The National Giveaway
For decades, the U.S. has moved away from being a nation that manufactured products to one that buys things that are made somewhere else. Given that model, our economy is very dependent on consumption through retail sales to spur growth and profit.
Surveys we have conducted at Zogby International continue to show American society moving away from that model. We are experiencing a paradigm shift that rejects the necessity of owning the next great new thing, and instead embraces satisfaction through relationships, leisure activities, volunteerism, self-expression and spiritual fulfillment. The latest evidence of this came in a series of questions we asked to more than 40,000 U.S. adults in a July interactive survey.
Read all of John Zogby’s article on how Americans are choosing to live with less at Forbes.com.
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I disagree that Americans won’t return to their “free-spending” ways after the nation’s economic recovery. As income rises, expenditures typically rise as well. As young people make more money they want to buy more nice stuff. That is not likely to change inthe hear future. Moreover, it’s very difficult to pin a dollar amount or percentage of income spent to the term “free-spending.”
“Since 1979, manufacturing has lost about 250,000 jobs a year on average, while production has risen about 2% a year.” according to the Kiplinger Letter.
One hundred years ago most Americans worked in agriculture, now it is a tiny fraction of the population. As manufacturing productivity continues to increase, fewer and fewer Americans will work in manufacturing.
Are you saying that the July survey showed that, in the depths of this recession, Americans are saying that they more value friend and family rather than owning the latest and greatest new thing? I suspect the US has a core of early adopters who will continue to buy the newest toy. When the economy revives I also suspect that American buying habits will return to close to pre-recession levels.
In 1996 the National Science Foundation set about to intentionally reduce the salaries of science, technical, engineering and mathematical workers. THe cornerstone of that effort was the H-1b program. Under that program we trained our foreign competition which led to the outsourcing boom.
We have highly skilled engineers leaving the profession in droves. Expensive technical education is definitely not worth it. The next big bubble to burst won’t be Fannie Mae but Sallie Mae.
I suggest you examine the links here: http://javelineer.com/end-h1b-and-other-non-immigrant-work-programs/
Education is a complete waste of time. Skilled tradesmen earn more. Become an elevator repairman, not an engineer.