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Good post.

As to your comment about multigenerational households, my daughter, in her thirties, continues to live with us, and works full time. My wife and other daughter look after the house, and we are able to have a higher standard of living than we would otherwise.

Also, we are in debt and without some forms of industry and so on, we will never pay it off. Heck, I don't think we will ever pay it off anyways, but that is for another topic and time unless any of us wants to take it from there.

I suspect that the ultimate plan, if there is one, is to inflate our way out of the debt. I've already noticed some significant inflation in foreign manufactured products that can't be reduced in price by finding cheaper manufacturing processes. A Canon professional camera lens (300 2.8L) has increased in price from a little over $3000 to $4500 in the last eighteen months. The replacement camera for my current one (Canon 1D Mark IV) is $5,000. The previous model was $4000. This is a departure for Canon, who used to keep their price points the same when upgrading to a new model.

Inflation that reduces our foreign buying power could force some manufacturing back here, although I can't see much happening if regulations and taxes continue to increase. Also, business people now are concerned about the instability of our government. Not so much that it's going to collapse, but that sweeping new regulations will change the rules overnight. Businessmen feel safer dealing with China than the US, right now.

Good post.

As to your comment about multigenerational households, my daughter, in her thirties, continues to live with us, and works full time. My wife and other daughter look after the house, and we are able to have a higher standard of living than we would otherwise.

I'll be 44 Thursday, I live at home with Mom. Why should I move out and pay rent? It is not economically sensible for me to do so. I'm of limited means right now, well, all of us are, heck, my car is 16 years old, our main TV is 28 years old, we bought that new in 1983. In today's world, you have to be frugal. I'm glad your daughter is doing the same thing.

A side note, I hate it when people demonize adult children who stay at home. I look at it this way, as long as they do their share of the chores and/or drop their fair share of "shekels in the common pot," pulling their weight so to speak, there is nothing wrong with that. However, if they are lazy and do nothing, I know of a few myself, those are the ones that deserve the bad judgment. My best friend I've been hanging with since 1977 in 5th grade and also one of my bosses at work, he lived with his mother all his life, he just turned 45 on the 4th. His mom passed away in April of 2009 and he got married in June of 2009. If she was still alive, they'd be bouncing between her and his wife's family in nearby Ohio.

I suspect that the ultimate plan, if there is one, is to inflate our way out of the debt. I've already noticed some significant inflation in foreign manufactured products that can't be reduced in price by finding cheaper manufacturing processes. A Canon professional camera lens (300 2.8L) has increased in price from a little over $3000 to $4500 in the last eighteen months. The replacement camera for my current one (Canon 1D Mark IV) is $5,000. The previous model was $4000. This is a departure for Canon, who used to keep their price points the same when upgrading to a new model.

Inflation that reduces our foreign buying power could force some manufacturing back here, although I can't see much happening if regulations and taxes continue to increase. Also, business people now are concerned about the instability of our government. Not so much that it's going to collapse, but that sweeping new regulations will change the rules overnight. Businessmen feel safer dealing with China than the US, right now.

Don't know how we can inflate our way out of debt, the key is that there has to be demand as well, if people cut back, you might not see much inflation. Even if we inflate ourselves out of debt, I still an trying to grasp the idea on how it could be done.

Speaking of Chinese vs. U.S. made stuff, I work in auto parts, well I am a delivery driver. At work, we got a bulletin for a fuel filter that is being recalled because the stems are a bit too long and the fuel line can fall off and the gasoline would leak out and create a mess along with a fire hazzard. The fuel filter is made both in the U.S. and Red China, guess which one is the recall? Yeap, you guessed it, the one made in Red China.