What money to spend? Seriously, everyone is hedging their bets for a double dip recession if another one of Europe's PIIGS (Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, Spain) default on their sovereign (national) debt or if either Japan or China come close to defaulting.
The problem is, real incomes (income - inflation and taxes) have dropped since 1980. I remember hearing stories how my Grandfather's brothers were able to support a middle class lifestyle for a family of four on a single income as a blue collar worker in the steel mill, auto mechanic, and whatnot. Nowadays, you need two, white collar working parents just to afford a middle class lifestyle for little Johnny and Jane and we ain't even brought the cost of college yet.
Fact is, access to easy credity has been a substitute for the drop in real income over the past 30 years. The crash in 2008 and the subsequent and continuing downfall of the easiest line of credit, real estate, has put Americans into a position of hedging their bets that the economy will not be back to what it was in 2005 until at least another decade or two regardless of which political party controls the presidential veto via the White House.
