The one thing that is unaffordable right now is the federal budget. How consumers and companies spend/invest their earnings is their business, not yours or mine or anybody else's, so I would suggest avoiding value judgments about people "overspending" on "overpriced crap." Such negative sentiments among the population at large is not going to produce economic growth moving forward.
Consumers and companies have the means to spend far more than they are, but they are not doing so because they are afraid of the future. We need to eliminate this fear if we want the economy to recover, grow, and create new jobs.
It's not negative, it's realistic. I'm also sick of that garbage. As soon as criticisms come out, it's negative and unproductive. What's negative and unproductive is false positivity. Trying to pretend the problems we face aren't real is far more detrimental than acknowledging that we have problems. A negative rate of savings in the country is an unbelievably shocking and disturbing figure. That's overspending no matter how you cut it. An average of Americans spending more money than they have. I don't know how anyone can say it's inappropriate to call ourselves out there. Same goes for the housing market. I don't see how anyone could argue that wasn't overpriced. And most of the stuff we buy is marked up by astronomical proportions. It's getting cheaper to make things and more expensive to buy them. A lot of crap we buy is also designed to be low quality so we're forced to buy new crap sooner rather than later. Not negative. Realistic.
Please see the edits I made while you were responding (sorry, I did not know you would respond today, or I would not have done the edits).
The only points I would add is that a high savings rate among most of the population does not necessarily lead to desirable results (See: Japan).
Secondly, most things are cheaper or of better quality today versus thirty years ago when you adjust for inflation (my personal recommendation is to do your research if most of your stuff is failing before a year is up. I definitely know where you are coming from because I have fallen victim to that myself. The best you can do is not re-buy the same product by the same company. Try another company's product until you get the value you deserve. That is how this sort of thing gets corrected. Research, and learn from mistakes/bad purchases/investments). Also, let's not forget how many goods/services are available today that were not around 10, 20, 30 years ago. We are progressing.
Finally, what you call positivity I call optimism. And America definitely needs to rejuvenate itself with a good dose of it soon. This malaise is not how things need to be.
Your points didn't add anything. Our consumption is our biggest fault. I'm not saying the singular cure to our problems and all problems is saving, it's a huge first step in solving the US' problems. We spend and waste our money with our voracious appetite for essentially useless novelty goods (as evidenced by the massive use of social networking). If we didn't overspend so much on things that lose value so rapidly (and are designed to do so) we'd have more money to spend on actual growth. The only growth we experience now is in growing the same companies making the same things the same terrible way. Planned obsolescence is something I'm assuming you've never heard of. It's very real and a definite problem we're facing as it grows out of control. Many of our largest industries are built entirely on planned obsolescence. It's lazy business and we eat it up. We buy, buy, buy to replace all the things we throw out after way too little time. It has nothing to do with the things I personally buy, but I appreciate the unnecessary and irrelevant concern.
And whatever you choose to call not solving the problems we face, I'll just keep calling it what it is. It's ignorance at its core.
I agree. Does it stand to reason then that you oppose government policies targeted at artificially increasing demand through tax credits, loans, and other stimulus?
