A Long Way to Go

Have far have we gone on the road to re-balancing the economy? Not far at all.

We're still consuming far above the 1946 to 1996 average. (I chose not to include data after 1996 because 1997 is when it all started to go really wrong - though it doesn't show up in the data until 1998.) We're also consuming more than our equally bankrupt friends in the U.K., and far more than our sober peers in CA, JP, and the Eurozone (on average - the numbers vary widely within the zone).

I suppose I've become a bit of a crank on this (at least in the privacy of my own home), but it can't be stressed enough how painful the transition to a sustainable economy will be. Americans are not mentally prepared for what is to come.