Priceless via ShutterCat7.

The economy?  Still tanking.  On Wednesday, eCAHNomics said something intriguing:

Employment depends on consumer spending. Yes, it works the other way around too, but when the economy is dropping, you’ve got to get consumers who still have jobs to increase spending which then, in turn, leads to higher employment (i.e., employment is a lagging indicator)….

Then I stumbled across this from Robert Reich:

After the market closed today, Bank of America announced a significant deterioration in people’s ability to repay credit-card and other consumer debt.

…Consumers in the real economy are coming to the end of their capacities to keep spending. They can’t take on any more debt. And with the costs of energy, food, and health insurance all soaring…They’re pulling in their belts. They’re leaving the malls. They’re not buying a new car or TV or anything else they can do without.

For years, regardless of the business cycle, American consumers were the Energizer Bunnies of the world economy. Their spending kept it going. But now the Energizer Bunnies have turned into scared rabbits, and they’re going back into their holes….we need to get money back into the pockets of average American consumers — including major investments in infrastructure, affordable health care, and a more progressive tax code.

Am curious, are you seeing this, too: folks buying less at the store, more staples like beans and rice and less of the "extras"; home working in their yards rather than hitting the increasingly empty malls?  

If consumers are the engine that drives the whole shebang, doesn’t increased infrastructure investment, leading to more jobs, money to spend…doesn’t that make sense?   If not, why not?  And isn’t consumers wanting to reduce their debt load, stop rampant spending, and try to save a little actually a good thing — unless, of course, your hefty profit margin depends on them staying in over their heads?  What am I missing?