I have a hard-time with the economic viewpoint that “two-thirds of the economy is consumer spending.” It’s like saying my household “economy” is based on the bills we pay rather than the work we do. It’s a demand sider’s view of the world.
My household economy is about our J-O-B-S. It’s a supply-side view. Liberals are demand-siders. There’s never enough of other people’s money for them to spend. “Supply-side economists focus on incentives to work, save, invest and launch new businesses. Demand-side economists focus on the uses of income and debt (consumption). Supply-side economists focus on sources of income and wealth,” writes Alan Reynolds, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute, in The Wall Street Journal:
The demand-side panacea for weak economic growth has encouraged families and firms to spend a larger fraction of their current income and wealth—by using tax and monetary policy to punish savers and reward debtors. A supply-side solution would incentivize families and firms to produce more income and wealth by minimizing unpredictable regulation and litigation, trade barriers, unreliable money and dispiriting tax rates.
Demand-side economists focus on incentives to borrow and spend. Supply-side economists focus on incentives to work, save, invest and launch new businesses. Demand-side economists focus on the uses of income and debt (consumption). Supply-side economists focus on sources of income and wealth.
From the perspective of demand-side bookkeeping, the fact that consumer spending in 2012 accounted for 68.6% of GDP supposedly means economic growth depends on consumer sentiment. Viewed from the supply side—the sources of GDP—private industry accounted for 86.5% of GDP. If private businesses had not produced $14.1 trillion, consumers could not possibly have consumed $11.1 trillion. Economies do not grow because consumers spend more; consumers can spend more only if economies grow.
The time for demand-side gimmicks has long passed. The remarkably aggressive fiscal and monetary effort to stimulate demand did not stimulate demand. Even if it had worked, we can’t pretend to be “fighting recession” forever. Today’s economic predicament is not a cyclical crisis but a sustained, subsidized lethargy. Different tasks require different tools. When the number of job seekers falls twice as fast as the increased number of jobs, that is a supply-side problem.
