Could Be...

Yeah Michael Jackson's dead, I got nothing to add to that. Well, except Congrats Marilyn Manson, you might now be the weirdest living American.

And the Governor of SC has a mistress from Argentina (damned outsourcing!) but I'm sure that's getting adequate media attention without my involvement.

Oh, here's something? The US savings rate is now approaching 7 percent. How about that? See that's an 8 percent increase from 2006, when it was -1. Depending how the numbers are parsed, that means Americans are now saving nearly $1 Trillion per year.

OOOOH OOOOH Mister Kotter!!! What if this current recession really happened exactly like? House of Cards investment banks got their knickers knotted over sub-prime fiasco and of course housing market crumbled, just as US was heading into a mild downturn. In response, tens of millions began ammassing a "rainy day" fund, maybe for the first time in their lives, thereby pulling $75B per month in discretionary spending out of the US economy.

I could go a lot of places with that! Like for instance? The amount Americans are saving per year is now about equal to the "stimulus" package. It's pregnant with possibilities, but there's something more interesting here?

China's savings rate is 50 percent. So we save 7 percent of a $14T economy and they save half of $3T economy. With a slight increase in US savings rate, and modest recovery meaning GDP growth, we could be our OWN China!!! How about that? We could be in hock to ourselves!

The darkly amusing thing is that upon announcement of the new savings rate, stocks fell and economists predicted a longer recession. So Americans being more prudent in their purchases and having some money laid aside, that's good for America, right? But it's bad for the economy, right? How can such a thing be so, Mr. Bald Hillbilly know-it-all?

Well, I guess it means the economy we had was bad for America maybe, huh? This time around let's take our medicine. The recession may be several quarters longer as a result, but let's not go back to "prosperity" based on spending more than we earn?

Let's keep that savings rate between 7 and 10 percent. We should and can easily be our own China.