Lee you say you are worried by the economy, and well you should be.

Take the look that Tom avoids seeing. What has happened in America's consumer-capitalist society is simply that Joe Lunch Bucket has borrowed to increase his consumption (credit cards are wonderful). And businesses borrowed in order to finance acquisitions, stock buybacks, options and mergers -sometimes at absurd prices. Corporate chieftains were not interested in the kind of capital investment that might produce real profits over the long term; what they wanted was Jack Welch's celebrity status in the press, the kind of flashy results that would impress the Wall Street Journal, and encite a higher stock price so they could cash-out their options.

Deprived of adequate capital investment, business profits have been declining - as a percentage of GDP - since the
'60s, with the most recent cyclical peak in '97. Imports from overseas have been rising - with the trade gap headed
to a new record of 6% of GDP in 2003.

Tom is dead wrong when he thinks that consumption can't help build a strong economy.

American consumers have helped create one of the biggest economic success stories in history - in China!

But now, American individuals and businesses face $31 trillion in debt - with no painless way of paying it.

That is the problem with a consumer economy. Consumers need to be able to pay for what they buy. But as resources are diverted from capital investment to consumption...consumers find their jobs exported or eliminated and their ability to consume terminated. We call the terminal state of this a crash.

Instead of encouraging production, creating jobs, and fueling the economic engine of the US, Duhbya is devoting his efforts to diverting the attention of the American people.

The Romans did this in 66 CE, when they built the Colosseum to divert Roman citizens from the problems of empire.

Is history repeating itself?

Publius