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And you think the economy is shrinking because?

That is a good question; I would say two things are giving me a negative sense of the US economy:

1) We have enormous amounts of anecdotal information about companies and operations which have either reduced the size of their workforce, or gone out of business. While we have seen very little since 2000 about companies which are either new, or fast growing to exploit new technologies. Their is a real sense that we are loosing ground rather then expanding to conquer the next millennium. To a large degree this is about jobs, and the pool of jobs available within our borders; but, it is also about having a good furture story in palce so that we as a country have a focal point at which to direct our energies. This is probably one of the unforseen circumstances from the end of the cold war.

2) We also have to consider how we are doing on our trade balance. A nation that fails to produce is essentially at the charity of its trading partners. We are a strong nation with a powerful military, a law abiding population, and a stable government; so our partners will do quite a bit to support us out of either respect or fear. But, there is a limit, and as we add $400,000,000,000+ to our official national debt this year, we really should consider that this is one limit that we may not want to test.