Quote from achilles28:
Yes, exactly right.
The rich hoard. The middle class spend. Europe and North America gutted their middle class via Chindia outsourcing.
At the time, our Social Controllers reassured us not to worry. That Chindia would most certainly buy all our high tech gadgetry, heavy equipment and drugs. Comparative advantage, right? Building foreign markets to consume US products, right?? Problem is, most Fortune 500 opened factories in Chindia to export shit back here (killing US domestic manufacturing). Then, figured they'd go for broke, and made everything in Chindia for Asia (killing US exports).
That's why those 9 Million+ jobs lost aren't coming back. All these ivory tower academics justify globalization with Ricardo's theory of comparative advantage. Except comparative advantage doesn't work when manufacturing savings exceeds transportation costs under a loose tariff regime. Our politcos knew that, but were bought off by the same Fortune 500 that happily gutted America's middle class for "shareholder profits". Is that what Patriotism is? Is that how Congress defends American interests?
Your first point is also entirely relevant. Excessive debt levels created via successive asset bubbles kills future demand. This is how that fucker Greenspan (aka "the Maestro"...remember that??) fooled America outsourcing was great, when it really wasn't. He got the Country high off cheap credit, blew a gigantic RE bubble, everyone thought they'd never work again! 5 years later it blew up, we looked around, and realized our solid blue collar jobs are being done by some patty-farmer working for 20 cents an hour in Hangzhou. Now, we're fucked. Excuse my language, but we are.