My friend Kevan forwarded me the latest Left Business Observer newsletter a few days ago. Every issue pretty much blows my mind. Doug Henwood the editor of the publication has been on This Is Hell in the past. This month there is a great article with wonderful stats and graphs which debunks in a small way the myth of the American consumption binge.
LBO states:
"...at the end of 1978, consumption was 61.5% of GDP; in the second quarter of 2008, it had risen to 70.3%, or 8.8 points. Well over half that increase, 5.0 points, came from spending on medical care. The share of GDP devoted to spending on goods actually fell by 4.7 points over that 30-year period."
Americans have not been spending their shrinking paychecks on installing televisions and x-boxes into their Lincoln Navigators. We have been paying to go the emergency room.
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