Quote:
Originally Posted by Christien
I read something a while ago that said somewhere around 70% of the US economy is based on consumer spending. Just think about that for a second. That's staggering. So if consumer confidence fails, 3/4 of the economy tanks. Back in the winter every time another bad news story made headlines, I cringed, because I knew it was another slam at consumer confidence. So, IMO, any good news is fantastic news, even if it's a complete stretch of the truth. Anything that bolsters consumer confidence is huge.
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You nailed one of the BIGGEST gorillas in the room that nobody is talking about. There's not much "real" stuff propping up our economy anymore, now that we've successfully "outsourced" (I truly hate that euphemism) all of our manufacturing to China. All we have left is service-type activity which is largely "fluff", largely propped up by governmental regulation and convention - not based in it producing any real value.
In order to REALLY fix our economy permanently - in order to really ensure that we have permanent and sustainable growth - we need to bring back more manufacturing here and produce our own goods. Better still, we need to actually export what we can (agriculture comes to mind).
I blame being undercut by Asia (which is the direct result of our own stupid and short-sighted choices, driven by nothing other than a desire for cheaper, cheaper, cheaper) as the real core "disease" that's rotting our economy from the inside out.
We're doing a wonderful job trying to treat symptoms, but the underlying disease will still remain long after "stimulus" and other prop-ups are gone. And we'll be right back here. Mark my words.
A non-manufacturing economy is unsustainable - pure and simple. You need to produce goods of value (or services of value) to last. Most of what we produce is services, and they don't have much (if any) intrinsic value outside the context of our own particular society, legal system and set of governmental regulatory controls.