Why the economy stands on wobbly legs

Andy Amid, Henderson

Tuesday, Aug. 16, 2011 | 2:03 a.m.

The party’s over. For more than 35 years our government, our corporations, some unions and, certainly, many families and individuals have been on a feeding frenzy; it’s called “mortgaging the future.” We’ve been encouraged to live way beyond our means, maxing out credit cards, buying oversized gas-guzzling vehicles and building spacious homes. Government and corporate spending was predicated on the belief the economy would forever expand, aside from a few blips on the chart. Now we are faced with a fearful, profound recession.

There is much talk about “creating jobs” to stimulate our recovery. I’m not sure how this will work. We are confronted with a two-legged economic creature.

One leg is domestically consumer-driven: purchasing domestically produced automobiles, building homes and the domestic consumption of services and retail goods, to name a few.

Foreign trade is the second leg of this creature. I fail to see how we can become, once again, a viable global economic force — and reasonably recover our recent past standard of living — without products and services to trade on the international market.

We cannot sustain a lopsided trade deficit and experience a full recovery — no matter who is running the government. Businesses, understandably profit-motivated, will continue to outsource jobs. Why pay someone $20 an hour to produce widgets when you can outsource for under $5 an hour plus shipping?

Outside of some high-tech companies, what is it we have to trade that will “create jobs” and restore us as an economic power?