Consumer Economy
Blaming Main Street
George Will finally says (and Andrew Sullivan agrees with) what a lot of people - especially politicians - have probably wanted to say since the housing bubble popped : the real villains aren’t mortgage brokers or bond sellers or investment bankers, but home buyers:
While I do not disagree that people living…
October 1, 2008 | Read More
Reason #42: China and the Myth of Free Trade
Did you know that an authoritarian communist country is now keeping our supposedly capitalist economy afloat? No? Well, it’s true. And it’s scary as hell.
Politicians from both parties remind me of cult members sometimes, the way they mouth the mantra of “free trade” and parrot the conventional wisdom that globalization and more trade with fewer barriers is always a good thing. They treat “free trade” like it’s a religion. But like most religions, the free trade faith has an awful lot of myth in it.
Globalization has its benefits, for some at least. It makes many of our largest corporations boatloads of…
August 29, 2008 | Read More
Reason #51: Lies, Damn Lies, and Government Statistics
No matter who’s in the White House-Democrat or Republican-every presidential administration brags that our economy is doing great. That’s because if they started telling the truth about the state we’re in as a country, the American public might start doing a lot less of the thing our economy relies on almost exclusively: shopping. So our politicians work overtime to reassure us and keep us pumping money into the consumer marketplace.
But our elected officials know that just telling us everything’s okay is not enough. They’re aware that nobody trusts politicians, so they direct federal agencies to crank out bogus “official” statistics.…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #48: The Sick Cycle of Consumerism
In a speech to college students, Barbara Bush recalled asking her son, President George W. Bush, “What we can do to show support for America?” in the wake of the terrorist attacks. “He said, ‘Mom, if you really want to help, buy, buy, buy.’”
Great advice. Loading up our shopping carts with Chinese-made crap we don’t even need- and spending money we don’t even have-that’ll save the country? Swiping your credit card is now patriotic? It would be funny if it weren’t so tragic. With mindless consumption fueling most of our economy, living within our means has become a negative thing.
From…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #47: GDP - Our Gross Disgusting Product
When people talk about “the economy,” they usually mean our Gross Domestic Product, or GDP. Put simply, the GDP is the total dollar figure for everything we spend money on, from soccer moms buying soy lattes to the federal government forking over billions for fighter jets to business tycoons constructing new factories.
How can we be growing economically as a nation if so many Americans are sinking deeper and deeper into debt?
Politicians and economists act like the GDP number is the best and only way to gauge our nation’s financial health. But as with all government statistics, numbers can be as…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
Reason #46: The Widening Trade Deficit
In 2006, we bought $838 billion more in goods from other nations than we sold them in American-made stuff. That’s a world record, but it’s nothing new. From 2002 to 2006, we set a world-record trade deficit every year. The trade deficit with China alone was $233 billion in 2006, a new world record between two countries.
Back in 1996, our trade deficit was “only” $191 billion. People thought we were in trouble then. Who knew the debt balloon could stretch so much? And why does it keep expanding? Simply put, our political and corporate leaders have never looked beyond their…
August 27, 2008 | Read More
