I have no real facts on which to base this question, but it seems there’s no shortage of stuff. There is a shortage of people willing and able to buy all these things, though. I’m talking about everything from houses to candy bars. To me this means that on average, us people make more than we use. A lot more. We even make stuff we can throw away soon after we aquire it. We make stuff too throw away, such as paper plates.
My point is, there should be enough for everone, but it seems there isn’t.
Why? In your opinion, of course. 
I think maybe those at the lower income levels make too little money. Way too litle.
Peace,
mangeorge
I think you’re right but I work in automation and the name of the game is faster, faster, faster. I would like to see a trend towards greater quality and less production. I think that would be better for all of us in the long run but it doesn’t seem very likely right now.
Why? The Industrial Revolution.
And yes, I think everything could stand to slow down. There just isn’t any need to be rushing life along like this.
I know that some other cultures (most Europeans?) work fewer hours/year than we do, but I have no idea what their lifestyle is like.
I found an extensive article about happiness by country (the US came in at 23, but haven’t yet found a comparison of hours worked in each country to measure that happiness to.
Do “click here” near the end of the article. If interested, of course. I haven’t read that part yet. Maybe that’s where my answer lies. 
First though, Pasta at Strings, and maybe a glass of a nice Chianti. 
I think if most Americans had friends from Europe, they’d realize just how thoroughly they are getting screwed. We have friends from Germany who have visited Chicago on their six week long vacation en route to Austrailia and New Zealand, or talk about their health care system, we’re amazed, and think that’s why the powers that be have demonized “foreigners” so much.
Yet somehow, they’re competitive.
I’ll partially blame the IT industry. Where else (other than 3rd world sweatshops) is it de rigueur to hire the young, fresh out of school, fill them full of pizza and sugary energy drinks, work 'em like slaves, wad them up, throw them away, hire a new set, repeat…then go under…take the seed money, rinse, repeat.
I have no numbers or anything but I’ve worked in plants in Italy for brief periods and the pace in those places was much more laid back. The work got done but there was very little stress, no rushing around. Even the cafeteria food was awesome, fresh herbs, fresh meat. I’ve been to restaurants here that didn’t serve quality food like they had for lunch breaks. I would love to have that kind of work environment in my plant, we can’t even see the sun from in here.
How many really good local business’ feel they’re failures unless they go corporate.
Two that come to mind are Peet’s coffee, which started here in Berkeley, and Mrs Field’s cookies, which used to have a few varieties of really good chococate chip cookies. It seems liike everyone will insist that Mrs Fields started in their home town. She did, if you live in Palo Alto, CA.
Both have gone down in quality.
News flash: I just heard on the tube that France is now the second largest consumer of McDonalds in the world, behind the US. 
Don’t blame them until you’ve stood in their shoes. Today’s tax climate is punitive for small business. It’s difficult to make enough profit to support yourself and pay taxes.
I guess I didn’t really mean “corporate”. What I mean is, expand greatly. Get lotsa stores all over the place. Put their products in supermarkets. I realize that many small business’ incorporate. And unless I’m mistaken, the federal tax code panders* to small business. Don’t know about local taxes.
*Compared to other income producing entities.
Neither of the business’ I mentioned expanded for tax reasons.
Ah, okay then. I’m just grumpy from estimating my year-end stuff here.
Actually, the people that stand to make the most money aren’t in business to make (sammiches, computers, widgets) they’re in business to run a successful business. There’s a lot of things that translate directly to any popular franchise…then again, 80% of all new businesses fail.
I’ve seen plenty of people who were talented in one niche or another but were rotten businesspeople. They either fail to advertise, or fail to charge enough to stay in business, or fail to expand their reach far enough, or, or, or.
I see a lot of those too, especially expanding too fast. Some people are great at one scale but don’t adapt well to the bigger scale.
The problem is you’re confusing productivity with activity.
The best example of this is cell phones. People use cell phones simply to keep busy. For example if you were at a bus stop next to a pay phone would you go to the pay phone pick it up and call your friend and chat with her, while you waited for the bus? My bet would be, no you wouldn’t. But with cell phone in hand you, almost automatically call your friend. Why do this? Because we as people are taught to always DO something. Doing somthing makes us feel like we’re not wasting time.
If I sit and wait for the bus starring at the sky that’s a waste, if I call my friend and chat mindlessly that’s productive. Of course that isn’t so, but it FEELS like it is.
We start this even as kids. Ever notice a parent and a child? The child will look at the clouds and the parent immediately says “What do you see in the clouds”? There’s nothing in the clouds they are random shapes but instead of letting the child enjoy the shapes, we auto-assign them meaning.
When things like computers and faxes came out, people would wonder why if these time saving things are there, why we aren’t more relaxed. Why aren’t we? We’re saving time right? Wrong. Those things weren’t designed to save us time, but rather to make us more productive.
The OP is also talking about distribution of wealth. There are a few problems when you look at this. In the 80s through Mr Reagan’s “trickle down theory,” we had an interesting result. The fact is it worked, at least at bit. The poor and the lower classes actually did get better. However the rich, and the upper classes got a LOT and I mean a LOT more wealthy than they were.
For example if we classed the poor at 1 and the wealthy at 10, by the end of the Reagan Era, the poor were at 2 (indeed they did get a bit better) but the rich were now at 25. So before the difference between the poorest and richest was a nine point spread. Afterwords the difference was a 23 point spread. This created the illusion that the poor were worse off. They really weren’t, it’s just the wealthy were so much better off it seemed that way.
Americans are very productive, but what we produce is often wasteful in nature. The cell phone industry is the best example, ten years ago it didn’t really exist and no one cared and it didn’t matter. Now billions are made off of it because people are convinced they need to be in constant communication with each other.
Imagine how much better the world would be if we took that effort, time and money and directed it toward giving health care to people who need it.
So it’s not only productivity but what we’re producing
I think the OP is referring to things like plants producing zillions of cheap toasters that break and are cheaper to replace than repair.
There’s an interesting thing that happened during this economic downturn. The problem from the point of view of manufacturers is that consumers are buying less, so the manufacturers have a hard time keeping all their employees and not losing enormous funds. The employees act by trying to preserve the security of their own jobs, generally by working harder. To the extent they could, individual workers tried to increase their own productivity, more or less for the same reasons that their employers had less need than normal for it.
Ditto those that observe how different Europe can be. I have many contacts in Germany, who have way more vacation than we, a more relaxed work environment with restaurant quality lunchrooms (whereas here at corporate headquarters we have vending machines with highly processed and/or spoiled junk food), and much nicer government services including health care. What I hear is the biggest difference is that the wealthiest people in America garner vast, unimaginable wealth. One of the differences in government run health care is that the government doesn’t pay millions of dollars to ANY of its employees, whereas (at least according to an advertisement I’ve been seeing lately) one of our health insurance companies pays its CEO $57,000. We’re not talking yearly salary, here, this is per hour.
That, and hamburger and cheese and bread, etc. There’s a huge disconnect between these kinds of things and those who consume them. Your butcher no longer has to look you in the eye. Some stores are getting back to having someone available out in the meat and produce areas, and I like that.
If it were more available, I’d go to the butcher, the produce store, and the grocery store.
In some places around here those are all in the same building, and that’s fine too.
The lower incomes need to be brought up so that everyone can buy higher quality toasters and such, and they will if they can.
Wealth needs to flow down rather than trickle. As Markxxx says above, there’s plenty up there.
The problem with the Butcher example, specifically, is that I haven’t felt like I could buy beef regularly for YEARS. When a good Ribeye was $6, it was a nice thing to eat three or four times a month. Now that it’s $12 at the local grocery, and $16 at the butcher, it’s so far out of my realm of comfort, I eat it once or twice a year at a restaurant (For $25)
We had a butcher. His dry aged, high quality, beef was far and away the best I’ve ever tasted on my BBQ. We did it once. I just couldn’t stomach $40 for two people, with me doing the dishes and cooking. Looking at the empty storefront, we weren’t alone.
Our protein is primarily pork and chicken now, with ground beef filling in the gaps. non-ground cuts of beef are pretty foreign at out dinner table.
ETA: Sure, it’s approaching affordability at Costco, but then you’re spending $60 for five steaks, you hope you get to the others before they freezer burn…and hey, there’s an extra one screwing up the helpings at the dinner table.
I’ve been using Ziploc vacuum freezer bags for several months now, and they do work well to put off freezer burn. They also save a little space in the freezer. They do add some expense, but I re-use them as long as they’re clean. And you can put several smaller steaks in one big bag, take a couple out, and re-seal the rest.
Not perfect, but it does save a little cash.
For those of you who are jealous of the Germans, it may be useful to look at the following:
For 2005, it lists the mean income tax rate in Germany as ~52% vs. ~29% for the United States. Health care and long vacations are not free… 