I think it's only a matter of time before we end up in a recession comparible to the 1970s. You can be working and see your paycheck buying less and less, eventually not being sufficient, because of inflation.
This is why. Oil prices are up. So, what do we do? We waste it growing corn to make ethanol. This uses almost a barrel of oil to produce the energy equivalent of a barrel of oil, plus it drives up food prices. That does nothing to loosen the supply of energy. Meanwhile, every other option for alternative energy gets shot down as fast as they come up, keeping us from ever reducing reliance on oil.
Besides this, we have the credit crunch. Subprime lenders are first. After that, everyone is affected. It becomes difficult to get credit. And this limits spending, since paychecks are not keeping up with inflation and there are so damn many regulations against creating new types of products that improve on what we already have. Ultimately, that will choke off manufacturing as they outsource to China. Lead or no lead, all manufacturers feel that they would rather pay the high shipping costs to import from China than pay American workers a decent wage. All of which leads to less income for spending.
Once this happens, people no longer have the means to afford things. Big screen TVs, computers, and iPods sit on the shelf because no one has the money to buy them. And they cost an arm, a leg, and a mint to import them from China because of oil prices. (Remember, the companies are too cheap to hire American workers and pay them decently). So, retailers and factories suffer. Ultimately, most Americans find their goods unwanted because there isn't the money to buy them. Then we end up in a depression with inflation--prices can't go down because of oil and food shortages, and without money, no one can afford things.
Unless all our agencies get off the cases of alternative energy producers and start protecting them from terrorists from the oil nations, we are in for a depression with severe inflation. Also, the big companies are going to have to bite the bullet and stop outsourcing manufacturing to China (lead or no lead). No, the consumers cannot buy us out of this depression/inflation. Only if people are allowed to create (not just produce) value in our economy can this country be saved from the depression with inflation that is otherwise coming. And that means letting those dishonest companies that bribe the lawmakers to keep alternatives in [medicine, transportation, energy] off the markets just go belly up while those creating the alternatives prosper.
