quote:Originally posted by dolemitejb:quote:The poor can't afford as much as they could before? No, that's not the problem. The poor - along with the middle and upper classes - are just buying a lot more stuff than they actually need. And we're importing way too much cheap, useless crap that people don't need.
Televisions, computers and washing machines are built to last a few years. There are simply too many fluffy pillows and plastic gadgets (that we all somehow did without 20+ years ago) on the shelves at big box mart.
How much more of this useless stuff do you think our landfills can take?
Seeweed was answering questions on how to solve unemployment, and I was disagreeing with Seeweed's solutions. "Buying too much" did not cause the unemployment problem and buying less won't solve it. Also, over crowded landfills did not cause unemployment, so less stuff in the landfill won't fix that problem either.quote:Also, because Europe is experiencing a worse fiscal crisis than the U.S., China will continue to buy our bad debt; the dollar is still a safer bet than the euro.
Debt is not good but as long as we're China's best customer they will not try to bankrupt us. If the U.S. economy collapses, so does China's.
That's not what I was talking about. I don't think our currency is headed the way of Zimbabwe's, but it's definitely losing value. Additional debt will only further that decline. That happenes independent of how other currencies perform. This type of currency decline is naturally going to affect those who's only real assets are cash and cash equivalents - the poor and middle class.
You're the one who said the poor wouldn't be able to buy as much as they did before if we started producing goods again. My argument is not only did the bank's problems get us into trouble, so did our personal debt.
My bet is, in the long run, our economy won't be fueled by consumer spending like it once was. People can't pull the equity out of their homes like an ATM anymore because many homeowners are underwater; property values are still declining; the unemployed aren't finding jobs. Most people are just broke and my hope is they will learn a lesson from this economic crisis.
The bigger point is if people had not bought so much crap in the first place and instead saved more, the financial crisis and massive unemployment wouldn't have had such a horrible impact on us.
I don't necessarily disagree with you about the debt issue, but my point (as is seeweed's) is we can't concentrate on that right now. The ability to borrow is still there and we still need to borrow. Having said that, I don't like it; it is just a necessary thing to do right now.