Originally Posted by
Miradus
Oh, it's not entirely the new normal. It's going to get a lot worse.
I just disagree with your implied premise that it's entirely the government's fault. They have quite a bit of blame, but there's a lot of other factors.
There's an economic myth of unlimited growth that many people believe in. All of your investments will mature, you'll always gain interest on your savings, and every company that sells something will sell more of it next year.
It's the myth of capitalism.
Consider that I sell knives. There's about a hundred people or so who follow my knife shop on Facebook. If half of them bought a knife from me tomorrow, I'd make a pretty good profit this month. But next month I have to work twice as hard to sell a knife to the other half. And then the month after that, all of them already have a knife. So I've got to reach a NEW hundred people through word-of-mouth or advertising. And I've got to keep doing that forever.
The system has been doing its best to keep us buying stuff while our manufacturing potential has been going overseas. Less people earning money with which to buy stuff.
And then you have this weird cult growing behind the scenes, people like Joe America here on this forum (sorry to pick on you, Joe, but you're the best example of this.) They believe a simple life is better. A simple life generally means less stuff.
So three main factors here:
1. Wealth is being concentrated into fewer pockets. Those wealthier individuals only need so much stuff.
2. The middle class has less disposable income with which to buy stuff.
3. A growing number of Americans are following Joe's principle of limiting their desire for stuff.
All of these factors hurt the economy.