fears that Americans may no longer be able to find the second jobs and recklessly borrow the money needed to buy imported stuff.

The party's over for American consumers | By Froma Harrop | Syndicated columnist | Wednesday, September 12, 2007

The new numbers on consumer confidence are out. They show American consumers very confident that the economy is going down the tubes.

Over in Asia and Europe, stocks plunged on fears that Americans may no longer be able to find the second jobs and recklessly borrow the money needed to buy imported stuff. Economists now freely use the "recession" word following the report that American payrolls fell in August, the first monthly decline in four years.

American consumers, in other words, are all dried up. And the discussion has begun on what kind of baloney economy kept them lubricated for so long.
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And it's vindication time for the economists who've argued for years that expanding household debt is not a brilliant formula for national greatness. And they no longer have to counter the free-lunch theories — among them that a rising population will power the housing-bubble machine unto eternity, and that if you change accounting methods, American families don't seem so much over their heads in debt. ...