The Lichtman Test is virtually useless in these economic conditions, especially if another recession happens.
Americans may find a 'new normal' much as they did in the 1930s, the closest parallel.
People are being cast out of the workplace for reasons unrelated to the overall level of consumer demand and economic productivity -- technologies that allow the production of objects that function better with smaller input of materials. Contrast the console TVs of the 1970s with the flat-screen TVs of our time. Weight is generally a good surrogate for material costs in consumer products unless one is discussing exotic technologies.
A hint: you can't buy a new console TV, and you can't now get a new portable CRT TV without great effort. The last one that I saw at Wal-Mart for sale (as opposed as those used as monitors for security purposes) disappeared from the shelf a couple years ago.
*This is a technology (organic light-emitting diodes) not generally available for mass-production of televisions -- yet.
Over time, weight becomes a good surrogate for manufacturing cost, and it has always been a good surrogate for shipping cost... and a 32" flat-screen LCD TV is now available for about $300 at one mass retailer. But lesser material implies lesser input of labor in the materials -- and fewer people involved in getting the raw materials -- as in miners and loggers, steelworkers, and even those who work in the manufacturing of glass and plastic. We are getting no analogous improvements in such low-tech objects as air conditioners, refrigerators, or automobiles, let alone furniture.
We don't need to work so many hours to get the package of electronic goodies that we used to. If we don't need to work as many hours to meet basic needs, then we will get mass unemployment until we shorten the workweek. Such was a consequence of the technological improvements in manufacturing in the 1920s with the electrification of factories; the 50-hour workweek was no longer a necessity. Such was a consequence of analogous improvements in manufacturing in the 1960s; overtime disappeared, and millions of semi-skilled workers were cast onto the "industrial scrap heap" of the time -- basically, people of low education capable of hard work who got middle-income pay.
What is the alternative? More consumerism that further depletes raw materials and causes environmental destruction and exhaustion of energy?
Our economic distress results in part from incompetent and corrupt behavior in the recent past -- but also, paradoxically, from our successes in technology. Bigger consumption of material resources is a non-solution.
In the 1930s, America effectively turned unemployment into leisure. We may be obliged to do much the same today. Sure, it was a trick -- but it worked.
