Black Friday: A Look At The American Consumer

It's become a tradition here to put up a quick video glimpse of Black Friday, a microcosm of the former engine of global growth; the insatiable American consumer. For those that live outside the United States, Black Friday is the day after Thanksgiving when stores offer a limited amount of goods on sale.

Americans line up for hours, sometimes days in advance to purchase more consumer goods that they do not need. Then when they breach the store walls they turn into true animals, sometimes fighting for these goods.

It is a sad display every year for the people that make up the country that has for decades been the consumer of the world, borrowing every possible dollar to continue spending once their savings and incomes were depleted.

When the American consumer hit the spending wall in 2008, the government stepped in and has done its best to fill the void with trillions in annual deficits. That will soon end as well, and then the true hangover will begin. Fortunately for America, when its over they will be able to keep their cars, TV's, phones, ipads, and homes all purchased on credit with no possible way to ever pay off the debt. It will be the American creditors, first those that lent to consumers and now those that foolishly lend to the government that will take the worst of the losses.