New Haven Independent

Seems that the most important thing I can do to help the U.S. economy is to go out and buy stuff. The president and his advisers would never tell me what to buy; “stuff” is enough. Flat screen TVs, cars, washing machines, hi-tech gizmos, flip-flops, sweaters, anything. Just “stuff.” Because if I buy “stuff” that will vault the U.S. economy out of its doldrums, this recession that we are falling into.

In a rare degree of friendliness the Congress even went along with the president’s request to send money back to Americans so they could have more money to buy more “stuff.” Not that we have any money in the “bank” to write those checks; this year’s budget deficit alone is $300 billion dollars. But it’s only money. We can print more.

What I have trouble with understanding is how buying “stuff” helps the U.S. economy. It is not like we make the TVs or the washing machines or the clothes, cameras, DVD players, or most of the parts that go into most of the cars. Most of those are made in China or Bangalore or Vietnam or God-only-knows-where.

As near as I can figure the only thing “Made in the U.S.A.” from my flat screen TV is the box. So that means that when I buy “stuff” the only people who directly benefit by way of being employed are sales clerks, stock boys and marketing weasels.

We used to make good “stuff.” It was “stuff ” that people wanted. We made steel. Granted, not too many people outside of Pittsburgh had a clue how we made steel, but we made some of the best steel in the world, and countries lined up to buy our steel.

We made TV sets. And people from around the world lined up to buy and watch our TV sets because they were the best TV sets you could find. We made cars. OK, they weren’t the best cars, but they were much better, up until the early-’80s than the underpowered little rattle traps made in most other countries. They were clearly better than the aptly named Citroen made by the French.

And when companies started sending the work for making stuff to countries where the labor was cheaper, economists said, “Don’t worry, the U.S .is evolving into a service economy.” The thinking was Americans would produce “services” for which we would charge premium dollars instead of making “stuff,” and countries would line up to buy our brain power and services.

The little “oopsy” in that equation turned out to be the Internet. Now that fella in Bangalore can provide the same service as the one in Cleveland … except in Cleveland he gets paid $17 and hour and in Bangalore it’s $17 a day. Once the corporate bean counters figured that out, you could stand at the water’s edge and watch companies and their “services” flee. One of my doctors has the details of his patient records transcribed in India. Care to bet it is not because he is trying to improve the world economy?

So here we are, the so-called most powerful county in the world buried in mountains of federal budget deficits that threaten to choke off our way of life, and the only way we can seem to keep our economy afloat is to buy “stuff” from other people with money we don’t have in the first place.

And God help us, that is the best answer our current president and our collection of forward-looking presidential hopefuls and their economic wizards can come up with. Buy more “stuff.”

Maybe I need to buy two flat-screen TV sets. It is the patriotic thing to do.

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