[ex-snook]

"We only hire people when customers show up and sales increase"

I see you recognize that customers have tapped out their credit cards and home ATM machines. After some dozen years of shipping jobs to other countries for cheap labor, the money well is dry. Recovery awaits our making more of what we import.

[April Lexington]

Absolutely, the last 20 years has been fueld by Americans living on consumer debt. They are now maxed out and it will take a decade to pay down the binge of the 1990s and 2000s. I don't look for recovering consumer demand for a long time. The Austrian School is spot on, this time.