Consumer spending

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Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs Melody Petersen See book keywords and concepts

Year 2004 consumer spending figures are from U.S. Department of Commerce's Bureau of Economic Analysis "Table 2.4.5U. Personal Consumption Expenditures by Type of Product." In 2004, Americans spent $227.2 billion on gasoline and other motor fuel, $200 billion on "meals at limited service eating places," $ 117.7 billion on higher education, and $97.5 billion on new automobiles. Americans spent $213.7 billion on prescription drugs in 2004, according to Table 2.4.5U, but this amount does not include drugs used in hospitals and other such facilities.

Financial Armageddon: Protecting Your Future from Four Impending Catastrophes Michael J. Panzner See book keywords and concepts

Indeed, by 2006, "record numbers" of lower-income Americans found themselves "in a more precarious position than at any time in recent memory," as one expert noted in the New York Times. With consumer spending accounting for around two-thirds of national output, these tensions framed an economy that seemed balanced precariously on edge amid the bursting bubble. In a sense, the United States looked like a once omnipotent giant poised for a nasty takedown when overburdened households retrenched and reliquified.

Despite those efforts, collapsing demand in the United States will reverberate far and wide, especially in regions such as Asia, which have become overly dependent on seemingly insatiable American consumer spending. China, which together with the United States accounted for about half of the world's gross domestic product growth from 2001 through 2005, will almost certainly endure an economic hard landing of its own as the twin bubbles of real estate and business investment collapse with a bang.

All of this will, of course, continue to undermine business confidence and consumer spending. In a world of lockouts and lockdowns, any link that transmits systemic financial pressures across markets through arbitrage or portfolio-based risk management, or that allows diseases to be easily spread from one country to the next by tourists and wildlife, or that otherwise facilitates unwelcome exchanges of any kind will be viewed with suspicion and dealt with accordingly.

Firms in sectors with significant exposure to real estate, consumer spending, and finance, as well as those with large pension, health care, and other "legacy" costs, will also be at risk. There will be few places to hide, though the common stock of larger companies will probably outperform those of smaller firms. Companies in traditionally defensive sectors, such as food and beverages, will tend to outpace those of other groups, as will shares with higher dividend yields, but only in relative terms.

CounterThink Roundup: Fictional economic gains, canned hunting, and the Cheney blame game (satire) Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

When the housing market corrects, and prices return to rational levels (which is inevitable, by the way), all this consumer spending of fictional home equity is going to look pretty darned ignorant in retrospect. And whoever happens to be the President at that time is going to get the blame. That's why all Presidents try to keep the money easy and the lending cheap. That way, they can pass on their economic bubbles to the next politician unlucky enough to step into the White House. White House blames victim for Cheney's shooting! Nothing is ever the fault of Bush or Cheney, didn't you know?

The truth about Enron that most Americans don't want to hear Mike Adams, the Health Ranger See article keywords and concepts

And Enron believed what the White House now believes about the federal budget: That the free money will also last forever, and we'll all get rich by printing more money (expanding the money supply and devaluing the dollar) to fuel more consumer spending. Only in America can a politician actually sell the outrageous idea that we'll create abundance by spending more money we don't have. It's an idea that uniquely exists in the illusory world of the American people, I regretfully admit.

Largely because it's based on consumer spending powered by bubble real estate prices propped up by easy money expansion from the Fed. But explaining all that is another article altogether. If you really understand Enron, then you understand what most people don't: That Enron didn't merely fool Americans, it mimicked them. Enron didn't scam people as much as it played to their private ambitions of greed and power. It's like parents at a school play, tossing their kid on stage with encouraging words of what great a great actor he is.

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health T. Colin Campbell, Ph.D. and Thomas M. Campbell II See book keywords and concepts

Now, more than fifteen years later, after hundreds of millions of dollars of research funding and billions of dollars of consumer spending, we now have this conclusion from a recent survey of the evidence: The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) concludes that the evidence is insufficient to recommend for or against the use of supplements of A, C or E; multivitamins with folic acid; or antioxidant combinations for the prevention of cancer or cardiovascular disease.49'50 How many more billions of dollars must be spent before we understand the limitations of reductionist research?

The Big Fix: How the Pharmaceutical Industry Rips Off American Consumers Katharine Greider See book keywords and concepts

Although clearly less expensive to develop than more innovative drugs, these standard-rated product-line extensions also contributed most to increased consumer spending on new drugs in the five years leading up to 2000. In other words, the NIHCM numbers reveal changes clearly related to the trend that has patent lawyers so busy: Drug companies are flooding the market with new dosages, new combinations, and otherwise rejiggered forms of older medicines.

Physician: Medicine and the Unsuspected Battle for Human Freedom Richard Leviton See book keywords and concepts

Time followed with its "New Age of Alternative Medicine," telling readers why biofeedback and other "offbeat" treatments from "the believable to the bizarre" (and worth $27 billion a year in consumer spending) are "catching on." Time's coverage of the options was comprehensive and its patronizing, cynical, and dismissive attitude was equally wide-ranging. Like U.S. News & World Report, the Time article reads as if the patriarchs of allopathy and the magnates of the pharmaceutical industry were reading—editing?

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ABOUT THE CREATOR OF NATURALPEDIA: Mike Adams, the creator of this NaturalNews Naturalpedia, is the editor of NaturalNews.com, the internet's top natural health news site, creator of the Honest Food Guide (www.HonestFoodGuide.org), a free downloadable consumer food guide based on natural health principles, author of Grocery Warning, The 7 Laws of Nutrition, Natural Health Solutions, and many other books available at www.TruthPublishing.com, creator of the earth-friendly EcoLEDs company (www.EcoLEDs.com) that manufactures energy-efficient LED lighting products, founder of Arial Software (www.ArialSoftware.com), a permission e-mail technology company, creator of the CounterThink Cartoon series (www.NaturalNews.com/index-cartoons.html) and author of over 1,500 articles, interviews, special reports and reference guides available at www.NaturalNews.com. Adams' personal philosophy and health statistics are available at www.HealthRanger.org.