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Americans Stop Shoppin' - Retail Sales Slide

Now who thinks America is backwards and stuck on stupid? The focus is always on Americans shopping instead of Americans producing. Why doesn't our trade deficit or the shrinking middle class cause such an uproar?

The focus on Americans as simply consumers is part of the problem.

Bloomberg on Retail Sales:

Consumer purchases fell 1.2 percent in September, extending the decline to three straight months, the first time that's happened since comparable records began in 1992, Commerce Department figures showed today. In another sign of weakening demand, prices paid to U.S. producers fell last month on lower fuel costs

Here's a disconnect:

Origins of Subprime crisis: derivatives

Subprime Crisis & Derivatives: Origins

by niccolo caldararo

The origins of the present subprime crisis can be found in the Nixon Administration when his appointment to the SEC, Mitchell, removed the prohibitions to trades in futures and similar "bets" that has made our markets so unstable.   A number of academics including Fisher Black, created a series of formulas by which traders could manipulate the markets and make huge profits. The result of this behavior would led to our crisis by creating the impression that risk could be eliminated.