Lost Live United Center Chicago
|
Disturbing reports regarding the “lost decade” of the 2000′s have started out to surface, confirming what millions already knew. The decade that just past was the firstborn in American history that resulted in zero net occupation creation and zero income growth. Every former decade going back to the 40′s exhibited occupation growth in the ten year amount of time of at least 20%. Middle income households made less in 2009 then they did in 1999. The overall net worth of Americans has declined dramatically as well in the last ten years as housing prices have tumbled. Meanwhile, productivity grew dramatically in the past 10 years. However, none of this supposed “benefit” was passed on to workers. In fact much of the productivity gains came from two areas. One was technology, which enabled less workers to do more. The second was layoffs due to the primary area. Employers cut payrolls, often times permanently, and slashed costs, driving up their productivity stats while letting down overall employment. This trend proceeds today as we reach high productivity numbers while the jobless rate stands at 10.0%. This begs the question where does the American economy go from here? The answer is very cloudy. We reached a saturation level in America for buyer spending approximately 15 years ago. This also marks the rapid elaboration of buyer credit to carry on to finance increased growth and spending. Clearly, this system was unsustainable. Relying on the buyer as the main driver of US economic growth while simultaneously cutting incomes, jobs and occupation security naturally resulted in the mess we live in today. The problem is, Americans no longer “create” much of anything. A good chunk of our fabricating base was outsourced to lower cost suppliers in the last 25 years. A service economy, based around two tiers of service. One are high paying technology, professional and medical services. The second is everything else from restaurant worker to call center employees. We may invent high level ideas and engineering science in America, but the actual production of this engineering takes place elsewhere. As soon as any constructing company reaches a sure size in the US, the pressure to send it overseas mounts as the costs of paying American labor carry on to skyrocket. Even when figuring the costs of global shipping, it commonly for less to outsource. It is not in truth a matter of a lack of faith in the American people, but more a function of what is there left to buy that the American economy makes? Consumers have long since surpassed a time when they “need” anything. The rest of the world needs very little of what we make. The only thing the rest of the world needs that we develop is rampant consumption fuel led by debt. Outside of airplanes, raw feed materials and a handful of other items, America runs an enormous trade deficit each and each month. We may only export so a lot of “services”. Meanwhile, the rest of the world becomes more proficient at the high level services our country provides each day. What this leaves us with is a vague, prideful idea of “American ingenuity” and our “entrepreneurial drive”. While I would never discount these traits, such ideas have to be rooted in reality of what it is of value that we as a nation are offering. It seems that so far we permitted greed and wishful thinking to obscure the truth regarding what the real driver of future American growth will be. The buyer is only part of the answer. Only now is a sober assessment of the long term outlook being undertaken. We as a nation need to meet this problem head on, and find a path to true sustainable growth, not a blind alley of financial smoke and mirrors fueled by out of control spending. Part II will talk about a lot of ideas in regards to sustainable ways to move forward. |
