An economy built on service is an economy built on selling each other pizzas

What I understand about economics could fit in a thimble, but I do understand this: this economy sucks. Someone's been asleep at the wheel, and the U.S. stopped producing things that the rest of the world wants to buy along time ago.

We seem to be very good, however, at producing lawyers, which is helpful when we all start suing each other for our failure to stay financially solvent and pay back our (student, small business, large business, mortgage, car, medical) loans.

So I asked my friend, the Internet, to pony up a more academic explanation of "What went wrong?" with the U.S. economy. I came across a couple of interesting Web sites and learned more than I care to recall about banking in 30 seconds of skimming.

Here's an attorney and former Congressional candidate out in Illinois who seems a little bit too conservative for my tastes. He's a former assistant county prosecutor and the author of, of all things, "Get Your Illinois Suspended Driver's License Back: Step by Step Instructions."

But when he talks about U.S. corporations investing more money abroad than at home because, frankly, it's easier, he may be on to something!

QUOTE OF THE WEEK:

"The fact is that current policies that have envisioned the American economy as a service economy and left manufacturing to the rest of the world are truly at the heart of the economic problem. We can only survive so long selling each other pizzas."

FROM:
The Problem with the American Economy, by David J. Shestokas