The Sunshine Empire

The Sunshine Empire hopes that you and yours had a wonderful Christmas holiday. The news this morning continues the bleak news about the economy saying that retails sales this Christmas season are at historic lows. Some retailers are offering 60% off regular prices, and consumer spending accounts for two thirds of the economy. The government and business have been doing everything they can to drive this spending to save the economy, but that escapes a question that few are asking. Why is it that consumer spending accounts for so much of the economy? We used to make shit here. The manufacturing base has eroded to such an extent that nobody has the money to buy cheap crap at Wal Mart any more. We need to start making stuff here. Henry Ford may have been a raving anti-Semite, but he knew that he needed to pay his employees at a level that they could purchase the cars they were making. Now I’m not going to defend the Union compensation packages that domestic automakers provide as compared to foreign owned domestic production, but the importance of the manufacturing base cannot be papered over with low interest rates and sales at H.H. Gregg.