Thriftville Vs. Squanderville
By Justin Gardner | Related entries in Economy, Money, The World, VideoOur trade deficit is out of control, and in this video Warren Buffett explains why that’s so dangerous.
I remember a discussion I had recently on this blog where I said that consumer spending drove this economy. Somebody disagreed and said our economy is based on making things. Well, that’s obviously not true if our trade deficit is the biggest in the world. Sure, we make things, but not nearly as much as we once did because we’ve embraced the idea of worldwide marketplace where “cheap” is the greatest good. And that POV has consequences.
In reality, we’re a country of middlemen, where stores offer up a ton of foreign made products and we buy them up to the point where we tens of thousands of dollars in debt. And the cracks are beginning to show…big time.
This is one of the reasons why I think the green energy spending initiatives put forth by this administration are so important. Because if we get that right, a new energy revolution will happen, our economy will flourish and we’ll get back to being a country of making things instead of simply buying things.
Still, a big time refocusing of priorities needs to happen. The “big screen TV” economic model simply isn’t sustainable and Americans needs to be aware.
(h/t: Right Democrat)
This entry was posted on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 and is filed under Economy, Money, The World, Video. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 15th, 2009 at 4:44 pm
That’s why we should be making positive light of these bad times if we are to climb our way out of this economic pitfall. The most simple statement that I’ve heard from all of this is that the past economic plan was unsustainable. Like a B. Maddoff ponzi scheme, it was only a matter of time. What is positive about it is that it effects many who were responsible for the economic failures more than those who work and struggle for a living and hopefully the stimulus package will help many who were innocent and got swept under.
I agree with looking forward for solutions instead of failed policies of the past, although some would say your scenario may be a bit too rosy and may take too long for the immediate need. I know someone who works for a local utility company and he’s in charge of re-tooling his division to meet the future needs of an alternative energy business world, such as solar, conservation, and altering work shifts to optimize energy costs, to name a few. It could be an exciting time and here’s to the hope that optimism prevails!
April 15th, 2009 at 8:38 pm
IF you ignore the mistakes [or outright thievery] of the past you WILL see it repeated in the future.
Anyone who thinks otherwise, slept through History class and has zero business saying a word about this.
Period.
April 15th, 2009 at 9:39 pm
Just kidding with my name…..”a nation of middlemen” is so tragically true at this time. The starkest example of me, a former Economic Dummy, was when we chose NAFTA. I argued until I was blue in the face with a Republican friend (turned Red during the “Reagan Years”). He kept saying”But people can retrain” for other jobs. And I just refused to buy it. And in the end I was right. I have seen former union guys setting up little enterprises for themselves ….selling in various “antique and collectible malls”….working on trying to keep their former dignity. What are they producing, you say? The American Dream?….no, they have been forced to go to yard sales to pick up old things for fifty cents and sell them for two dollars.
To hang our hats solely on new green businesses is just not enough. I believe it is getting to be time to emigrate, and start afresh, just as our forebears did when they came here in the first place. I say this not facetiously, but reluctantly, as my forebears came to New Amsterdam in the sixteen hundreds.