) motivated enough that the financial side of the deal doesn't really matter to them, or an explosion in demand for a resource found only there (H3 comes to mind, but then...) - I wouldn't bet on these happening soon, especially in the current climate. We've got enough problems down here on Earth, why move them anywhere else while we still haven't managed to switch from fossil fuels to a more sustainable alternative?
Plus, nobody would really take kindly to a country claiming the whole moon for themselves. Some small mining operations, maybe a manned outpost, but a full-blown colony would cause a... well, it just wouldn't be nice a situation to look at, that's all I can say. Nothing to declare wars about, sure, but you'll have everyone and their mothers claiming asteroids, planets, moons, what will you...