[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')resident Obama has vowed to double U.S. exports within the next five years. That's because exports are critical for rebooting the American economy. It's clear American consumers can't get the economy going on their own. They can't restart the jobs machine. They've run out of money and credit.

It's not just that one out of four Americans is unemployed or underemployed (working part-time, overqualified, or at a lower wage than before). More significantly, the Great Recession burst the housing bubble that had let American consumers turn their homes into ATMs. Now the cash machines are closed.

So the administration figures foreign consumers will have to fill the gap.

Problem is, most other economies also relied on American consumers. Remember the trade gap? Americans used to be the world's biggest and most reliable customers -- sucking in high-tech gadgets assembled in China, car parts from Japan, shirts and shoes from Southeast Asia, and precision instruments from Germany.

With American consumers pulling back, these other economies have also been slowing down. Their unemployment is rising.

Last week I attended a conference with global business executives. When I asked them where they expected to find new customers to replace Americans who are pulling back, they all said China and India and quoted me the same number: 800 million new middle-class consumers from these and other fast-developing countries over the next decade.

Yes, but. As of now China and India are still relying on net exports to fuel their growth. Even if you think their middle classes will eventually become so big and rich they can buy everything these nations will be able to produce, that doesn't mean they'll also buy what the rest of the world produces.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-vanishing-american-co_b_640836.html

[Ibon]

The terrible irony in finally seeing the demise of the american consumer (which we have wished for and blamed as the leading culprit in the imbalances of our biosphere) only to see him and her replaced with a collection of humans better organized and resilient to continue the slow replacement of the last of our natural landscapes over to human landscapes. The perseverance of Kudzu Ape should never be underestimated.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('pstarr', '.')

Americans have suburbanized themselves out of the race. Our overhead is too high. The Chinese and Indians worker can walk to his job. He doesn't have an high-demand, energy-intensive infrastructure with monster housing development spread across the countryside. We built our nest for maximum efficiency and productivity in a cheap-energy regime.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'T')he terrible irony in finally seeing the demise of the american consumer (which we have wished for and blamed as the leading culprit in the imbalances of our biosphere) only to see him and her replaced with a collection of humans better organized and resilient to continue the slow replacement of the last of our natural landscapes over to human landscapes. The perseverance of Kudzu Ape should never be underestimated.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'T')he terrible irony in finally seeing the demise of the american consumer (which we have wished for and blamed as the leading culprit in the imbalances of our biosphere) only to see him and her replaced with a collection of humans better organized and resilient to continue the slow replacement of the last of our natural landscapes over to human landscapes. The perseverance of Kudzu Ape should never be underestimated.

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', 'I') can't. I am so full of contradictions I have to laugh sometimes.

[efarmer]

http://markonefoods.com/

Pop open a canned peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and raise it in a toast to the American consumer.

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')
If we continue down this path of massive offshoring and both legal and illegal immigration, we're going to end up with the kind of rank poverty you see in India, Mexico, etc. Is that really want you want for your children and grandchildren?

[Ibon]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', 'I')f we continue down this path of massive offshoring and both legal and illegal immigration, we're going to end up with the kind of rank poverty you see in India, Mexico, etc. Is that really want you want for your children and grandchildren?

[Ayoob]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ibon', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '
')
If we continue down this path of massive offshoring and both legal and illegal immigration, we're going to end up with the kind of rank poverty you see in India, Mexico, etc. Is that really want you want for your children and grandchildren?

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', '
')Did you read the story about the white girl that went to Haiti to champion the cause of the black man? Oh, that one's a doozy. Look it up on news.google.com.

Oh fuck it, I'll get it for you.

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/201 ... are-women/

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', ' ')What annoys me the most is that it's become politically incorrect to be anti-immigration. Heck, you can't even be anti ILLEGAL immigration without being branded a racist. The pro immigration side doesn't even use the word "immigration" anymore, it's now "migration."

[ohanian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Ayoob', 'Y')ou're down with the Latinos. Some day... and I wonder if that day will be like the day the Latinos vote themselves a Latino Senator and Boxer goes packing... some day you're going to realize they're not down with you.

Did you read the story about the white girl that went to Haiti to champion the cause of the black man? Oh, that one's a doozy. Look it up on news.google.com.

Oh fuck it, I'll get it for you.

http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy/201 ... are-women/

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'N')ow how do YOU reconcile all that attitude of yours with being an anti-racist ? Like it or not , the general trend that is supported by media and the government is mongrelization of the society and annihilation of etnic groups and races. To suggest that white people in general or any white group in particular, like Scotts or Basks or Estonians have a right to remain white IS racist. Imagine Iceland for example banning coloured immigration altogether.

[Ayoob]

People are not all the same. This is ridiculous.

Asian - White - Black is the general spread. Asians come to sexual maturity the latest, blacks the earliest, whites in the middle. Same for crime rates. Asians are the lowest, whites in the middle, with blacks blasting through the stratosphere.

In the Israeli kibbutz, where the family unit was destroyed and gender differences among children were ignored, girls made dolls to play with and boys made weapons to play with, both groups ignoring the gender nonspecific toys. Girls wanted to shower alone, boys wanted to see the girls.

Look at rape, murder, theft, conformity, creativity, they're all dominant in certain races and buried in others.

The world is made out of stuff and so are people. We have characteristics that make us what we are based on what we are made out of.

[Pretorian]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Sixstrings', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'N')ow how do YOU reconcile all that attitude of yours with being an anti-racist ? Like it or not , the general trend that is supported by media and the government is mongrelization of the society and annihilation of etnic groups and races. To suggest that white people in general or any white group in particular, like Scotts or Basks or Estonians have a right to remain white IS racist. Imagine Iceland for example banning coloured immigration altogether.