"America is broke. We Americans have spent the last 15 years borrowing money for consumption instead of investment," writes Mark Lutter a senior mathmatics major in a guest column at The Diamondback.  "Because of our high levels of debt, several prominent economists, including Gerald Celente — who predicted the collapse of the Soviet Union, the housing bubble and the tea parties — and Peter Schiff — who predicted both the NASDAQ bubble and the housing bubble — are predicting a coming collapse that will dwarf the housing bubble."

Lutter insists that we cannot stop the coming collapse.  He explains that "[t]he bust is not the problem; the boom is. The bust is the economy redirecting capital away from poor investments that are exposed during the bust. An example from the housing bubble illustrates this idea well: The problem is not that we stopped housing construction; the problem is that we were building too many houses in the first place."

Understanding this is a key to economic survival, not only on a personal level but for America as a whole.  To survive economically you must be prepared for what is coming.  Denying the inevitable will not make it go away.  Furthermore, Americans need to realize that for our nation to eventually come out of this crisis we need to adjust our decision making on the national and individual levels.  Individuals should save money and invest wisely.  Massive consumption is not beneficial at this point.  See the TES article here for an explanation.  Americans are going to need capital to rebuild from the depression.  Therefore, massive consumption is not only fiscally irresponsible, but the government's policy of tax and spend, spend, spend, is counterproductive to our longterm economic survival.  Again see this TES article.  

As Lutter explains "[w]hether we will be able to pull ourselves out of this depression is going to be a direct result of the policies we adopt as this depression becomes apparent to the mainstream."

Read Lutter's full article here.